I Lay on the Bedroom Rug in My Wedding Dress While He Stood Over Me...

I walked back into the ballroom with my bouquet tight against my ribs. The ballroom air hit me cold after the hallway. The DJ had switched to something slow and the dance floor was half full. My phone was tucked inside the bouquet wrap, pressed between the stems and the white ribbon, and every step I took I felt it shift.

He found me before I reached our table. He didn't touch my arm the way a groom would. His hand closed around my clutch.

"You left this in the suite," he said.

I hadn't. I'd left the clutch empty on the vanity on purpose. I watched his thumb press against the clasp.

He opened it. Lipstick. A bobby pin. A folded cocktail napkin. No phone. He looked at my bouquet then. I held it a little higher.

"Where's your phone?" he asked. His voice was low, almost pleasant. People were two feet away, smiling at us.

"Dead," I said. "In my bag upstairs."

He didn't blink. He zipped the clutch shut and handed it back. "You keep wandering off. People notice."

He kept his hand on my elbow and steered me away from the floor, toward the narrow hall that led to the dressing suite. I felt the stems sweat against my palm. The ribbon was damp where my hand had been.

The suite door was open when we got there. My dress bag hung on the back of it, my street shoes kicked under the vanity. He let go of me just long enough to push the door closed behind us. I set the bouquet down on the vanity and turned. He slid the lock. It was a small brass thumb turn I'd never noticed before. It clicked loud in the quiet room.

"We'll stay close tonight," he said. He checked his reflection in the mirror, adjusted his collar. "You look tired. You should stay in here a few minutes. Touch up. Breathe."

"I want to be out there," I said.

"You are out there. You're with me." He picked up my bouquet and frowned at how I had retied the ribbon. He didn't open it. He set it back down, stems exactly parallel to the edge of the vanity. "Just need you where I can see you. Makes it easier."

He said it like he was being thoughtful. He sat on the arm of the upholstered chair by the window and watched me. The air conditioner hummed. Outside the door I could hear the muffled bass from the ballroom and a server's cart rattling past. I stood by the vanity with my back to the mirror so I didn't have to see my face.

A knock came. Two short raps.

He stood and unlocked the door a few inches. It was her — the older woman in the burgundy lace dress, her pearls catching the hall light. She held two flutes of champagne.

"There you are," she said to me over his shoulder. "Your photographer is looking for you both."

He didn't open the door wider. "She's fixing her veil. Give us two minutes."

The older woman looked down. Her eyes stopped on his hand still on the lock. She let the pause hang.

"Why is this locked?" she asked. Her tone stayed light, but I heard the edge. The same voice she'd used in the bedroom doorway.

He laughed. "Old habit. My mom always said lock the suite, things walk off at weddings."

She didn't laugh back. She looked at me. "Honey, are you alright in there? You need anything?"

I felt my phone press against the bouquet wrap. I felt his eyes on me.

"I'm fine," I said. "Just needed a minute."

She held his gaze for a second longer. "Well. Unlock it when you come out. Fire code." She handed him the glasses and turned away. Her heels made no sound on the carpet runner.

He closed the door again and locked it. He handed me one of the glasses. Champagne was flat and warm.

"See," he said. "She worries too much. Everyone worries too much tonight."

He leaned against the door, glass in hand, and I understood it all at once. He wasn't watching me because he felt guilty about what had happened on that rug. He was watching the bouquet. He was watching my clutch. He was watching the door. He kept checking that his shirt was tucked, that his hair was right, as if the cameras were still on him. His fear wasn't that he'd hurt me. His fear was that someone had seen it, that someone had caught it on a phone, that I might have a copy.

He took a sip and set his glass down without drinking.

"You good?" he asked.