Page 2 of The Wedding Favor

With a sigh, I slid to the next photo. This was a favorite of mine. That Christmas four years ago when Aidan had slid a promise ring onto my finger. Photo Me had her hand held out to the camera to show it off, platinum-blonde hair messy from the early morning wake-up. Aidan wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking at me with such love that it made my breath catch even now.

Someone knocked. I froze. Maybe they’d bumped into it on the way to the bathroom. But no, another knock, this one stronger. I shoved my phone in my pocket, my heart racing. I plucked the jar of pickles from the ground and clutched it to my chest like the emotional support pickles they were. Also, a good weapon.

“I know you’re in there,” a voice said. A man’s voice, quiet and deep. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “I brought you a piece of cake.”

I didn’t answer.

“I thought you might want some.” A pause. Then, “No one is paying any attention. The karaoke is starting.”

I ripped the door open in outrage. “There is not karaoke at my⁠—”

I snapped my mouth closed mid-sentence. I wasn’t sure who I expected to find on the other side of the door, but it wasn’t Abraham Ramos. The wayward son who’d left home at nineteen and stayed gone for eleven years, cutting off all ties with his parents. A few years ago, when the oldest Ramos brother was getting married, Abe and his parents made up, or, in the case of him and his father, they were at least learning to talk to each other without it breaking into an argument. Just two months ago, he moved to Two Harts permanently.

We’d met before, of course. No one could sneeze in this town without everyone knowing it by lunchtime. Plus, we had a connection—my sister, Mae, and his sister, Ali, had been best friends since elementary school. Despite that, I’d never had a real conversation with the guy. He had to be at least ten years older than me.

“Nice pickles.” He smiled, revealing a set of white teeth that weren’t quite perfect. One of his incisors had grown in a little crooked, and it made his smile boyish.

That was the only boyish thing about him.

Tattoos covered his arms, the backs of his hands, and one or two climbed like inky vines up his neck. My eye caught on a colorful bouquet of flowers that looked like they’d been drawn by a child. There was a stylized compass on one forearm. On the inside of one wrist, there were words I couldn’t make out and a large tree that looked weirdly familiar. Besides the tattoos, he had dime-sized ear gauges, the concept of which befuddled most of the town, and a small silver hoop in one of his eyebrows. His dark wavy hair fell almost to his shoulders in a messy way that practically invited a woman to run her hands through it. Dark scruff covered his face but didn’t hide the square jaw.

But it was his light brown eyes that caught my attention. They radiated mischief and kindness in equal parts. Like a man who would bring a woman cake while she was hiding in a supply closet but make her work a little before he gave it to her.

Objectively, Abe was hot. If you were into that bad boy sort of look.

I was not. I was into guys like Aidan with his preppy glasses and yacht-music-meets-frat-boy fashion sense, the golf lesson he’d taken because they were “good for business,” and the membership to Costco because shopping in bulk was so “economical.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, confused.

“Weird way to say thank you for the cake.” His eyes darted to the end of the hallway. He rushed into the closet, forcing me to shuffle back. The door closed, and he leaned against it. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to react, let alone protest.

“Sorry,” he said, a little sheepishly. “Someone was coming.”

I eyed the plate with that little slice of heaven on it. “Did someone send you in here to come get me? I don’t know why they think that would work. Do you even know my name?”

One corner of his mouth ticked up in a half-smirk which should have made him look like a jerk. Instead, his hotness seemed to grow exponentially. He might not be my type, but I wasn’t dead.

“Iris Sampson, wear-er of black t-shirts, known about the land for her sharp tongue, and apparently, a pickle lover.”

“Sharp tongue?”

“The sharpest. I’ve been told to not get on your bad side.”

“Funny. I’ve been told to stay away from you.”

“My reputation precedes me.” He crossed one ankle over the other. I kept my eye on the cake. Just in case it looked like it might tumble to the ground. “What do they say?”

“Keep the women away from him. His tattoos and long hair will hypnotize them. They won’t be able to resist his magnetism.”

He laughed. It was a nice laugh, low and smooth. “They do not say that.”

“They do. They say that you’re a charmer and a flirt. You were a whole agenda item on the last town hall meeting.”

“Oh, really?” He grinned slowly, and I clocked his dimple. Oh, that was a dangerous thing, that dimple. Absolutely diabolical.

“Yep. You came in between Mr. Cotton’s ongoing concerns about alien abductions and the announcement that peanuts were no longer allowed at the bake sale.” Truthfully, the peanut ban discussion had become very heated.

“Mr. Cotton was obsessed with aliens when I was a kid.”