“She wants me to embarrass myself, doesn’t she?”
“You can ask her.”
“No.”
“When you call her.”
“No.”
“And tell her you’re going to go on stage.”
“No.”
I let the silence stretch just a second or two. “Right. So that’s your other choice. Tell Bertie no.”
He groaned. “She’d kill me.”
“Maybe.”
“She’ll make me judge rhubarb contests.”
“Or there’s the mosquito round up thing I still don’t fully understand.”
“It’s a wetland tour with a rodeo theme. To explain the local wetlands.”
“That’s right. I think Jean is signed up for that one. I’m sure she’d be happy to swap places with you. Jean has this dance routine with a lamp and a pool noodle that everyone thinks is hilarious.”
“I know what you’re doing.”
“You can tell her no, Ryder. Honestly.” I meant that. Bertie might be pushy sometimes, but she was not a tyrant.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good. Call her and tell her that.”
“I will.”
And then we were both quiet, listening to the sound of breathing on the other end of our phones.
“I miss you,” I said, stupidly. I’d just been in bed with him a few hours ago. It was silly to miss him. But I thought that was more about the wedding stress, him throwing himself a hundred percent into the planning and management, and me running away from anything even remotely wedding related.
I’d been pulling away from the wedding, and in doing so had been pulling away from him.
“I miss you too,” he said simply.
“When is she leaving?”
“I’m pushing for tonight, if possible.”
“Good.”
Another second ticked by, and Piper glance over toward Ryder and nodded to Vivian. Obviously offering to go see where he had gotten off to.
“Do you want me to come into work today?” he asked.
“No. No. Take as long as you need to bore her and get her out of here. If you need help with that, let me know. I’ll find Than and tell him we need him to work a shift today.”
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you tonight.”
