The last of the feuding relatives had been herded to their respective cabins, the caterers had salvaged what they could of the trampled buffet, and the echo of shouted accusations had finally faded into the vast Wyoming night.
Willa stood on the wide timber balcony of the main lodge, leaning her forearms against the cool, rough-hewn railing. A deep, bone-weary exhaustion had settled over her, heavier than the hand-stitched quilt on the bed in her room.
Below, the valley was a deep bowl of shadow, and above, the sky was a spray of impossibly bright stars, undiluted by city lights. The sharp, clean scent of pine filled her lungs with each breath, a stark contrast to the sour smell of spilled champagne and bruised egos that still clung to the air inside.
She was so focused on the jagged silhouette of the Tetons against the starlit sky that she didn’t hear him approach until he was right beside her.
“Figured I’d find you here,” Caleb Voss said, his voice a low rumble that didn’t disturb the quiet. “Trying to will the mountains to swallow the whole damn party?”
Willa managed a faint smile without looking at him. “Tempting. Right now, I’m just trying to remember what silence sounds like.”
He set something on the railing between them with a heavy clink. A bottle of whiskey—good stuff, from the looks of the label—and two squat glasses he must have liberated from the bar.
“Found some anesthetic.”
She finally turned to face him. In the dim light filtering from the lodge, the sharp angles of his face were softened. The cynical glint in his eyes was gone, replaced by the same weariness she felt.
He’d taken off his camera harness, and without the gear serving as a shield, he looked less like a documentarian and more like just a man. A man who had, surprisingly, put down his camera to stop her client’s great-uncle from decking the father of the bride.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said, her voice husky.
He poured a generous two fingers into each glass and pushed one toward her. “Just documenting reality. And the reality is, after a brawl like that, whiskey is a medical necessity.”
Willa wrapped her cold fingers around the glass, the smooth, weighted base a comfort in her palm. The whiskey was smoky and warm, a welcome fire that slid down her throat and began to unknot the tension coiled in her shoulders.
They drank in silence for a few moments, the only sounds the distant chirping of crickets and the soft sigh of the wind through the pines.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she admitted, staring into her glass.
“I’ve dealt with crying flower girls, hungover groomsmen, even a runaway ring-bearer-dog. But a full-on, Hatfield-and-McCoy-style throwdown at a rehearsal dinner? That’s a new one.”
“Give it time,” Caleb said, his tone dry. “The wedding industry is an endless font of human absurdity. You just witnessed a B-plot. I’ve seen main-event-level meltdowns.”
There it was again—that familiar, sweeping cynicism. But tonight, it sounded less like an arrogant judgment and more like a shield forged from bitter experience.
She decided to push, just a little.
“Why do you do it, then?” she asked, her voice soft. “If you think it’s all just absurdity, why spend every weekend filming it?”
He swirled the amber liquid in his glass, his gaze fixed on the distant peaks. “Pays the bills. Funds other, more important projects.” The answer was rote, the one he’d given her before.
“I don’t buy that,” Willa said, surprising herself with her own bluntness.
“Not entirely. You could do corporate videos or commercials. It has to be more than that. You don’t just dislike weddings, you… you seem offended by them.”
He let out a short, humorless laugh. “Offended. Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
He took another long swallow of whiskey, finishing his glass. He stood there for a long moment, his knuckles white where he gripped the railing.
The silence stretched, and Willa thought he was going to shut her down, to retreat behind his usual wall of sarcasm.
Instead, he spoke, his voice quiet and rough. “My own wedding cost thirty-five thousand dollars.”
Willa waited, not saying a word.
“We didn’t have it, of course. We put it on credit cards. Because her mother insisted on a hundred and fifty guests, and a specific photographer, and a six-tier cake that tasted like cardboard and regret. We fought about every single detail. The color of the napkins. The font on the invitations. The first-dance song. It wasn’t about us. It was a performance for everyone else.”
He stared out at the dark mountains as if he were seeing it all play out again.
“The whole day, I just remember feeling… hollow. Like I was watching a movie of my own life. We said the vows, we smiled for the pictures, we smashed the expensive cake into each other’s faces for a laugh. We were playing the part of a happy couple, and we played it well.”
