He did not answer.
Thirty minutes earlier, he had been laughing so hard outside the reception hall that one of his groomsmen told him he looked drunk on happiness.
He was not drunk.
He had barely finished half a glass of champagne because he wanted to drive.
Their friends had stood under the awning with sparklers, shouting through the rain as Emily and Nathan ran toward the car.
Her veil was pinned crooked in her hair.
Her mother had cried through the sendoff.
Nathan had opened the passenger door for her, bowed like an idiot, and said, “Mrs. Mercer, your getaway car awaits.”
She had laughed because the name still felt borrowed.
Emily Mercer.
It sounded like a woman who had already figured out what kind of curtains to buy and how to argue about dishwasher loading without taking it personally.
It sounded like a life.
They pulled away from the reception hall in Charleston with rain streaking the windows and sparklers glowing behind them like tiny fading stars.
Nathan reached across the center console and took her hand.
“You okay?” he asked.
“My feet hurt,” she said.
“That’s marriage.”
“That is not marriage.”
“It starts with sore feet. Then comes shared insurance. Then one of us pretends not to see the Amazon boxes.”
She squeezed his hand.
Outside the car, the summer storm had turned the roads slick and black.
Charleston lights blurred in the rear window, gold and red and soft around the edges.
For a few minutes, everything was normal enough to be sacred.
Then headlights appeared behind them.
Nathan noticed first.
Emily saw his eyes lift to the rearview mirror once.
Then again.
The smile left his face so quickly that she felt her own mouth go still.
“What?” she asked.
He did not answer.
His hands shifted on the wheel.
The vehicle behind them came closer.
Too close.
Its high beams flooded the back window and turned the inside of the car white.
“Maybe somebody from the party?” Emily said.
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“Nathan.”
