Six Weeks Before the Wedding
In a surprise turn of events, I make it through the meeting without quietly slipping off my chair to lie down and hoist a white flag. Even more surprising, I’m almost sure it’s because of Jude. While no one except maybe a boulder would describe him as chatty, his quiet, intimidating presence kept the meeting from venturing back into personal territory, for which I am both begrudgingly and eternally grateful. Calvin even refrained from hugging me goodbye, but that may have had more to do with Jude looming close beside me as they left.
“Thanks for coming today,” I say a bit awkwardly when he comes back from having my giant sandwich wrapped in paper. “And for lunch,” I add, taking it from him.
“Anything to hear you say the words ‘five-dollar-foot-long,’?” he says, surprising a laugh out of me.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, untucking my hair from my blazer. “That’s what does it for you? Vaguely inappropriate sandwich slogans?”
His eyes track my hand as I adjust my necklace. “Are you trying to kink-shame me, Gracie Holland?”
Despite his deadpan delivery, my cheeks heat like he just whispered it in my ear. Trying to recover, I say, “That depends. Are you admitting to a kink involving deli meats and their adjacent marketing strategies?”
He snorts but then hesitates. “If I were divulging any kinks, it wouldn’t be in a café.”
Okay, not where I expected this conversation to go, but I surprise myself by replying, “So I guess that scratches exhibitionism off the list.”
Jude’s eyebrows shoot up. “I didn’t realize you were making those kinds of lists about me.”
The flush that’s been building since our left turn into this bizarre conversation intensifies, and I try pulling back into a realm I’m more comfortable with: antagonizing him. “Anything to figure out an opponent’s weaknesses.”
His lips quirk. “I’m beginning to think we may be more alike than I’d originally thought.”
“We arenothingalike,” I say, shouldering my bag with the freshly signed contracts and, most importantly, my payday. “I’m a wedding planner. You’re a divorce lawyer. We’re like… like a butterfly and a murder hornet.”
“Huh. I’ve never thought of myself as a butterfly,” Jude says, absently rubbing the annoying cleft in his chin as we head toward the café door.
My mouth drops open with indignation before I point a thumb to my chest. “No,I’mthe butterfly.You’rethe murder hornet.”
He tilts his head, studying me as he buttons his charcoal suit jacket. “I don’t see why I’m the de facto murder hornet here,” he says. “You’re the one giving me psycho-killer eyes.”
Against my will, my gaze flicks to the mirrored wall behind him. And fine, maybe my eyes are alittlemurdery. But whose wouldn’t be, talking to this misery monger? This prenup peddler? This—
“Gracie.”
My name in his soft baritone yanks my gaze back to his.
“What,” I snap.
He stares at me, a look of almost angelic innocence in his wide, honey-colored eyes. “If you’re a murder hornet, I’m a murder hornet.”
At his blasphemous misquotation fromThe Notebook, I groan. I willnotlet this man be the death of me. I take a breath and try toremind myself that he just helped me through a meeting I gave myself 60/40 odds on surviving. He bought me a sandwich. And even if it’s a dubious kink sandwich, now I won’t have to eat boxed mac ’n’ cheese for dinner.
“Anyway, I’m headed back to Larkwood,” I say. “I’ll text you about meeting the band I usually work with. I want to ask them in person to do the wedding, and they have a gig this weekend.”
“So that’s the next task you’ve got in store for me? Enduring a wedding singer?”
“Only if you’re not too busy doing unforgivable things to a Subway sandwich. Otherwise, you can look forward to meeting some of the kindest, most talented people I know.”
He holds the café door open for me, grimacing as we step outside under the overcast sky. “Transmission of guilt received.” He looks up toward the clouds. “It’s going to storm. You’re not planning on going back right now, are you?”
I begin walking toward my car, and he falls into step next to me. “Well, considering I still live there, yes.”
“Does your car have four-wheel drive?”
“It’s a little rain, not a monsoon.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
