I already know how he’d respond:It’s personal.But I want him to know that even if we’re nothing more than two people in mutual grief, thrown together by circumstance, he can still count on me to share this loss. So, I say, “I guess that means you’re stuck with me, then.”
He lets out a ghost of a laugh, keeping his eyes on the road. “Trust me, Gracie, you’re the one stuck withme. I fully plan on sending you traumatizing pictures of Agatha on every major holiday.”
I can’t help the grin that stretches across my face. “I keep meaning to ask—did she ever mention me to you?”
His full lips hitch into a rueful smirk. “Oh yeah. You were always the cute, single wedding planner she wanted to introduce me to.”
“Hmm. Kind of jealous that she chose to go with ‘cute’ when your designation was always ‘outrageously handsome.’?”
His eyes find mine for a moment. “I may have downplayed what she actually called you. For the sake of propriety.”
“Screw propriety, I want compliments!” I laugh.
“Good thing no one would accuse you of being demanding.”
Smacking his arm, I say, “What did she call me?”
He clears his throat, and then, in an uncanny impression of Agatha’s crinkly old-lady voice, says, “?‘Just tell me when you want me to introduce you to my gorgeous wedding planner, Judy. You’ll love her—she’s smart as a whip and looks like Audrey Hepburn with an ass.’?”
Laughter shoots out of me the same moment nostalgic longing weaves through my chest. I never thought I’d hear those words again, but listening to Jude repeat them in the same cheeky tone Agatha always used feels like casting them in gold. He was right earlier. The memories I’ve cherished alone somehow feel more real when they’re shared with him. No matter what else happens between us, the love we shared for Agatha will always be there, linking us with a bright, unbreakable thread.
Still grinning, I say, “I don’t know who to be more mortified for—me, because she shared her Audrey comparison with other people, or you, for that nickname.”
“Definitely feel sorrier for me. ‘Audrey with an ass’ is a fantasticcompliment, whereas I’ll have to endure a lifetime of Judge Judy jokes and bobbleheads from Henry.”
I laugh, and despite the barb of discomfort I feel when he mentions his friend, I find myself slipping back into the now-familiar current between us, letting myself get pulled irresistibly along. We keep talking, sharing our precious Agatha-isms like trading cards, and somehow, the hour-long drive flies by. When we pull up to the familiar strip of small businesses, I’m snorting and begging for photographic proof of the time Agatha pressured him into wearing a purple sequined bolero at their ballroom dance lessons.
“Sweetly Ever After Cakes,” Jude reads in a doubtful voice, squinting at the sign tacked between a pet supply store and a tanning salon.
“Don’t be so judgy, Judy.”
“You really went there. Wow.”
I stick my tongue out at him. “Come on, and benice. Val’s doing me a huge favor with this last-minute order.”
He opens his door before giving me a smile that cuts my breath short. “You have no idea howniceI can be, Gracie.”
And with that, he gets out and walks toward the cake shop, leaving me to pick up the pieces of my scattered composure.
I know I made the right decision in saying yes to Henry. I know what I should want. But as Jude turns to open the door for me, I also begin to understand that some cravings have no regard for “should” at all.
18GRACIE
Four Weeks Before the Wedding
Walking inside my friend Valerie’s cake shop is an automatic dopamine hit as every pore on my body absorbs the scent of warm chocolate and vanilla beans. The tasting room is small and chic with a selfie wall, and below its neon-pink sign that readsYou Had Me at Cakeare hundreds of Polaroid pictures of couples kissing. Through an open doorway at the back, I can hear the hum of a mixer at work.
“Oh my God,” Jude says, breathing in deeply. “Did I just get a contact high? From… sugar?”
“Quite possibly,” I say as a short, stressed-looking woman bustles into the room with a streak of flour beneath her hairnet. She isn’t anyone I recognize.
“Hello, hello,” she greets us, tucking a stray piece of frizzy blond hair into place. “You must be here for the tasting?”
“We are,” I say, glancing toward the back doorway. “Is Valerie here, by any chance?”
“No,” she says in a surprisingly severe tone. “She had one of her headaches and left me to make three rush orders on my own and conduct two tastings.”
Disappointment promptly turns into anxiety. Valerie is a vendor I really wanted Jude to meet, since Larkwood is one of her biggest sources of income during wedding season.
