But she was also grinning.
He really could charm the birds from the trees, and he could get away with saying things no ordinary human could get away with saying. In part because one of the loveliest things about J. T. was that he generally liked people, and they knew it.
She turned the water off. She drew in a long breath.
He hadn’t answered the question. She was actually a little glad.
His phone was on the table. And she would never look at it, but every time an e-mail or a text rolled in, it chimed, and it chimed a lot.
It chimed now.
Speaking of sands in an hourglass, that’s what every little chime felt like. She knew he was preparing for things when she was away at work, struggling to write a wedding toast, setting up meetings forThe Rush, answering e-mails about a big, fancy celebrity wedding that he’d RSVP’d to ages ago and that had nothing at all to do with her. She’d never expected to be included in that. Nor had he suggested she be included in that.
And then his downtime would come to an end.
He’d left the peanut butter out on her counter. She smiled when she looked at it. But its presence was worrisome. He now hadhis own peanut butterat her house. And she’d bought it for him. Because it made him happy, and making him happy seemed to be what madeherhappy.
It might be peaceful enough between them now, but in Britt’s experience, inherent in every peace was a sort of tension. The sort of tension presented by the smooth unbroken surface of a new jar of peanut butter.
The wholepointof that surface was to shatter it. Which sometimes felt like the fate of any kind of peace.
Acouple of days later Britt slipped out of bed around seven a.m. to get ready for work and tiptoed into the living room, leaving J. T. sleeping. He didn’t snore, thankfully. But he occasionally murmured, which was funny. “Damn straight,” he muttered once.
She showered and flung on some clothes and just opened her laptop to do her first e-mail and news check of the day when Skype began booping and beeping.
She yawned hugely and answered.
She frowned faintly when her sister Lainie’s face filled the screen. Lainie’s mouth was wide open. So wide, in fact, that Britt could see the fillings in her back molars.
“Hey Laine. Did you mean to call me, or did the cat accidentally walk across the keyboard again?”
In the background was Laine’s living room, pleasantly cluttered. She saw one of Will’s shoes and an old afghan their grandmother had knitted on the floor.
Laine still didn’t move. Not one hair.
“Lainie?” she tapped the screen, a little worried now. Maybe Skype had locked up?
But then Lainie’s cat strolled across the room in the background and stopped to sniff Will’s shoe.
Laine still didn’t move.
“All right, Lainie, what the hell iswrongwith you?”
“JOHNTENNESSEEMCCORD!”
Lainie clearly had been working up a head of steam in order to shout that.
Britt winced. “Yikes! Why are youyelling?”
“You and JOHN TENNESSEE MCCORD, THAT’S WHY!”
Britt wrapped her arms around the monitor as if she could muffle it. “Shhhhhh! What’s the matter with you... do you mean J. T.?”
Her sister swiveled in her chair and she saw the back of her sister’s morning hair, still in its messy sleep-bun. “MITCH!” she bellowed to her husband. “Honey, she calls him J. T.! She already has a pet name for him!”
“Oh, brother. It’s not a pet name, it’s hisnamename. Wait... what’s going on? How didyouknow about J. T.?”
“It’s on TMZ! Two pictures of you! And him! One of you getting out of a car at a restaurant and you’re wearing a white dress, and another of you in a bikini lying next to him on some big rock. TMZ doesn’t know who you are, but I do,” she said delightedly and ever-so-slightly inanely.
