Hallie Roussel Ballard
Hallie Roussel Ballard
Pia Aldridge agreed to bake her cousin's wedding cake before she knew who the best man was. Now she's standing in a hot venue kitchen with a sagging three-tier, a stick of butter in each fist, and Nate Belrose - the man she almost married - handing her a towel. Eight years ago he took a job in Seattle and never gave her a reason. Now he's in Slocomb for one weekend and he's everywhere she turns: the rehearsal dinner, the seating chart, the kitchen at one in the morning. They have four hours until the ceremony, ninety-eight degrees, and eight years of mostly-unsaid. Some cakes fall. Some don't. Some people come back to a town they never lived in, for a reason they haven't said out loud yet.