Best Man...with Benefits. Nancy Warren

for them and hopeful for their future.

      The wedding party spent an hour with a professional photographer who had the easiest job in the world since the location was nothing but one big photo op and Seth and Amy were two blissful, attractive people.

      But Gunter, the photographer, was German and a perfectionist. He took ages setting up each shot, ordering his assistant to move Amy’s bouquet slightly to the left, waiting for the slight breeze to drop before snapping a photo of the newlyweds.

      Then he brought Jackson and Lauren into the photos. They stood stiffly side by side, not touching. Gunter stared through his viewfinder, shook his head, muttered, “Nein,” and then muttered some more in German. He stepped forward and placed Lauren’s bouquet in her right hand and took her left. He picked up Jackson’s right hand and posed his arm so that Lauren rested her left wrist over his, her palm resting on the back of his right hand. Gunter then turned the two of them so they angled toward the bridal couple, which put her body up against the best man’s.

      She felt ridiculous and awkward with the warmth of his arm beneath hers and the feel of his hand under her palm. She felt the rigid hardness in him that was probably a combination of muscle tone and the same tension she felt.

      “Smile like this is the happiest day of your life,” Gunter instructed them.

      “I’m not that good an actress,” she muttered before pulling out a fake smile for the camera.

      Amy suddenly turned, breaking the stiff pose. “Isn’t this fun?” she cried. “Can you imagine anything better?”

      “Being trapped in an airless glass tank crawling with tarantulas?” Jackson said softly.

      “Swimming with sharks while bleeding from an artery?” Lauren said.

      “Plunging to earth right after the parachute doesn’t open?” he countered.

      She was so glad when the photo session was over and they were released to join the party.

      Even though Amy and her mother had tried to keep the numbers down, there were well over a hundred guests. Including the frat boys, as she and Amy called Seth’s school friends.

      The frat boys had all grown up together in a fancy boarding school, and as far as Lauren could tell, they’d never outgrown their schoolboy pranks.

      If Amy and Seth walked into the bridal suite and found a naked porn star reclining on the bed, or a copy of Sex for Dummies on Seth’s pillow, she wouldn’t be surprised.

      She wandered among the guests, chatting to those she knew, making small talk with strangers. Her index finger throbbed from where she’d burned it last night. She’d stayed up late finishing her wedding gift for Amy and Seth. She was a stained-glass artisan and she’d completed a tricky window for the townhouse Amy and Seth had bought in downtown San Francisco with some generous financing from their parents.

      She hoped Amy liked the piece. It was one she was really proud of. She fished an ice cube from the glass of ice water she was drinking and held it to her sore finger.

      “What happened to your hand?”

      She hadn’t even noticed Jackson come up beside her. “I burned it.”

      She waited for some smart-ass comment, but he actually looked like a human being for a second. “Ouch.”

      They both looked down at her hand. Her nails were short, and with her line of work, she almost never painted them so it was strange to see them perfectly manicured in pale pink. “Occupational hazard.”

      “I thought you worked in a winery.”

      She glanced up, surprised that he knew even that much about her. He seemed a bit embarrassed himself. “Seth mentioned it,” he said.

      “I do. Leonato Estate Winery funds my real work, designing and making stained glass. Not a high-paying profession.” She dropped the ice cube back into her drink with a plop. It was true. She loved what she did. Had found her calling when she’d traveled to Europe after college. She and Amy had gone together, and as much as she’d enjoyed seeing the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum, it was the churches and cathedrals with their stained glass that had transfixed her. Venice and its glass makers had inspired her to change her career plans from a vague notion of getting a business degree to studying the ancient art of stained-glass work with an eye to making it look modern.

      She was doing okay for an artisan. She sold her work through a couple of galleries and high-end craft markets and a few architects called her from time to time. Maybe she wasn’t getting rich, but she was managing. In a couple of years, if her sales continued to increase, she’d be able to quit the winery and work on her glass full-time.

      “Amy’s mom sent me to find you. Dinner’s about to start.”

      “Oh. Right.”

      They entered the ballroom together into a sea of tables. The surfaces of the tables were crowded with the printed wedding programs, place cards and specially made chocolates wrapped in foil the same color as Lauren’s dress.

      Naturally, she and Jackson were seated at the head table with Amy and Seth and both sets of parents.

      Her place card put her between the two douches.

      She knew exactly what food would be served and which wines, just as she’d known the foiled candies would match her dress. Because Amy had discussed every detail with her.

      Even if she’d been bored by the details, she had to admit that Amy had been right. All her planning was paying off. From the wafer-thin slices of smoked salmon and capers, to the main meal (a choice of beef Wellington, chicken in a champagne sauce or a vegetarian plate) everything was perfect. From her perch at the head table, Lauren could see that everyone was having a wonderful time.

      The frat boys acknowledged the solemnity of the occasion by banging on their wineglasses with their cutlery until Amy and Seth kissed.

      “If I ever get married, I’m eloping,” she muttered.

      She didn’t realize she’d been heard until Jackson said, “Me, too.”

      The frat boys made Amy and Seth kiss a few more times throughout the meal until, finally, it was time for the speeches. To her surprise, Jackson’s toast to the bride was both intelligent and funny. Seth’s toast to the maid of honor was more about himself and how lucky he was that Amy’s best friend liked him, to which Lauren gave a good-natured two-thumbs-up, hoping that thumb-raising didn’t constitute actual lying.

      Just when it seemed that the formal part of the evening was ending, the frat boys started banging away on their glasses again. Really, those servers needed to take their spoons away and send them to their rooms.

      Amy and Seth rose, and Willy, whom she’d nicknamed Head Frat Boy, yelled, “Everybody at the head table. Let’s see some kissing.”

      There was a moment of stunned silence.

      “Oh, no,” she said.

      At the same moment, Jackson muttered, “I don’t think so,” but as the sound of cutlery on glassware increased, the two sets of parents struggled to their feet. She and Jackson both remained seated until Amy and Seth laughed down at them, Amy saying, “Come on, you guys,” and Lauren realized they’d only appear more foolish refusing to play along.

      “I am so eloping,” she said as she rose reluctantly to her feet.

      “Me, too,” Jackson agreed. “Let’s get this over with,” he added, in the tone he’d probably have used on his way to a firing squad.

      And then he kissed her.

      Glasses clinked and wolves whistled and wedding guests clapped and cheered.

      And she felt his mouth on hers. Warm. Not icky at all, in fact, but kind of nice. It was pretty much the briefest possible press of closed lips to closed lips, but still, there was a tiny buzz of something that snapped back and forth between them.