Page 78 of Wedding or Not

“Okay,” Audrey says, reaching over to tap my arm, which is her version of an affectionate gesture. “We won’t tease you.”

“Too much,” Natalie adds. “Only when absolutely necessary.”

I wake up the next day excited.

About Blossom Park’s turn of fortune. About seeing Wes.

About the day.

I go to Rooster’s to hang out with Natalie for a while and discuss next year’s schedule and some more publicity opportunities that have come in since the wedding. I hope I might see Wes since he often works here for a couple of hours in the mornings, but he doesn’t make an appearance.

By ten, I’m getting jittery, so I send him a photo of all the wedding gifts and swag that have been sent in the past couple of days. There are so many they fill an entire small office in the admin building.

He gives the photo an exclamation point instead of a reply. I wait, but the three dots disappear almost immediately and no other reply comes in.

It’s a little disappointing, so I have to give myself a long internal lecture about reading into details and assuming a guy thinks and responds exactly like I might.

He’s missed two days of work, and he’s taking all next week off as well. He must be swamped with everything he needs to do today.

He doesn’t have time for trivial texting.

When I’ve convinced myself of all these realities, I’m able to stay busy for the rest of the day without stressing too much.

But every time I glance at my phone and there’s no message from Wes, I get a little nervous.

He’s never struck me as one of those guys who play games, making the woman do all the initiation. Even though he’s busy, if he wanted to reach out, he would.

So as hour after hour passes, it’s increasingly clear that he doesn’t want to.

After dinner, I’m distracting myself by scheduling out posts with photos of the wedding on the Blossom Park accounts. It’s not technically my job, but it’s a useful activity that will help Natalie and the part-time social media person she hired. If they don’t like my captions, they can go in and edit them.

At least it gives me something to do.

“What’s the matter, Ella?” Audrey asks, coming into the living area from the kitchen, where she was fixing herself a mug of hibiscus tea. She’s been doing reading for her dissertation most of the day.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“I mean you were happy yesterday and this morning, and now you’re stewing with some sort of anxiety.”

“I haven’t said a word!”

“You don’t have to say it. I can see it. Is something going on with Wes?”

I sigh and set my iPad on the couch beside me. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him all day or seen him around.”

“So text him.”

“I did. At ten this morning. He just exclamation-pointed it and hasn’t said a word since.”

She frowns and sits down in the chair beside me. “Hmm. That is kind of odd for him.”

“I think so. He’s usually more… responsive.”

Audrey’s lips twitch briefly, and I know why.

We’ve both read romantic scenes where that word was used in an entirely different context.

“You know what I mean.”