Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kate
The bridesmaids’ dresses are nearly finished, and Blaine and I are at the bridal shop this afternoon with Penny for our final fitting. The bride didn’t have to be here for this, but I think Penny decided to come so I wouldn’t have to deal with Blaine, alone. As I pull the soft layers of organza over my curves and adjust the dress, I feel like a fairytale princess.
This creation is pure perfection, and it hugs me in all the right places, making me feel beautiful. The zipper is along my side, making it possible for me to dress by myself, and once I have it secured, I adjust my boobs in the strapless bra I’m wearing and smooth the bell sleeves that hang off my shoulders.
When I step out into the main room where Penny and the seamstress wait, my best friend gasps, and her eyes immediately begin to water .
“You look beautiful, Kate,” she breathes, making my own eyes sting with emotion.
“I love this dress,” I say as I step up onto the box in front of the mirror.
The seamstress approaches with a soft smile, bending over to check the length of the dress. She let out the hem after my last fitting, and now the edge floats right over the tops of my feet.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t go with something a little more form-fitting,” Blaine complains as she walks out of the dressing room area. “This thing looks like a potato sack on me.”
My spine stiffens. I know Penny picked this style for my body. She wanted me to feel beautiful on her big day because that’s the kind of person she is. Blaine can freaking deal with it. She looks gorgeous every day , for Christ’s sake. Can’t she just give me this one?
“You can’t even tell I have a waist,” Blaine goes on, cinching the material to accentuate her slim body. “Ugh, I hate this color, too.”
Something in my brain snaps. It must be the part that exerts impulse control, because I spin around, hop off the box, and stride toward Blaine without an ounce of hesitation.
“Shut up,” I shout as I come to a stop in front of her.
“Excuse me?” she says, flinching back like I’d slapped her.
“Just shut the fuck up, Blaine. This is Penny’s day. Not yours. You’ll wear what she tells you to wear and smile like you love every minute of it. Now, stop complaining, and let the God damn seamstress do her job. ”
My hair arcs out behind me as I spin around and stomp back toward the dressing room. I’m fuming while I pull the dress off and place it back in the garment bag. I start to calm as I pull my clothes back on, and by the time I’m ready to leave the small cubicle, I’m feeling a bit guilty despite the residual anger.
I can’t believe I did that. The last thing I want is for my lost temper to cause Penny any more stress. Blaine studiously ignores me from her perch on the box while the seamstress hovers around her, and when I pass by Penny, I shoot her an apologetic look.
She shakes her head before her lips turn up into a wide grin, then she mouths the word “badass.” Laughter bubbles up my throat, but I manage to stifle it before nodding, telling her to have fun on the dinner cruise tonight and walking out the door without so much as another glance at Blaine.
Then I walk straight to the Grill, belly up to the bar, and beg Jasper to put in an extra-large order of chili-cheese fries for me. I need comfort food, and there’s nothing better than gooey, cheesy fries with loads of spicy chili.
I prop my elbow on the bar and rest my cheek against my fist, letting out a long sigh. I know I shouldn’t have blown up like that, no matter how much Penny tried to make me feel better about it. Blaine may be a pain in the ass, but she’s Logan’s sister, which means she’s a few days away from being Penny’s sister.
For the rest of her life.
And since Penny and I are best friends, I’ll probably spend the rest of my life interacting regularly with the woman. Hell, even if she wasn’t Logan’s sister, this is a small island. I couldn’t stay away from her if I tried. Not completely, anyway.
I’m still brooding when someone slides onto the stool next to me. I glance over to see Tucker’s smile, and this feels like déjà vu all over again. I try to smile back at him, but I must suck at it because he frowns and tilts his head.
“Is everything okay? What’s wrong?” he asks, and I shake my head.
Jasper places the giant plate of fries in front of me, and I motion for him to grab a second fork for Tucker. There’s no way I can eat all this, even as grumpy and in need of comfort food as I am right now, so I might as well share.
It’s kind of our thing, anyway.
“Blaine got to me, again,” I murmur as I stab a fry with my fork. “I kind of lost it on her in front of Penny and the bridal shop seamstress.”
“What happened?” he asks, twisting on his stool to face me and leaning closer.
Taking a deep breath, I describe the encounter, not leaving anything out. When I finish, Tucker stares at me silently for a long moment, then shakes his head and grunts.
“She really is a raging bitch, isn’t she?” he says finally, and a little shock shivers through me. “I swear, I don’t know how she and Logan were raised in the same house by the same parents. They couldn’t be more different.”
A dark chuckle vibrates in my chest as I lean in and stage-whisper, “Penny and I decided she was a changeling when we were nine years old. I still haven’t found any evidence to disprove it.”
“A changeling?” he asks with a confused expression.
“It’s when faeries steal human babies and replace them with an unwanted faery child.”
“What?” he barks out on a laugh.
“Tell me Blaine doesn’t look and act like some kind of deranged pixie,” I say, then shove a forkful of fries into my mouth.
“You know, you might actually be right,” he says with another laugh, and whatever tension I was still holding in my muscles drains out of me as I laugh with him.
He takes a bite of fries and chews slowly, his gaze turning vacant for a moment before he meets my eyes again. He chews for another moment, swallows, and clears his throat before speaking again.
“I bet you look sexy as hell in that dress, and Blaine’s just jealous.”
Heat pools in my cheeks and my belly at those words. My first instinct is to disagree. Blaine could never be jealous of me . But then I remember how wearing that dress made me feel, and I meet his liquid, blue gaze.
“You’re right,” I breathe, then give him a single nod. “I do look sexy as hell in that dress.”
