“And if, after all this,” Spencer added, “you think you love Jo, don’t let anything stand in your way. Not some notion of how things should be or your own doubts and insecurities. Not even her doubts about your feelings. Fight for her, show her with actions, not words.”
“I’d say actionsandwords. Charlotte likes the words.”
Avery rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, so I seem to have the same situation as Dad. I can’t find Jo. She’s cut me off, blocked me.”
After two days, he’d caved and called her on his way to work. He was sent to voicemail. He texted her as soon as he got to work, but by then, she’d fucking blocked him. Again.
He immediately called Brooke and hit the same wall. With Zach’s help, he’d found Brooke’s address, but when he drove to her apartment, Jo wasn’t there, wasn’t even staying there, and Brooke wouldn’t tell him where she was.
Avery had driven home on autopilot and finished off a bottle of whiskey. If Jo ever unblocked him, she’d find all the messages he left her, and he might or might not be screwed. He couldn’t remember half of what he’d said, except that he missed her and something about fucking her on the island.
“Well,” Marcus said, “you know where she’ll be two months from now.”
Avery’s stomach sank and his head fell back. Two fucking months? Yeah, she’d have to come out of hiding for Marcus’ wedding. But two months felt like a lifetime. He couldn’t wait that long.
Then it hit. Exactly where Jo would be and when, and it wasn’t two fucking months from now.
He shot out of his chair and grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the chair. “I gotta go.”
Marcus swiveled on the sofa to track him to the door. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home to pack.”
****
Jo opened the window over the sink and fanned herself with a paper plate. The air conditioning in the community center kitchen was on the fritz. It had to be ninety degrees in there.
Viv blew her damp bangs off her forehead and blotted her red cheeks with a dishtowel. “I’m gonna wring your sister’s neck if she keeps yappin’ her big mouth.”
Brooke plucked at the neckline of her purple dress. “I’ll help you. She’s ridiculous, demanding everyone wear lavender.”
Viv pointed a spatula at Jo. “All I can say is, you musta been a saint. If I’da grown up in the same house as her, she’da never made it to her weddin’ day.”
Brooke dried a platter and set it on the counter. She and the teenager Jo hired were barely keeping up with the servers. Jo and Viv were holding their own against the hungry guests, and Theo and his crew were plating the entrées as fast as they could.
“You have no idea.” Brooke grabbed another spatula and started helping Jo and Viv plate apple rose puffs. “Georgia and her mother could give the devil lessons on evil.”
With a quick point of a spatula at Jo, Viv pulled another pan of puffs from the oven. “It’s just that you worked so hard to pick up the slack after…well, ya know. You coulda let ’em find another caterer.”
“Are you kidding?” Jo tsked. “If I hadn’t jumped in, I’d have never heard the end of it. Especially since, if you can believe them, it was my fault Giselle lost her mind.”
“Them bitches.” The snarl on Viv’s face made Jo smile. “Makes me want to lace their food with arsenic.”
Jo’s gaze snapped from Viv to Brooke. “Have you two been conspiring?”
Grinning, Brooke gave her an innocent who-me shrug. “At the very least, I’d love to shove her face in the cake.”
“Nah, that would mess up the beautiful cake Jo made. If she thought she would have gotten anythin’ better from Gruella, she’s sorely mistaken.”
With Giselle deceased, her business closed. The employees were out of work, and Giselle’s clients were scrambling to find caterers at the last minute. The regulars who knew Jo, as wellas her own family, were looking to her. She’d booked a few and recommended another caterer to others. Viv and Theo were her first employees, but she was also picking up some who’d decided to freelance.
Jo looked at the women who’d dropped everything to help her, then at Theo manning the plated dinners; he’d been the lead chef for Giselle, and though Jo didn’t want to cater full meals, she’d gone the extra mile for Georgia. Even Letty was pitching in, serving as waitstaff in the outdoor wedding tent, and bless her, she’d offered Jo refuge after Avery called Brooke looking for her.
Jo couldn’t have asked for better friends.
Her stomach dipped. She’d left her new friends behind—Charlotte, Melody, Kate. Though she’d assured Charlotte the not-so-fake breakup with Avery—not in those words—wouldn’t affect any plans for the wedding. Hopefully, by then, Jo would have her shit together enough to get through one night of seeing him. He’d have moved on and would, no doubt, be hunting down his next What’s Her Name.
She hadn’t lost all her new friends. Olivia had called yesterday to plan a commiseration weekend since, as far as she knew, both Maverick and Avery were still going to Greece.
