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Did she give me bad directions on purpose?
I spend what feels like another ten minutes wandering the halls in search of a glowing red “exit” sign when I round a corner and bump right into Stone himself.
“Oh, geez. I’m so sorry,” I say.
“Hey.” His midnight black suit and navy tie give him an ominous presence, unlike the more relaxed vibe his khakis and t-shirt gave off Friday night at the concert.
“I was just meeting with Mike …” I point behind me, but honestly I have no idea if there’s where I came from. I’m beyond lost at this point.
“I figured.” He drinks me in. “Sorry about last night … Jude stopped by unexpectedly.”
“Is everything okay?”
He winces. “I can’t really go into details.”
I know better than to pry. And besides, it’s none of my business even if I’m extremely curious …
“You’re a good friend,” I say.
“I know.” There’s a flicker of a smile on his face that disappears before it fully registers.
“Hey, you want to grab lunch or something? There’s a taco truck setting up around the corner …”
He checks his watch, his full lips moving from one side to the other. “Yeah. I’ve got some time.”
“Okay, cool,” I say. “I’ll be completely honest; I’m lost so I’m just going to follow you.”
He chuckles, nodding toward the hallway to my right.
“I ran into your friend a few minutes ago,” I say when we step off the elevator a minute later. “The one you were supposedly not in love with.”
“Becca?” he asks.
“I don’t know her name. I just know I asked her how to get out of here and she gave me bad directions.”
He sniffs. “Sounds about right.”
“What’s the story with you two anyway?” I ask as we hit the sidewalk.
“We were hooking up. She wanted more. I didn’t. She continued to step over the line. I ended things. End of story.”
“So she was falling for you.”
“She was falling for an idea of me,” he says, checking his phone as we walk. “She wasn’t falling for the real me.”
“How do you know?”
“I couldn’t tell you when her birthday is. Or what her favorite pizza topping is. What kind of music she likes. The name of her hometown. When I tell you it was purely physical …” he trails off.
“Did you even try to get to know her? What if she could’ve been the one? She must’ve felt something for you, there had to have been some chemistry?”
“Not for me there wasn’t. She’s vapid, vain, and dull—a trifecta of red flags.”
“Really? Aside from the dirty looks, she’s very beautiful. And she must be smart and driven if she’s an attorney.”
“See, that’s exactly the problem with people these days—we’re constantly projecting our ideas onto people we hardly know. That’s why half of all marriages end in divorce. People fall in love with the idea of marriage or the idea of what a marriage should be instead of falling in love with the flawed human being they’re marrying.”
“Damn, Stone. That’s deep for noon on a Tuesday.”
We stop at a food truck around the corner, nab a place in line, and grab an assortment of tacos to share before finding a park bench.
“Do you ever think you’ll get married someday?” I ask. “I know it’s a random question, but I’m curious given your profession if you’re leaning one way or another.”
“To be honest, I don’t think about it. It’s not even on my radar.”
“If you met the right person would you?”
He takes a bite, chews, and wipes a drop of sauce from the corner of his mouth. “She’d have to be one hell of a woman.”
“Call me crazy, but I still believe in finding that one person and spending my life with them. I love the idea of sharing my life with another person, knowing their nuances and idiosyncrasies, having little inside jokes, traveling the world together, making our own traditions and building a life all our own. People say life is short, but I disagree. I think life is long.”
“Couldn’t agree more on that last part, but I’d rather spend my long life alone than with the wrong person.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll both find the right person someday.”
“Sounds like exactly the kind of thing a romance novelist would say.” He shoots me a wink and nudges his shoulder against mine.
“I’ll hold my breath if you hold yours.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Forty
Stone
* * *
Jude’s been living in my house for five days now.
Five.
Long.
Days.
Every night when I get home from work, I’m held prisoner to his pent-up ramblings about Stassi. By now, I’m quite certain there isn’t a damn thing I don’t know about the woman, from her elaborate eleven-step skincare routine, to her emotional PMS tendencies, to her mother’s affair with the Spanish tennis instructor. He also has the audacity to say that according to Stassi, they don’t even know if Sutton is her full-blooded brother or a product of an affair her mother had twenty-five years ago. Never mind that we still haven’t discussed the way he handled the whole best man line-up swap situation.
