27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Effie wandered around Glitter I’m trying to make this great.”
“It’s great every year,” Hope encouraged.
This was Louisa’s fantasy, and she wanted to best it year after year.
Hope couldn’t fault her for that, even if she wasn’t entirely certain how emptying the space weeks ahead of time would help.
Louisa always needed visual aids, so maybe it had more to do with requiring a blank canvas than anything else.
Hope understood the urge to keep getting better. It’s how she felt each time she sat down to write. She never wanted to slip backward, to write less than how she had in a previous work.
Growth was life.
Louisa turned her attention to Hope, walking the end of the tape back into its reel. She held the clipboard out so Hope could see.
“Should we put the musicians in that corner blocking the doors on the right side of the fireplace, or should we go full Bridgerton and set them up in a circle in the center of the room?”
“Do you think the space is big enough for that?”
“Wait,” Ellen said from the breakfast table where she’d shoved aside the mess. “You’re going to have them play inside? They’re usually on the back patio.”
“Really, Ellen. Keep up. This room is going to be full ballroom this year.”
“But there’s more space outside. It will be too loud.”
“It will be more authentic!” Louisa chirped.
“Authentic to what?” Ellen’s gaze shot to Hope who shrugged her shoulders. It was the first she’d heard of it.
“Imagine it. You’re in here dancing and flirting and twirling, but you need a breath of fresh air, so you go outside to the garden and patio for a quiet moment alone when you’re followed by the brooding gent who’s been sipping his whiskey on the outskirts of the dance floor all night.
You look into each other’s eyes and kiss beneath the starlight.
” Her eyes were aglow beneath her chocolate-brown fringe of bangs.
“You can’t promise starlight. Could be overcast,” Ellen mused unhelpfully.
“I can promise twinkle lights! Strung over the whole patio,” Louisa snapped.
Hope wasn’t sure how much more bickering she could take. Bug agreed with a swift kick. She handed the tape measure back to Louisa who was lost to her battle with Ellen. “Lou, you don’t even have a date.”
“Where in that scenario did I say it was a date that followed you out?”
“You’re getting worked up.”
“You’re being difficult for no reason.”
“You’ve overturned the entire house!”
Hope slipped out of the great room toward the foyer.
She hesitated at the hobby room doors, peering inside.
The space was vacant and her favorite plush chair by the window bathed in sunlight.
She ducked into the room, pulling the glass doors shut behind her, dulling the sounds of Louisa and Ellen’s debate.
Hope snuggled into the chair, cracked open her book, and sighed.
She was only three pages in before her thoughts distracted her. Wonderings of Brayden’s whereabouts, what he was thinking about the baby, whether he would ever take her back circled her like vultures. She had to see him, had to get more answers. She had to know if she’d lost him forever.
“That morning before we met, I inspected a facility that is home to a lot of confidential dealings. I had to have a special background check before I even went in. When I got there, two guys dressed in all black with guns holstered on their hips escorted me to all of my stops. In some wings, they’d make me look at my feet, lead me into a pitch-black room, and guide me to the extinguishers and AED machines.
They’d turn the light on but stand right behind me to make sure I only looked at what I was inspecting.
When I finished, they’d turn the light off, instruct me to look at my feet, and guide me back out.
I swear they had to have night vision contacts or something because I couldn’t see my own nose in there. ”
Effie laughed from where she lay on Theo’s bed and his heart warmed. “No wonder you were so surly that day. Who knew a career in safety could be so covert?”
“Not me.” Theo breathed a contented sigh.
It felt comfortable laying in bed together.
It felt even better that it was at her suggestion when she’d learned he kept all his old yearbooks in his room.
She’d thoroughly enjoyed finding photos of him on stage for theater productions and comparing his braced baby face to the man before her.
Under normal circumstances, he would have hidden away his awkward phase, but he enjoyed letting Effie see his whole evolution.
“Did you really like the song or were you pacifying me?”