Chapter 17 Gracie
Four Weeks Before the Wedding
In a thrilling first for me, I’ve been tasked with tasting wedding cakes on behalf of my clients.
Who gives up free cake, you may ask? Beautiful power couples with no time for sugary carbohydrates, apparently.
But while Calvin and Brooke have truly left every detail of their wedding up to me, I’m not complaining about this errand—even if I am a little nervous about spending the afternoon with Jude.
My stomach twists as I rush to finish my makeup.
After our late-night phone call, we haven’t talked other than confirming today’s outing.
I’m not saying that we’re pretending it didn’t happen, but something about falling asleep to the voice of your supposed enemy after grief-bonding with them makes it seem a lot like they’re not your enemy at all.
Which is why, when Henry showed up at my door the next day to ask me out, I said yes.
Partly, it was shock. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been asked on a date.
And not in some algorithm-based, look-at-me-pose-with-this-fish way, but face-to-face.
With windswept curls and a dimpled smile, he took his shot, and it had felt…
simple. Not in a bad way, but in a refreshing I’m-not-actively-trying-to-ruin-your-life kind of way.
Which is why I won’t think about how Jude secured new venues for all my former clients. Or our almost-kiss. Or even those words. The ones I’m desperately trying to forget.
I’m… very attracted to you.
“Ow!” I quickly press my hand to the eye I’ve just stabbed with my mascara wand.
Dammit. This has been happening all week.
That single strained sentence will pop back into my head, and suddenly I’m running into doorjambs, or struck speechless when I should be answering simple questions like “Can I help you find something, miss?” Yes, helpful grocery store employee, can you help me find my goddamn MIND?
Quickly, I redo my makeup. Henry, Henry, Henry, I silently chant, like it might point my thoughts in a safer direction. It works for a few minutes, but as I leave the cottage with a slightly throbbing eyeball and barely a minute to spare, I’m immediately confronted by the source of all my troubles.
Jude is in my driveway, leaning against a shiny black Mercedes SUV that makes my Camry look like it emerged from the primordial ooze.
In dark sunglasses, cream slacks, and a navy linen button-down that’s open at the throat and rolled at the sleeves, he looks like he should be drinking wine on the French Riviera.
Or I guess rolling up to the turn-of-the-century estate he’s just inherited?
Either way, it’s the first time I’ve seen him in anything other than a suit.
When he takes off his sunglasses, I gulp.
“Hey,” I say, silently asking myself why I let him pressure me into carpooling. But I know why. Today’s forecast has a 20 percent chance of sprinkles, which in Jude’s mind translates to a 90 percent chance of raining lava and… I guess I didn’t want him to be anxious.
He opens the passenger door for me. “Hello,” he says, sounding reserved in that particular Judish way I’m learning means he’s nervous, too.
How the hell are we going to survive the next hour trapped in this car?
Maybe I could suggest an audiobook he’d love.
Like Crime and Punishment. Or The Dictionary.
“Is it too cold?” he asks when we’re both in.
“I’ll turn down the AC.” But as he twists to buckle his seat belt and adjust the thermostat, I’m too overcome by his cologne to respond.
He somehow smells like every up-against-the-stacks, after-hours librarian fantasy I’ve ever had, and my thighs pinch together on the leather seat with a needy squeak. I’m… very attracted to you.
“It’s, uh, very clean in here,” I say, hoping my bland commentary disguises my sordid thoughts. You should be thinking of Henry, I scold myself. Remember him? The man you just agreed to date?
“Why do you sound so nervous about cleanliness?” Jude asks as I fumble to clip my seat belt. “Would you rather sit in a ball pit of take-out cups and gym socks?”
“Honestly, if it gave me something to poke fun of you for, then maybe,” I mutter, disarmed as usual by how perfectly put together he is.
“Good to know you’d willingly martyr yourself for the chance to give me a hard time,” he says dryly.
I take in more details of the car. “It’s almost creepily clean in here,” I observe. “Are you one of those guys who polishes his tires on the weekends, or did you just dispose of a dead body and bleach the evidence away?”
“Definitely the latter,” he says, putting the car into drive with a soft chiming sound. “I couldn’t possibly have had it detailed because I knew I’d have a guest in my car and wanted them to be comfortable.”
This pulls me up short. “You got your car detailed? For me?”
