He chuckled. “Only the best for you. If Callie found out I gave her best friend anything less, she’d probably call off the wedding.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” I said with a laugh.
“I’m sure she’s going to be calling you a ton. We’ll be in the thick of wedding planning while you’re gone, and I know she’s going to want your thoughts on pretty much everything.”
I smiled. “So, June, huh?” He grinned with a nod. I don’t know if I ever knew a future groom to be as excited as he seemed. “There needs to be more men out there like you.”
He offered me a curious smile. “What do you mean?”
“You wear your heart on your sleeve when it comes to Callie. You don’t shy away from letting anyone know how you feel about her and your life together. And I love that for her. And you.”
“I’m sure plenty of guys out there do that.”
“No, see, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re part of the very small percentage of men that we women consider an anomaly. And I’m going to need you to get up on your soapbox and give these other goons a talking to.”
“You going to bring one of these saidgoonsas a date to the wedding?”
I snorted. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure I’ll be going solo to your wedding.”
“Ah, but see, there’s still that one percent you’re holding onto,” he noted with a grin.
“That’s not me holding onto anything. The one percent is the slim possibility of a miracle occurring.” He chuckled. “But it’s fine. I’m the maid of honor, and my focus needs to be on Callie that day anyway. I don’t need a date distracting me from my duties.”
“Your duties…” he repeated.
“Yes,my duties. It’s my job to make sure she stays as calm, cool, and collected as possible. And to hold up her dress when she has to pee.”
“Now,there’san image,” he muttered through a laugh. “But seriously…you can bring a date.”
“But seriously, there’s no one I’ve met that I’d want to ask.”
“You’ve got plenty of time to meet someone.”
“I heard that same thing months before my brother’s wedding. And guess what? I went solo to that, too.”
“Hey, you never know…” He shrugged. “You might meet someone before June.”
“Doubtful. Not everyone is lucky in that area. I’ve come to accept that the probability of me being single for the rest of my life is very likely at this point.”
“Nonsense. I’m a firm believer that there’s someone out there for everyone.”
“You can’t say that. Because you’ve known Callie since you were kids.”
“True.” Lucas smiled. “But that just goes to show that, sometimes, it’s the person right in front of you.”
“Your optimism is inspiring. Truly,” I said sarcastically.
I inhaled a deep breath, raising my arms above my head as I stretched the sleep from my body. When I turned, and my eyes fluttered open, they landed on a still-sleeping Wes.
I took a moment to look at him, letting my gaze travel over his face, taking in the sharp lines of his jaw peppered with a thin layer of scruff, his pillowy lips that were slightly parted, and his dark lashes. I noticed a few strands of his dark hair—short with a slight curl at the ends—falling against his forehead, and I got the sudden urge to reach up and brush them away, to run my finger over the lines of his face…but I didn’t.
Wes and I hadn’t met up in a couple of weeks—the last time we had sex before last night was at the charity ball. And he’d been acting odd those couple of weeks. When we saw each other for Tuesday trivia and Saturday night out with the others, I would catch him looking at me like he was studying me as though my depths held the key to some kind of mystery he was secretly trying to unravel, but then he’d look away and carry on. It was…weird.
I finally messaged him last night; he responded like usual and said he’d be over. Everything seemed normal, so I shrugged off the odd behavior from before as Wes just being a weird version of himself that I hadn’t seen before. And that was nothing new. I’d seen a lot of sides of Wes I’d never seen before in the time since we made our deal. Sides I didn’t know existed—playful and, dare I say…sweet at times. I didn’t know if they were sides he kept hidden from most people or if I just never cared to notice before…but I was noticing now for reasons I wasn’t entirely sure of.
“I can feel you admiring me with your eyes,” he mumbled against the pillow, his eyes still closed.
I scoffed. “I was notadmiringyou.” I supposed I was, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “You…were snoring,” I lied.
