Nothing else there 16

Nick’s POV

She’s standing in front of the bathroom mirror in the dress she pulled from the suitcase this morning. Something dark and fitted she grabbed from the brownstone before everything went sideways. She’s been staring at herself for three minutes and I know because I’ve been leaning in the hallway pretending to check my phone.

“This is wrong.” She tugs at the hem and I can see it in her face — not that the dress doesn’t fit, but that it fits the wrong life. “He picked this dress. I can’t walk into his wedding wearing something he bought me.”

She’s right and I should have thought of that. “Take it off. We’re going shopping.”

“Nick, we don’t have…”

“Two hours. Get your coat.”

She stares at me. “Nick—”

“Aria.” I hold the door open. “Get your coat.”

She gets it quietly, without arguing further, and something about that tells me she needed someone to just decide. That the asking was the hard part and now that it’s done she can breathe.

The department store is mostly empty, the Sunday quiet of a place not yet fully awake. She moves through the racks slowly, her hand trailing across silk and cotton without pulling anything out — touching fabrics the way you touch things you’ve been told you can’t have for long enough that the reflex stays even after the rule is gone.

I sit by the fitting rooms and wait because this is hers, and I know enough to stay out of it. She tries three things. I hear the curtain, the pause, the curtain again, and I look at my phone and don’t look at my phone.

Then she comes out in the green.

Fitted, dark, the kind of color that doesn’t ask permission. It drapes where it should and holds where it should and she’s standing in front of the mirror with her hand on her stomach, turning sideways, and I forget entirely that I was looking at my phone.

She’s stunning. She has always been stunning and she has spent thirteen years in a house that taught her beige.

I don’t say any of that. I say “That one” and she tries two more and comes back to the green, and I already knew she would.

“I haven’t worn something like this in years.” Her voice is quiet, almost to herself. “Dominic liked me in neutral. Beige, cream. Nothing that stood out.”

“Of course he did,” I say, keeping my voice level so she doesn’t hear the anger underneath it. Because of course he dressed her in colors that disappeared. Of course he wanted her to blend into the walls like furniture he’d already decided on.

I hand my card to the register before Aria can reach for hers.

“Nick…”

“After all.” I lean against the counter and let the smirk come. “I have to take care of my wife.”

Her lips part like she’s about to argue and then color climbs up her neck — pink, starting at the collar, moving up to her jaw. She turns away but not fast enough, and I shouldn’t enjoy that as much as I do. Because Aria is blushing at a store counter because I called her my wife, and that image is going into a box in my chest that I’m never opening in front of her.

She takes the bag and walks toward the exit without looking at me, her ears still pink. Neither of us says anything for half a block. It’s a good silence — the kind that happens after something small shifts between two people and neither of them is ready to name it. The city moves around us and I walk beside her and think about the green dress and say nothing at all.

The venue is the kind of place Dominic would choose — high ceilings, white flowers, crystal everywhere, the architecture of a man who wants you to feel small when you walk in. I keep my hand on the back of Aria’s chair when we sit, and she doesn’t pull away.

“This is a lot of flowers,” she says quietly.

“This is a lot of everything.”

“I had daisies at mine.” Her voice goes somewhere else for a second. “One arrangement.”

I left for Sydney before their wedding. Never saw it. Told myself that absence was cleaner than watching. Now I’m in a front-row seat to the sequel and the only difference is Aria is next to me instead of walking toward him, and that difference is everything.

The music starts and Camille comes down the aisle in white, chin lifted. Dominic stands at the altar with his hands clasped and I know that face — the eyes going warm on command, the slight softening around the mouth. He used it on investors and clients and on the woman sitting next to me, a long time ago. The minister talks about devotion and Dominic nods along and the whole room watches a man close a deal in a white boutonniere.

Aria sits very still, the green fabric pulling across her knee where her hand presses flat. I put my hand over hers and she doesn’t move it. After a moment her fingers turn under mine and hold on.

The minister says you may kiss the bride. Dominic kisses Camille precisely, for the correct duration, one hand on her waist placed where the photographer can capture it. Aria’s fingers tighten once under mine, then release.

“You okay?” I say, low enough that only she can hear.

“Ask me again after the sip of champagne,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that’s steadier than I expected.

The reception opens into the next room — silver trays, a jazz trio, the careful choreography of Dominic’s world. I take a glass of champagne I don’t drink. Wait for the first toast to end, then the second. Then I found the microphone.

Showtime.

The room is mid-conversation, glasses clinking, voices overlapping. I tap the mic once and the feedback cuts through and heads turn.

“I want to say something, because I think occasions like this deserve honesty.” I keep it easy, conversational, the tone of a man raising a glass between friends.

“My brother has always known what he wants. From the time we were kids — Dom sees something, Dom gets it. There’s an efficiency there I’ve genuinely admired.” A pause. A small smile.

“It’s why tonight makes complete sense. When the previous model didn’t deliver what he needed, he upgraded. Quick turnaround, new features, full warranty I’m sure.” A beat, just long enough, while a few uncomfortable laughs scatter through the room and Dominic’s face does something careful.

“But I’ll say this — he has excellent taste. Always has.” I lift my glass.

“Which is exactly why, while we’re celebrating unions — Aria and I got married last week.” I look at my brother across the room, and I let him feel the weight of it before I smile. “So congratulations to all three of us. Big week for the Carraways.”

The silence is instant. Two hundred people holding champagne and no one breathing.

Dominic’s glass stops halfway to his mouth. He sets it down and his eyes find mine and I watch his face do the thing — the rapid recalculation, composure sliding into place over whatever is underneath. But not fast enough. I see the crack, and every person in this room sees the crack.

He crosses to me and the crowd parts.

“What the fuck is this?” Low and controlled, the voice he uses when he’s deciding how much to hurt you.

“Happy marriage, brother.” I hand the microphone back to the DJ. “You should try it sometime.”

His jaw tightens and his eyes move to Aria standing three feet behind me in the green dress with her chin up. “Do you really need my garbage, Nick?”

I feel her flinch — barely, but I feel it the way I feel everything about her now.

“One more word about my wife,” I step close enough that only he can hear, “and you’ll meet my fist, brother dear.”

Camille has moved to his side, her hand on his arm. “Dom. Not here.”

Then a voice cuts through — thin, papery, carrying the authority of a man who has never needed volume to fill a space. “Ah. Here are my boys.”

A wheelchair is pushed through the doorway by a nurse in pale blue scrubs. Our father Benjamin — smaller than I remember, his suit hanging loose on shoulders that used to fill a boardroom, but his eyes sharp as they’ve always been. They move between his two sons with the detached precision of a man observing an experiment he designed decades ago.

“Both of you. Find me a quiet room. Now.”

“Dad, this isn’t the—”

“Now, Dominic.”

The nurse wheels him forward and Dominic looks at me and I look at him and for the first time tonight we’re on the same side of something. Two boys summoned by their father, neither of us sure what’s coming.

I don’t really like where this is going.