His shoulders tense like he’s been caught red-handed. “I bring Taco with me to Larkwood on the weekends. I didn’t think you’d appreciate sitting in a car that smelled like anxious cat.”
“That’s… really thoughtful of you,” I say, touched by yet another display of above-and-beyond concern for me, “but I’m not that high maintenance. I’m pretty sure my floorboard mats are more crumbs than mat at this point.”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You and Henry really are perfect for each other.”
It’s like an ice cream scoop has reached in and hollowed out my stomach. “He told you?” I ask after a moment. “That he asked me out?”
Jude turns onto the main road without looking at me, but a muscle jumps in his jaw. “I encouraged him to do it.”
I’m unprepared for the sting I feel at discovering that my ill-advised crush on Jude has been completely one-sided.
I was almost sure he felt the same way. But that’s kind of my track record, isn’t it?
Falling for men who aren’t as interested in me as I am in them.
I try not to get swallowed by embarrassment.
“He also told me you said yes,” Jude says into the silence.
His voice is neutral, but his knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Why? If he’s encouraging his best friend to ask me out, then he certainly isn’t interested in me himself—at least, not beyond basic attraction.
“I’m excited,” I say decisively. “He really took me by surprise.”
“Why should you be surprised?” Jude asks, sounding vaguely offended.
“Um, maybe because the last time I was asked out on a real date was when ‘camera phones’ were the hot new thing?”
At this, Jude gives a skeptical snort. “I find that hard to be-lieve.”
His easy dismissal of my lack of dating history registers like a compliment he didn’t intend to give, and my heart does an illegal skip.
“Do I need to remind you that I live alone, in an isolated cottage, in a town with a significant geriatric population? Not exactly a hotbed for dating, unless I decide to start strolling the yacht marinas, hunting for a sugar daddy.”
“Aligning with someone who has greater means than yourself is a perfectly valid and common dating strategy.”
“For what? The Middle Ages?” I ask, unable to stop my smile.
“For anyone whose top priority is financial stability, rather than romance. I have plenty of clients who openly acknowledge it as their primary relationship aim.”
“Wait, so you’re telling me that if committed relationships weren’t your worst fear, and someone told you that they’d like to ‘align with you’ for financial gain, you’d be open to it?”
He frowns, considering. “Why not? If there were sufficient compatibility and attraction, I wouldn’t be opposed to taking care of someone that way. And I’d much prefer honesty to a charade.”
“Is it honesty you’re after, or do you just want someone to call you Daddy?” I ask, grinning over at him.
I’m definitely not imagining the brush of pink that appears on his cheekbones or the way he shifts in his seat at my joke. “Trying to pin down my kinks again, are you?”
This time, it’s my turn to flush. “That is not what I was doing.” I tack on an “Ew,” just for emphasis.
He tilts his head and glances at me. “You could always just ask me to list them alphabetically.”
“Is that confirmation you have some, then?”
“Are you looking for confirmation?”
“No!” I cry, resisting the urge to stick my head out the window for some fresh air and to possibly get sucked out.
His responding smirk reveals the line in his cheek that’s too long to be called a dimple, but is, unfortunately, just as attractive. “Well, since you obviously spend all your time thinking about this…”
“I don’t!”
“I do.”
The tone in which he says these two simple words is so shaded in ambiguity, I want a translation app.
But I’m also aware that clarity on this topic will only mean trouble.
The silence between us stretches out like a path covered in warning signs.
Turn back now! Don’t take the bait! Booby traps ahead!
But apparently, I’m illiterate, because I run right past all of them and say in a rush, “You do what, exactly?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Have kinks.”
He says this so nonchalantly that it takes me several seconds to actually process it.
“Oh,” is what eventually leaves my mouth as he stops at the last red light before the highway. I don’t voice the obvious next question: Which kinks?
But it’s like he hears me think it anyway, because he looks over at me, all traces of humor gone.
I only realize my hands and skirt are pinned between my squirming thighs when his gaze drops to them.
I freeze. For an indeterminable number of seconds, neither of us moves.
Breathes. When his eyes finally drag back up to mine, what I see in them makes my stomach flip inside out and backward.
But then someone hits their horn behind us, and we both jump. Jude quickly looks away and hits the accelerator, shoulders rigid, hands tight. Meanwhile, the seat warmer I was enjoying suddenly feels like a griddle for my ass. I take a much-needed breath.
What the hell just happened?