The Wedding Crush

Chapter Fourteen

Avery

“If you think that was delicious, wait until you taste our fall flavors.” Our patissier beams as she strides toward the table where Morgan, Dante, and I are still scraping the buttercream remnants off the last platter of cake bites.

“Why is this so good?”

She laughs.

Immediately, the three of us go to work, loading our plates with spice, carrot, and salted caramel cakes like we didn’t scarf down every morsel of the white chocolate and red velvet slices she set down, not even five minutes ago.

I found this little French bakery, by chance, while going back and forth from the city to Napa to visit Morgan.

Blame my sweet tooth.

Thank God for Google Places. By the number of highly rated reviews, apparently, everyone and their mamas knew about this place: Gateaux Sucrés.

Sweet cakes.

It’s tucked on the outskirts of Sonoma, so it’s not too far off the beaten path. Two birds, one stone, I knocked out my craving, and booked an over-the-top cake for Nichelle’s Hollywood glamour wedding.

When I told her about Morgan and Dante, rushing to be the first wedding on his late grandfather’s vineyard, the patissier was a sentimental mess, and fit us in.

Downside: the cake won’t be an elaborate confectionary tower of flour and buttercream.

Upside: it’ll be delicious with an understated elegance.

Win-win.

Morgan stuffs the salted caramel bite into her mouth, and immediately moans her approval. “What did you put in this? It’s ridiculously good.”

“It’s just wrong.” Dante shakes his head, his cheek bulging as he slouches back in the chair. “Sorry, babe, I can’t marry you. I’m marrying this salted caramel piece of heaven.”

An alarm chirps on his phone.

“Shoot, I’ve got to get back to the vineyard.” He stands, shoveling another bite into his mouth. “I’ve got that meeting with the inspector for the cabins, but my vote is for the caramel.”

She winks like, I’ve got this, baby.

They lean in for a chaste kiss before he hugs me and tells our baking magician that she should be ashamed for all the future pounds he’s going to put on since her bakery will be his new addiction.

Us ladies spend another half hour chatting, laughing, and filling out the order form before Morgan and I take three boxes to go.

When we pour out onto the street, I’m blissfully full.

“Are you ready to aim and fire that registry scanner gun?” I let out an invigorating squeal. My sugar rush has kicked in. “Anything you want, and boom! Ooh, you won’t believe how powerful you’ll feel with that thing.”

“Mm-hmm,” Morgan hums.

Except, she doesn’t sound nearly as thrilled about this as I feel.

The second I glance over at her, I know she’s holding back. But why?

“What’s up?”

Her eyebrows dip. “No, that cake was… I think we made the right choice.”

Uh-huh.

“So, nothing’s bothering you?” I ask, knowing good and well we never take the first objection with each other. “There’s nothing you want to talk about?”

Stubbornly, she insists she’s “fine,” which, by her avoidant gaze and unusual silence, it’s a bold-faced lie if ever I’ve heard one.

But I play along during our short drive to Target.

I sing along with John Legend’s “Stay with You” and Tony Terry’s “With You,” hoping if it’s wedding-related nerves, love music will get her to talk to me.

By the time Avant and Keke Wyatt start crooning about first love, she shoots me a strong side-eye.

I’m like this.

Whatever it takes—sappy music, nagging, an extra bite of cake—I’ll get her talking. Even if it does feel like it’s working more on me than her.

The entire drive, my stomach muscles are clenched, and moisture gathers in my mouth thinking about these past few weeks with Stefano—and the ones without him since.

Every sensation in my body is heightened around this man. The electric pulse shooting through me, the delicious curve of his lips as he sank his teeth into his lower lip and quirked his brows. The way he teased me with his tongue…

With each love song, Stefano is all I can think about.

Except, the second Morgan and I pass under the giant red and white bullseye and the clerk at the counter hands us our scanner guns, my best friend swivels around to face me.

A ghost of a smile plays on her lips.

“You’re seriously going to go on pretending nothing is happening with you and Stefano?” Her eyebrow shoots up.

By the sheer contours of her voice, I know she knows, which means my entire Sister Circle is still discussing, ad nauseam, the details about me and Stefano getting busy on the side of the building then slinking out early back to my place. How many times do I have to shut this conversation down?

“Listen, I really wish you’d stop with the whole crush thing. There’s nothing happening between me and Stefano.”

Morgan’s lips screw to the side.

I’m fooling no one.

“So, y’all were outside Il Sapore for almost thirty minutes, talking?”

With our bodies.“Yes.”

She aims her scanner gun and me. “Avery Ellis, how long have we known each other?”

“Too long.” I snort.

“Correction. Too long to lie to each other and think we can get away with it.”

I flick my gaze skyward.

I’m not budging on this. Whether it’s pointless, given the way Stefano couldn’t get away from my house fast enough—almost three weeks ago now—we made a promise.

Three weeks.

Morgan pulls the trigger. “Your face is giving it all away for free ninety-nine, ma’am. Try again because I’m not buying your lies.”

An exhausted sigh blusters out of me as she turns on her heel into the book aisle.

“What do you want me to say that Monica hasn’t already?” I ask. “Stefano Fortemani is fine as hell, single, and I sure would’ve let him spank me and tell me what a bad, bad girl I’ve been.”

