Flowers.
Photographer.
Venue.
Catering.
June had offered ten thousand toward the wedding.
Claire had thanked her.
Then, over the following months, requests expanded.
Could June cover the florist too?
Could she pay for the rehearsal dinner?
Would she mind helping with transportation for out-of-town guests?
The wedding was six months away.
June had not agreed yet.
That mattered.
She took out a notebook.
At the top of a clean page, she wrote:
What have I actually promised?
Then she listed it.
Ten thousand toward venue.
Already paid.
Nothing else.
June stared at the words.
Her phone rang again.
This time Claire.
June let it go.
A message followed.
Ethan is devastated. Please don’t make this bigger than it needs to be.
June sat back.
There was the old trick.
The person harmed was warned not to enlarge the harm.
She did not reply.
Instead, she took the wedding folder and put it beside her handbag.
Then she carried the quilt upstairs.
She placed it over the spare-room bed.
It looked beautiful there.
Better than she had expected.
For the first time, she considered keeping it.
—
At seven the next morning, June was already inside room 914 at the Beaumont Hotel.
A family had checked out early.
Two beds.