His voice deepens as he says, “I can’t wait to see you in it.”
Tension fills the space between us for several long beats, then Tucker grins and scoops up another bite of fries and shovels it into his mouth. I watch the muscles tick in his jaw as he chews, and when he looks back over at me, his eyes crinkle around the corners as he swallows, never dropping his smile.
“You better eat before I finish the whole thing,” he says, pointing his fork at the veritable mountain of chili-cheese fries on the plate.
A laugh bursts out of me at the absurdity. I don’t think we could finish the whole plate if we were both starving to death. There’s pride in Tucker’s expression as he takes another bite, watching me the entire time. My heart flutters in my chest.
Making me happy makes him happy.
Oh, God .
Clearing my throat, I stab a fry coated in cheese and hold it up in front of me. “Is cheese a carb?”
“The line is butter, Regina George,” he says without missing a beat.
I drop my fork to the plate and stare at him for a beat with my mouth hanging open before asking, “You’ve seen Mean Girls ?”
“Hasn’t everyone?” he asks with a shrug.
“Sure, but you’ve seen it enough times to recognize a misquote?”
He shrugs again, and I reach over and wrap my fingers around his bicep. “That is, like, so fetch .”
Tucker chuckles, then dips his head and nips his teeth at my fingers with a growl. I squeal and jerk my hand back, and he grins at me before taking another bite from our plate. He stares straight ahead as he chews, giving me a chance to study his profile.
He’s so damn handsome. And so kind. He’s funny. Charming.
Everything I could ever want in a partner .
Except for one glaring problem. He doesn’t live here. He lives in San Francisco, and I can’t see a world where either one of us gives up our lives to join the other. Not for someone we’ve known for a handful of days, anyway.
And he’s leaving after the wedding. Monday, he’ll be gone, and this week will be nothing but a memory.
If I were a more experienced woman, I would’ve taken him home with me days ago. That’s a fact. But I’m not experienced. Hell, I’ve never even made it past first base, and I can barely count the sloppy, drunk kiss I got from Jamie Halligan at a party in eleventh grade as a base hit. It was more like a bunt where the fielders made an error, and I barely hit the bag in time.
My inexperience, coupled with Penny’s warnings, have driven my decision-making thus far, but does any of that really matter?
I like Tucker. A lot.
He’s proven to be kind, respectful, and protective in all his dealings with me this week, so why would he be any different in the bedroom? All other things aside, he’d be a damn near-perfect choice for a woman’s first time.
But I’m not blind. I know the emotional fallout of going there with him, then his leaving, would be rough. I may have never gone there before, but I do know myself well enough to know I’d never be a casual-sex kind of girl. Feelings would have to be involved.
Like the kind of feelings I’ve been developing all week for the man beside me.
So it comes down to this…if I were to sleep with him, would the pain I feel when he goes home be better or worse than the regret I’d feel if I didn’t shoot my shot?
“What are you thinking about over there?” he asks, startling me out of my internal debate.
Pressing a palm over my heart, I take a deep breath. “Nothing, really. Just zoned out for a minute.”
“Mm, hmm,” he hums, but doesn’t push.
I take another bite, the tension in my chest eases, and our conversation moves on to other things. That strong sense of comfort I’ve felt with him from the beginning solidifies, and before we know it, the plate is empty, and we’re both groaning over having eaten too much.
When we decide to leave, Tucker walks me to my golf cart, which is still parked in front of the bridal shop. The sky is darkening, and the air has cooled, and it’s a beautiful evening.
“Penny and Logan are probably headed off to their date by now,” I murmur as we walk.
“That was a good thing you did, making sure they won,” he replies just as quietly, like loud voices would somehow shatter the peaceful perfection surrounding us.
“It was nothing,” I say, stopping beside my cart. “Well, this is me. Do you want a ride to the B&B?”
He shakes his head, then smirks. “Nah. I think I should walk off some of those fries.”
“Or,” I say, my heart pounding against my ribs as I throw caution to the wind, “we could go back to my house for a drink.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. Why did I say that? What if he says no? Holy shit, what if he says yes ?
I can’t breathe.
Tucker’s chest expands as he takes a deep breath. I see his hands clench into fists in my peripheral vision, and I’m going to die from a lack of oxygen if he doesn’t say something. Anything .
“I’d love to,” he says finally.
I breathe in harshly through my mouth, finally filling my starved lungs.
“But I really shouldn’t.”
The air whooshes back out of me as he adds that last bit. My skin crawls with mortification, and my feet take an involuntary step back.
“Kate, I––”
“No,” I cut in before he can finish, then plaster a fake, watery smile on my face. “It’s fine. I understand.”
“Kate.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, the words coming out a little too quickly as I jump into the cart and shove the key into the ignition. “Goodnight, Tucker.”
His mouth moves, and I assume he’s telling me goodbye, but I can’t hear him over the pounding of my pulse roaring in my ears. Stomping on the accelerator, I drive away before he can make more excuses.
I’m such an idiot. Just because he’s been nice to me all week doesn’t mean he’s attracted to me. We’re just members of the same wedding party that were teamed up together. He got stuck with me, and he’s making the best of it.
He doesn’t want me.
Of course, he doesn’t, dumbass .
God, I don’t know how I’ll ever face him again. I feel like such a fool .
Stop it, Kate. You can do this. Hold your head high, be his friend, and get through this week. You can break down next week when he’s long gone .
I straighten my spine and give myself a single nod. That’s what I’ll do. Pretend like that little scene never happened, everything is normal, and his rejection meant as little to me as it did to him.
It’ll be easy. Right?