“Jesus, Kris,” Chance muttered. “That’s oddly specific. Something you want to share with the class?”
“Don’t kink-shame me,” Kris shot back. “My point is, no one’s that perfect. What aren’t you telling us?”
I hesitated, thinking of Angelina’s perfectly pleasant conversation, her appropriately timed laughs, her complete lack of challenge to anything I said. The way I’d found myself checking my watch three times during our first date.
“She’s just... fine,” I admitted.
“Fine?” Morgan echoed. “You don’t sound thrilled.”
“I’m not looking for thrills,” I reminded them. “I’m looking for compatibility. A strategic partnership. A business arrangement with occasional sex. Not a Disney movie.”
“Still,” Chance mused, “you should at least like being around her. Otherwise, what’s the point? You’ll be stuck with this person for years.”
“Unless you get a divorce,” Kris added.
“I do like being around her,” I insisted, though even to my own ears, it sounded defensive. “She’s gorgeous, intelligent, and successful. What’s not to like?”
“But does she make you laugh?” Chance asked. “Like, really laugh? The kind where you snort a little and then pretend you didn’t?”
An image of Anica’s face when I caught her falling from the chair flashed through my mind. The wide-eyed surprise, the momentary vulnerability, the way she’d felt in my arms. The undignified yelp she’d let out, followed by her determined attempt to regain her composure.
“Cal?” Morgan prompted. “You still there? Or did the question short-circuit your bozo brain?”
“Yeah, sorry. Just thinking.”
“About Angie?” Kris asked.
“Anica,” I replied automatically, then immediately wanted to punch myself. Preferably in the throat. Hard enough to prevent further speaking.
There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by three distinct reactions: Chance’s knowing “Hmm,” Kris’s gleeful cackle, and Morgan’s confused “Isn’t that the wedding planner?”
“Yup,” Kris supplied helpfully. “The one he can’t stop talking about. The one he’s apparently thinking about while getting ready for a date with his future wife. The one he’s definitely not secretly in love with. That Anica.”
“I don’t talk about her that much,” I protested. “And love doesn’t exist.”
“Dude, the last time we spoke, you mentioned her twenty-eight times. I counted. I made a little tally sheet. I was going to turn it into a drinking game, but I didn’t want to die of alcohol poisoning.”
“Fuck off,” I muttered. “She’s planning my wedding.”
“To a bride you’re apparently mixing up with her,” Morgan pointed out.
“I’m not mixing them up,” I said, running a hand through my hair in frustration. “It was a slip of the tongue.”
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Kris snickered. “In my day, we just called it ‘wanting to bang your wedding planner instead of your future wife.’”
“As I said, fuck off,” I suggested in a fake pleasant tone.
“Seriously though,” Chance said, his voice taking on that annoying therapist quality he’d developed since getting happily married. “Maybe there’s a reason you’re thinking about yourwedding planner while getting ready for a date with your potential wife.”
“Yeah, because I spent all day yesterday with her at a wedding expo,” I explained. “It’s still fresh in my mind.”
“Wait, you spent the day at a wedding expo?” Morgan sounded incredulous. “Voluntarily? Not at gunpoint? Not because someone threatened your dog? Not because it was the only way to deactivate a bomb strapped to your chest?”
“Her assistant was sick. She needed help.”
“And you, billionaire CEO with multiple companies to run, dropped everything to help her set up a booth at a wedding expo,” Kris summarized. “Totally normal client behavior. I do that all the time. Just yesterday, I rearranged my accountant’s inner filing cabinet. The day before, I gave my dentist a nice canal drilling.”
“Shut up. I was being nice,” I insisted. “It’s a concept you might want to look into sometime.”