He finally turned his head to look at her, and the raw pain in his eyes was a punch to the gut. “We were divorced eighteen months later. The credit card bills lasted longer than the marriage.”
The confession hung in the cold night air between them, stark and heavy. It wasn’t just a story; it was an origin story.
It was the key that unlocked every cynical comment, every grimly satisfied smirk he wore while filming a disaster. He wasn’t just a detached observer; he was a ghost at every feast, haunted by his own failed happily-ever-after.
“Caleb, I…” she started, but the words felt clumsy and inadequate. I’m sorry was too small.
“It’s not the love I’m offended by,” he continued, his voice lower now, as if he were sharing a secret he rarely acknowledged even to himself.
“It’s the production. The pressure. This whole industry you and I are a part of… it sells people a fantasy so expensive and so perfect that the messy, complicated reality of marriage can’t possibly live up to it. It sets them up to fail. And I just… I can’t stand watching it happen. So I film it.”
For my documentary, Willa heard the unspoken words. Suddenly, his project didn’t seem so cruel. It seemed wounded.
She felt an overwhelming urge to reach out, to place a hand on his arm, but she stayed where she was. Instead, she offered him a piece of herself in return.
“My parents got married at the county courthouse on a Tuesday afternoon,” she said softly. He looked over, his expression guarded but listening.
“My mom wore a yellow sundress she’d sewn herself. My dad was still in his mechanic’s coveralls, with grease under his fingernails. They had two witnesses they pulled from the hallway. Their wedding lunch was two hot dogs and a shared Coke from a street vendor.”
A small, genuine smile touched her lips as she pictured it. “Their wedding wasn’t a performance. There were no photographers, no cake, no first dance. There was just a promise.”
She took a sip of her own whiskey, the warmth spreading through her chest.
“My dad still wakes up ten minutes before my mom every single morning to make her coffee, just the way she likes it. He brings it to her in bed. Every. Single. Morning. For thirty-four years. When they watch TV, he’ll reach over and just hold her hand, not even thinking about it. That’s the stuff that matters. That’s the marriage.”
She looked at Caleb, her eyes earnest.
“The wedding day isn’t the destination. It’s the starting line. All this,” she gestured vaguely back toward the lodge, “the flowers, the drama, the feuding uncles… it’s just noise. My job, the way I see it, is to manage the noise so the couple can hear the music. So they can focus on the promise.”
He studied her face in the moonlight, his expression unreadable. The space between them, which had been filled with his pain and her quiet belief, now crackled with a different kind of energy.
The professional lines, the opposing philosophies, the snark and the banter—it all melted away, leaving only the two of them, standing on a balcony under a blanket of stars, having shown each other the parts of themselves they kept hidden.
He took a step closer. The scent of his whiskey and something else—something uniquely him, clean and sharp like the mountain air—surrounded her.
“You really believe that, don’t you?” he murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to travel right through her.
“I do,” she whispered.
His gaze dropped to her lips, and her breath caught in her throat. The world narrowed to the few inches between them.
He raised a hand, his fingers hesitating for a fraction of a second before gently brushing a stray strand of hair from her cheek. His touch was electric, a spark in the cold night that sent a shiver down her spine.
He leaned in, his eyes searching hers, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. She wanted him to. God, she wanted him to.
She could feel the warmth of his breath, could see the conflict in his dark eyes. It was a battle between the man who had just shared his wreckage and the man who was seeing a flicker of light.
And then, just as his lips were about to meet hers, he pulled back.
The spell was broken. He dropped his hand, taking a half-step away, and the chasm that opened between them felt miles wide. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his jaw tight.
“It’s late,” he said, the words clipped. The cynical armor was back in place, hastily reassembled. “Big day tomorrow.”
“Right,” Willa said, her voice sounding unnaturally high. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. “The main event.”
He nodded, not meeting her eyes. “I should… I’ll see you in the morning, Willa.”
He turned and walked back into the lodge without another word, leaving her alone with the silent mountains, the half-empty bottle of whiskey, and the ghost of a kiss that had changed everything.