Quickly, I pay my bill and scoot out of the café with Maddie on my heels.
“What’s going on with you? Why are you in such a hurry?” Maddie asks.
These monthly brunches have been a much-needed touchstone for years. Usually, we linger at the Bluejay for an hour. Two, sometimes.
“I have to rethink things. I have to practice talking to strangers. And I have to uninvite Rowdy.”
Maddie follows me as I march down to Lulu’s to pick up my dress.
“Aren’t you going to try it on?” she asks once I’m inside, already with my credit card in hand.
I shake my head as I wait for Lulu to bag up the dress.“I need to go home and think things over before I call Rowdy and break the news that he can’t come with me to the gala.”
“ I think you’re making a mistake,” Maddie says. “And you should listen to me. I have a long history of getting people together. He’s a Leo. You’re a Taurus. It makes perfect sense, and you know I’ve done your birth chart.”
“And?” I ask, wondering what that has to do with anything.
“Rowdy and you are the perfect match.”
“That’s irrelevant. It’s not a real date. I just need help talking to people. But not Wilson Rogers III.”
Maddie gestures to the owner. “You talk to Lulu just fine.”
“I used to babysit for Lulu. She’s a friend of the family.”
“And the two of you are going to look marvelous together,” Lulu swoons.
I look at Lulu incredulously. “How did you know what kind of suit Rowdy rented?”
Lulu cocks her head like I should know better. “Because Ed at the rental shop told me all about it. And he paid full price, by the way. Rowdy didn’t rent. And it’s the most expensive designer suit they could order in such a short amount of time.”
Maddie snorts, amused at the way everyone gossips in this town.
Outside, I confide, “Maddie, sometimes, just sometimes, Songbird Ridge can be a bit suffocating.”
My garment bag is slung over my shoulder as we walk up the hill toward the gift shop.
Maddie clucks at me and shows me how to hold it properly so I don’t wrinkle the dress. “You’re just crabby because I told you about Wilson Rogers III.”
“I am,” I sigh, giving my friend a side hug. “I’m gonna go upstairs and pour my stress into a painting while I figure out how to uninvite Rowdy without hurting his feelings.”
Maddie looks pouty as she says, “No such thing exists. He’s going to be devastated when you break up with him.”
“I’m not breaking up with him! Because there’s nothing to break up!”
I say goodbye to Maddie and head upstairs, then stop short when I see something on the top step that wasn’t there before.
My blood runs cold. Who’s been in my apartment?
As I approach, I see it’s a reusable shopping bag. I open it to find not a bomb, but all my favorite snacks.
I know exactly who this is from.
I double back down the stairs, knowing what I have to do.
I have to nip this in the bud before he gets hurt even worse.
And even now, knowing I have to hurt him, I get a fluttery feeling all over my body simply at the idea of seeing him.
