“Gonna make it?” Missy asked. I nodded and flashed a tense smile. She frowned. “Dang. I was hoping I’d have to fill in for you or something.”

Our laughter cut the tension mounting inside me. “Sorry, you’ll have to get your own. The one out there in the tux is taken already.” We giggled like little kids, giddy with the magic of the occasion. “How did Jack look?”

She grinned conspiratorially. “I heard him talking to Todd over by the fountain. He said he felt like he was going to throw up, he was so nervous. He said its worse than auditioning!”

I laughed. “Oh, poor thing!”

She smiled. “Yeah, but then Todd pointed out that the audition was over ages ago, and he got the part, so what was he nervous about? And you know what he said?”

“What?”

“That he hoped he never thought that way, because as long as he lived, he didn’t want to ever stop being his very best for you.”

Oh, Missy … ”

“Hey, don’t cry again. We don’t have time to do your makeup!”

I laughed and blinked furiously, trying to get the tears back in before they spilled onto my freshly powdered cheeks. Missy snatched a tissue from the box and pressed it into my hand, then moved to the door just in time for her cue. “See you on the other side,” she said over her shoulder, and then I was left alone to wait.

JACK

TAYLOR AND JOY GLIDED over the bridge and down the aisle between the ribbon-bedecked folding chairs, looking beautiful in the dresses Grace had chosen. As they crossed in front of me, they grinned and waggled their eyebrows almost in unison, and I stifled a laugh. They were incredible friends to Grace—Missy, too—and had become the same to me over the past months. I couldn’t help but marvel over the warmth and affection they bestowed on me, nothing like the hollow adulation that fans and celebrity-hunters showered on the stars they chased.