Chapter 17 Love’s Lookin’ Good on You #2
Jamie immediately recognized Robin’s voice and turned to his left, finding the bride’s sister smirking and clutching two glasses of wine, one red and one white, which she seemed to be enjoying in equal measure.
“Believe it or not, I did recognize that,” he replied, moving down the bar a few inches to close the space between them. “Eventually.”
“Then what the hell?” Robin was loud, and her Tennessee accent only exaggerated everything she said. “She was hot as fuck.”
Jamie chuckled, unable to deny that.
“Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on Lucy.
” She looked pained by the statement as she made it, scrunching her face until she’d rendered her beautiful makeup useless.
“She’s one of my best friends, and if you tell her I said this, I’ll cut off all that pretty hair of yours.
But, dude.” She shook her head, expelled a long, weary sigh, and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “You can do better.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t expecting that, but he could admit he liked hearing it. “Well, no, I’m not still hung up on Lucy.”
“Then what?” Her greenish eyes scanned his, seeming to beg him to make sense of this.
He could only shrug. “I just…wasn’t interested.”
“Do you know what kind of message that sends? If you’re not interested in her, then the rest of us don’t have a fuckin’ chance.”
“I don’t know who you think you’re foolin’. You could have anyone in this room, and you know it.”
“You’re not gonna flatter your way outta this, Gallagher. This is a giant blow to my self-esteem.”
“You’re drunk,” he noted, watching her finish one glass and move on to the next. “And where’s your date? He should be the arbiter of your self-esteem tonight, not me.”
Robin grinned at him, her twinkling gaze flitting across his face and then descending slowly until it landed on his wrist. “Excuse me, sir. Is that a Patek?” She pulled his arm in her direction, examining the alligator leather and gleaming gold timepiece. “Holy shit.”
“It is,” he said, laughing at her reaction.
“The checks from RH have been clearing, I see.”
Sheepish about the topic, Jamie searched for a way to downplay just how good business had been.
While partnering with Restoration Hardware a few years ago was an undeniable boon to his bank account, it changed his relationship with his work.
He never necessarily loved it, but lately, he found himself wondering whether he even liked it.
In fact, he hadn’t told anyone that he’d just turned down an A-list celebrity requesting some custom pieces.
It would surely sound ridiculous to just about anyone who understood anything about capitalism. Except maybe Eve.
“Things are okay,” he said. “I decided to take a break for the summer.”
“Shit, obviously you can afford to.” She was still inspecting his Calatrava like she might be able to telepathically transfer it to her own wrist if she tried hard enough.
“I mentioned to my mom you were charging thirteen grand for a table these days. She said you and your family always were uppity.”
He laughed again. His family went way back with Rachael and Robin’s, all the way to Memphis, where his mother and their mother had been best friends before any of them were born.
His dad was quite the opposite of anything resembling uppity , but that was probably an apt descriptor of Diane.
It was surely one of the reasons she left in the first place.
“Your mom said she was surprised I made it to the rehearsal dinner,” he said with a knowing nod. “Now I get it.”
“That’s nice,” Robin said. She finally released his hand but continued to gaze at the timepiece. “I’m happy for you.”
The two of them returned to their respective drinks: Robin to her wine, and Jamie to his whiskey. “Hey, can I ask you something kinda personal?” he said, thinking of Eve and the fact that she’d yet to reply to his text.
“Luckily, I’m too tipsy to care about couth.” She grinned, brushing her falling wavy brown hair from her slender face. “Shoot.”
“When you were dating that guy, Brendan? How did it go when you told him about Liv?”
“Oh.” She frowned as if she had to work to recall her last long-term relationship. “Well, his daughter and mine were in the same gymnastics class. That’s how we met. So he always knew about Liv.”
Jamie took in a sharp breath. “That is deeply unhelpful.”
“Is that why you didn’t flirt back with that girl?” Robin asked and sighed again. “Can you just be an adult and have a one-night stand for once? You don’t have to fall in love with everyone you fuck. Jesus Christ, Gallagher.”
“As much as I’m enjoying you jumping to all these wrong conclusions, no, that is not why I’m asking.” He was on the edge of needing a cigarette. “Just trying to figure out how to handle it once I do start dating.”
“Well, you and Jack are inseparable anyway, so it’s not like you can avoid the topic.” She was staring at his watch again as she spoke. “And whoever she is, if she’s gonna be worth it, she’s gotta be open to having a super-dedicated single dad in her life.”
Jamie nodded, even as his heart sank to his stomach, wondering what that meant for Eve and the fact that she clammed up whenever he even mentioned Jack’s name.
“Somebody better for you than Lucy was,” she added. “I cannot stress that enough.”
Amused, he sipped his drink just as his pocket buzzed, and he was relieved to find that Eve had finally replied:
Sat, Aug 16 9:01PM
Eve Ambroise: So what you’re saying is I’m not enough for you?
Jamie grinned more at her text than he had all night.
Jamie Gallagher: I didn’t know you were an option
Eve Ambroise: Oh, is that why you’ve spent the last two weeks propositioning *me*?
Jamie Gallagher: Lol, you’re such an asshole.
Eve Ambroise: Enjoy your wedding. Just not too much.
“Look at that smile.” Robin leaned into him drunkenly, amusement evident in her typically piercing eyes and crimsoned cheeks. “ Now I see why you turned down the model.”
Jamie also reddened as he set his phone down. “It’s not like that.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s not.”
“So if I tell you I don’t feel like going home alone tonight…”
Jamie frowned at what appeared to be his third pass of the night. “We’re not really trying to go back down that road, are we?”
“Don’t be such a girl. It wasn’t a road. It was friends with benefits, at best.”
“It was a long time ago,” he reminded her. He wasn’t sure if intoxication was speaking for Robin or actual desire, but either way, she was right. He couldn’t bring himself to acquiesce. Maybe because of Eve, maybe not. There was too much going on for him to parse it all now.
“That’s what I thought,” Robin said. “What’s her name?”
He made another face. “I don’t know if I’m ready to say yet. I don’t know if it’s going anywhere. She’s just here for the summer.”
“What, like she’s in day camp?”
“Like she’s on vacation,” he said, his serious tone starkly contrasting with Robin’s silliness. “She’s a playwright from New York. So she’s here writing.”
Robin looked impressed by that statement, and it made Jamie smile. Eve was definitely an impressive person.
“You want it to go somewhere,” she said with a knowingness in her eyes.
Jamie could feel his cheeks grow warm, his stomach doing backflips as he thought about the nights he spent with Eve.
The nights he wanted to spend with Eve. He pretended to be rubbing at his cheek in an effort to hide the smile trying to burst past his lips.
“I don’t know that I’ve felt this way about anyone.
It wasn’t love , but I don’t know…maybe like at first sight? Is that a thing?”
“Sounds like it was,” Robin said. Her smile seemed sad but supportive as she raised her nearly empty glass to him. “So I’m not sure why you’re wastin’ your ticking clock sittin’ here with me.”
Jamie considered that for a moment. He and Eve had a little more than a month?
Which translated to four or five stolen weekends, and here he was, hanging around a wedding he didn’t really want to be at, long after his duties as groomsman were over.
Why was he sitting there? He silently raised his glass in agreement, finished it, and shot up from his seat.
“I gotta go.”