1. Unexpected Duet
Olivia Scott had no business being here.
Well — she was here, physically. She’d been sitting properly in her guest chair for the past hour, in the sage green dress she’d bought specifically for today and the three-inch heels that were already filing a formal complaint against her feet. She’d watched the ceremony, clapped at the right moments, smiled at strangers with the kind of warmth she’d spent years perfecting.
That was enough. Now she needed the bathroom.
Olivia excused herself from the table with a smile, slipped along the edge of the reception area toward a small separate building set back from the shoreline, where the restroom signs pointed. On stage, the band was supposed to be playing an instrumental set.
Supposed to be.
Because as Olivia passed behind the stage, she heard something that was definitely not music.
“You always do this! You’re so selfish!”
“Selfish? You never listen to me!”
She didn’t slow down. Other people’s arguments were other people’s problems. She had more pressing business.
Two sets of footsteps followed from the same direction — both storming off, both heading opposite ways, both carrying the kind of anger that clearly wasn’t getting resolved tonight.
Olivia didn’t look back.
Seven minutes later, she walked out feeling considerably better — until a hand grabbed her arm from the side.
“Olivia—”
“Grace.” She nearly choked on her own breath. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Grace Turner did not look like someone who cared about anyone’s heart right now. Her best friend stood there with uneven breathing, a bun that had shifted noticeably to the left, and a look in her eyes that Olivia had never seen — not even on their worst days at the hospital.
“The band left,” Grace said. No preamble.
Olivia blinked. “What?”
“The singer and the guitarist. They had a fight.” Grace tipped her head toward backstage. “They’re gone. Both of them. Just now.”
Olivia thought about the two sets of footsteps she’d heard walking away in opposite directions a few minutes ago. Oh.
“Thirty minutes before the reception starts,” Grace continued, her voice hovering right at the edge of composed. “Emma doesn’t know yet. But she’s about to find out. And when she does—”
“Her makeup will run,” Olivia said automatically.
“This is not about makeup!” Grace grabbed both her arms. “This is about my cousin’s wedding that she’s been planning for a year and it’s about to fall apart because two adults couldn’t keep their personal issues out of their work—” she stopped, took a breath. “You can sing.”
Olivia already knew where this was going three sentences ago. “Grace—”
“I’ve heard you. Multiple times.”
“In the bathroom—”
“In the bathroom, in the car, at the supermarket last month, that time you didn’t know I was in the kitchen—” Grace held up a hand. “Olivia. Please. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t completely desperate.”
Olivia looked at her best friend. Then looked toward the wedding table, where Emma was laughing with some guests — still unaware of what had just happened backstage. Owen beside her leaned in to whisper something, and Emma laughed again.
Five minutes, maybe less.
“I’m not part of the wedding team,” Olivia said. “I’m a guest. You’re the honorary bridesmaid, not me.”
“This is an emergency, not a protocol situation.”
“I still need a guitarist. I can’t sing without accompaniment, Grace. That’s just a speech.”
“I already have a solution.” Grace took a breath. “There’s a guest who plays guitar. Owen’s cousin. I can ask him.”
Olivia opened her mouth — then closed it again.
“One song,” Grace coaxed. “Maybe two. Just until the wedding coordinator finds another fix. You won’t be up there long.”
“Grace.”
“I’ll buy you coffee every day.” She said it like someone playing their last card. “A full month. Before your shift. Delivered to your desk.”
Olivia went quiet.
This wasn’t a small offer. Grace knew that perfectly well — they worked in the same building, Grace as a pediatrician on the third floor, Olivia in analytics on the second. The walk between the hospital café lobby and Olivia’s desk was long enough to make anyone reconsider the effort on an early morning before the first meeting of the day.
A month of coffee. Every day. Delivered.
“Flat white,” Olivia said finally. “No sugar. Not too hot.”
Grace was already pulling her toward the stage. “Whatever you want.”
Ten minutes later, Olivia stood on stage with a microphone in her hand and the distinct feeling that life had a very poor sense of humor.
Beside her, Liam Morgan sat in a wheelchair with an acoustic guitar across his lap and the expression of someone who had just been negotiated into this against his will — which, from what Olivia had caught, was exactly what happened. The woman responsible — Lily Morgan, neat short hair, the kind of voice that didn’t leave much room for argument — was still standing at the edge of the stage, making sure her son didn’t step down before it was over.
