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"Contracted through the last dance," said Benny. "I can't release them without a signature from the client, and the client is currently a guest."

"Benny, there isn't going to be a last dance,” I said, shaking my head.

"Then they play until there is."

I sat down across from Blaine and did nothing else, which took more out of me than anything I’d done in two years. Because I could see it and nobody else in that tent could. Everyone else was looking at a man who'd had a rough day and was holding up beautifully. I was looking at Blaine Solstice Cauthorne with his jaw set at an angle I have known for years, and that angle does not mean fine. It means something is about to happen and there is no version of the evening in which anybody stops it.

He picked up Benny's binder.

"Don't," said Benny.

Blaine opened it anyway.

Tabbed. Color-coded. A laminated card at the front headed RUN OF SHOW, and I watched my ex-husband read it the way other people read love letters.

"Benny. What time is it?"

Benny looked at his watch, then at Blaine, then at the binder, and I watched a professional work out where this was going about four seconds ahead of the rest of us.

"Twenty past seven," he said, in the voice of a man being sentenced.

"Then we're five minutes out from Welcome and Toasts."

"No."

"It's paid for."

"Blaine—"

"You said it yourself." He put his hand flat on the laminated card. "Every vendor's paid. The tent's up. The musicians can't leave until there's been a last dance. The four of us are legally trapped inside a reception." He stood. "So we're going to have the reception."

"There's no wedding," said Lance, lowering the flute.

"Correction. We're missing a groom." Blaine straightened his spine. "There's still a reception. Those are separate line items."

Here's what I need on the record.

I’ve produced multiple films. I once talked a studio out of shutting down a picture in the second week of principal photography. Every instinct I own stood up in that tent at once and said take it off him. Make it easier. Do the thing you do. I have spent my entire adult life producing my way around having feelings. It's the only real skill I have.

And it turns out that watching somebody you love do it three feet in front of you is unbearable.

"Benny." I snapped my fingers. "Announce the toasts."

"I'm not—"

"You are contractually obligated to run this event."

Benny Longworth closed his eyes. Then he stood, straightened his blazer, walked to the little riser meant for exactly this, stared at the three of us for a long moment, and said in a clear professional voice:

"Ladies and gentlemen. If I could have your attention. We'll now begin the toasts."

Lance shouted "fuck!" and started giggling.

Benny went first, with an open bottle of wine in his hand.

"I've done hundreds of these," he said. "Weddings. Not toasts. I've never given a toast." He frowned. "That isn't true. I gave one once. It was for a wedding that also didn't happen, but I'd already written it, so I read it to my sister in the car park."

"Benny," said Blaine. "You don't have to do this."