She snickers. “All of that?”

“Yes, I would’ve. But it’s not going to happen. We’re two different people who want different things and it’s not going to work.”

Pursing her lips, she glances over at a shelf full of fiction romance books before she scans one with a woman draped in the arms of a blue alien.

I scan it, too, removing it from her registry.

“You don’t need this book.”

She shrugs and studies the cover again, then the one beside it, and the next.

“You’re telling me you and Stefano are so different, but these women are falling for aliens, barbarians, and wolves. The man doesn’t have freaking tentacles.”

Laughter rumbles over my shoulders.

“No, he doesn’t. But he does still have feelings for his ex-wife, who’s coming to your wedding, at Victoria’s request. There’s still ties there. Otherwise, why else would he have been with me right after he saw her pregnancy post?”

“Um because it’s shocking.”

I tilt my head. “Exactly. What a surprise, the woman who you married, loved, and wanted children with is having a baby. What better way not to think about it than banging it out with someone else?”

She snaps a you-just-told-on-yourself” finger at me, and I don’t bother denying it.

“Again, ex, as in divorced and it’s over for many reasons we couldn’t possibly know about.”

I suck my teeth.

“And anyway, from where I’m standing…” She breaks off, and I sense that “I’m” includes Dante plus the Sister Circle, and whichever groomsmen care enough to comment about us. “The chemistry between you two is off the charts. We saw the sappy glances and lip-licking. And just now, in the car, you looked about five seconds from self-satisfying. So, tell me again, why you’re pretending”—she emphasizes the word—“nothing is happening between you?”

This time, I know there’s no chance she’s letting this go.

Stubbornly, I scan Kennedy Ryan’s sweeping romance, Before I Let You Go, on principle, then Marriage Be Hard by Kevin and Melissa Fredericks as I dip out the aisle toward candles and flatware.

“I can’t talk about it.”

Naturally, she treats this like a challenge, which she gladly accepts. “Theoretically then…”

Coming to a hard stop at the aisle cap, I shoot a Prosecco-scented candle before I meet her unwavering gaze.

“If he’d left the private room at Il Sapore, and went out to the alley, then maybe I would’ve followed him to ask why he couldn’t spend two minutes with me before he had to run out. And that Monica was right about paying attention to the details because I should be the one running.”

“And if you did, what would he have said?”

I shrug. “Maybe he’d have said he wasn’t frustrated with me, but at the fact that his ex-wife was pregnant with another man.”

“And then?”

“And maybe at the time I wouldn’t’ve known it was a glaring red flag.” Morgan winds her finger in circles, signaling for me to stay on track. “Maybe he might’ve said he didn’t want me to run before buttering me up with sweet talk, and I suggested we have fun until it isn’t anymore. Then we’d hook up against the wall in the alley before we went back inside, wishing there was time to do it again. So, we’d leave ten minutes early, and drive to my house to continue all night before Ace got home the next morning, and he saw no further reason to continue this charade.”

A gasp pushes past her lips.

“Yeah, so like I said…” I wince as I adjust my bra. The underwire has been killing my boobs today. “Theoretically, we’re different people who want different things. Particularly, not to be someone’s fun fallback plan, if you get my drift…”

Morgan nods, her brown eyes darting to my pained expression before they widen with consideration, and we start walking again.

She meticulously scans a pale purple flatware set, rattan placemats and napkin rings, and aubergine napkins.

I duck into the restroom.

When I get back, Morgan picks up right where we left off.

“So, when would be the last time y’all saw each other?” she tosses back.

He asked to meet last weekend, but I just couldn’t.

“This coming Saturday.”

Her stride falters. “You haven’t seen each other since—”

“Two Sundays ago.” In three days, it’ll be three Sundays, but who’s counting. I blink too many times to be natural, wishing we could skip the conversation altogether. “Now we’re meeting on Saturday at the winery to finalize the catering and wine menu.”

She presses her free hand to her mouth, ignoring everything I’ve just said.

“Not even for the ChatVideo meetings?” she asks.

“I’ve been slammed with other events.” I scan a stand mixer, knowing neither Morgan nor Dante can bake to save their lives. “Anyway, it’s fine. A month and a week left. August is going to fly by, the wedding will be here before we know it. Then we’ll see each other every now and then for you all.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yup.”

Forty-five minutes pass. We’ve scanned everything under the sun. From a Dyson to super-plush bathrobes to cookbooks, luggage, bookends, picture frames, and million-thread-count sheets, we’ve got a ridiculous list going. And I’ve made another bathroom stop. Even my bladder has been irritable today. Probably, stress from talking about a man who got what he needed and moved on.

Before long, we get sidetracked in the snack aisle.

Morgan’s arms are loaded with chocolate bars, chips, and pink Starburst.

“What?” she asks when she registers that I’m staring at her. “Aunt Flo is in town.”

“Oh.” Oh no…

And that’s when it hits me, why I’ve been putting off seeing him. Why I’ve been an empath on steroids, acting like “having fun” wasn’t my idea. Why I ate more cake than the bride and groom, and I’m contemplating a tub of ice cream with extra chocolate sauce.

I’m off track.

It’s been weeks since Aunt Flo visited me.