The argument that had gotten Liam up here, from what Olivia overheard, was simply: “You don’t need your legs to play guitar, Liam.”
Simple. Effective. Impossible to argue with.
Olivia kept her eyes forward. On the microphone. On the guests settling into their seats. On the sea breeze coming in from the west. On anything except the man sitting half a meter to her left.
The man who had no idea she was standing next to him.
The man who five years ago—
“What song?”
His voice cut through her thoughts before she could finish the sentence in her own head.
"Can’t Help Falling in Love," Olivia answered.
Liam turned to look at her.
For the first time since they’d been standing side by side on this stage, he actually looked at her face — and Olivia held her breath, waiting. Waiting for the second where something shifted in his eyes. Waiting for that small flicker that would prove those two weeks had existed, that she wasn’t just another forgotten name somewhere in the back of his memory.
Nothing.
Liam gave a short nod — a quick assessment of whether the person beside him could be relied on — and his fingers moved to find their position on the strings.
Fine.
Then she wouldn’t remember either.
Olivia faced forward. Took one breath — slow, deep, quiet. And when the guitar intro came in, clean and simple against the sound of the waves, she opened her mouth.
Wise men say, only fools rush in…
The sea breeze carried her voice across the reception. Guests who had been whispering went quiet one by one. Emma at the wedding table pressed both hands to her chest, eyes glistening — not from disaster, but from being genuinely moved. Owen beside her held her hand tighter.
Grace, from the side of the reception area, let out the breath she’d been holding for the past thirty minutes.
On stage, Liam played with his eyes on the strings — but every so often, without quite realizing it, his gaze lifted.
To Olivia.
There was something in her voice he couldn’t place. Familiar but distant. Close but blurred. Like trying to remember a dream that keeps slipping away the harder you chase it — the more you reach for it, the less shape it has.
He didn’t know where the feeling came from.
But it was there. And it wouldn’t leave.
The night ended with colder wind and more stars than usual.
Olivia stood at the water’s edge, heels long since abandoned, the cool sand against her bare feet feeling like a small reward after hours of standing. From somewhere behind her, the slow jazz from the reception drifted over faintly, mixed with laughter and the clink of glasses.
She wasn’t sure why she’d come down here. Maybe she needed air. Maybe she needed some distance from the smiling she’d been doing all evening — the kind that starts to feel heavy after a while.
The sound of wheels on sand approached from behind — slow, working a little harder than usual against the uneven ground.
“You have a good voice.”
Olivia didn’t turn around. “Thank you. You play well too.”
Silence. Just the waves filling the space between them.
“I’m Liam.”
“I know.”
The wheels stopped. She could feel him pause behind her — confused, maybe. Or curious. “How?”
Olivia finally turned. She looked at Liam Morgan in the light of the stars and the distant glow of the reception — Liam Morgan in his wheelchair and loosened tie, with the same eyes she’d spent five years failing to completely forget.
“Grace mentioned your name when she asked you to come up,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. Then, quieter, “What’s yours?”
“Olivia.”
“Olivia.” He repeated it — like he was testing the sound of it. No flicker. No recognition. Just a name he was hearing for the first time. “Where do you live?”
“Rosehaven. Just moved last month.”
Something moved across Liam’s face — brief, almost invisible unless you were watching closely.
“Same,” he said quietly. “Rosehaven.”
Olivia nodded. As if that were ordinary information. As if her stomach hadn’t just done something she hadn’t asked it to.
“Can I get your number?” Liam asked. There was a slight awkwardness at the end of it — the kind that comes from someone who hasn’t said that to anyone in a long time. “In case we end up being neighbors.”
Olivia looked at him for a long moment.
In case we end up being neighbors.
She almost laughed. Not because it was funny — but because fate, apparently, had no good intentions toward her whatsoever.
Without a word, she held out her hand, waited for him to pass her his phone. Typed in her number. Saved it.
And when the phone was back in his hand, she’d already turned to face the water again.
“See you in Rosehaven,” she said quietly.
Liam didn’t answer right away. But Olivia could sense he hadn’t moved — still there, behind her, with a question he hadn’t yet figured out how to ask.
Let it be.
Some things were better left unasked tonight.
