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“You could never be ordinary. You look nice. I like it.” Besides, not everything about her had gone mainstream. She was still rocking the combat boots.
“Come in! Come in! I shouldn’t leave you shivering outside!” She shepherded me into her Bohemian space. Canvases and paints littered every surface. It was difficult to discern any furniture past the easels and drop cloths that blanketed the area.
“Let’s go to my room. There are more places to sit there.”
I followed her down the hall. Isla was right. Her room was an oasis away from the cluttered sea of paint and art supplies in the living room and kitchen.
She sat on her neatly made bed. It had always surprised me that she took pride in making her bed every day when otherwise she was such a free-spirited, rule-shirking artist, but she’d been like that her whole life. I curled up on the comfy reading chair in the corner and felt like we’d gone back in time, hanging out together and chatting about high school boys.
“So tell me the news,” she said, pulling her legs up and winding her arms around her knees.
I lifted my chin but couldn’t stop the smile that was swimming up to the surface. “What makes you think I have news?”
“Maybe since I’ve known youforever,and your face doesn’t hide a single one of your emotions.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to look solemn. “What’s my face saying now?”
She gave me a big smile. “That you’ve met someone. Out with it! Spill!” She lay down on her stomach and propped her chin in her hands. If she’d had wings on her back, she would’ve looked like an interested pixie. She’d always reminded me of one with her short, blonde hair, petite frame, and boundless energy.
“He’s a model!” I blurted out with a giggle.
Her eyes widened. “Wow! Really? In Atlanta?”
I shook my head and picked at a loose thread on the outer seam of my pant leg. “No, he’s from here.”
“Here?” Isla sat up with a frown. “I thought you just got here last night.”
“I did. We did.” And I’d had to endure the two-hour flight sitting next to Lindsay who made out with Troy on her other side the entire flight. When she’d come up for air, she dictated wedding tasks to me. “I arrived last night and have been looking for any excuse to avoid Lindsay since then.”
Her face screwed up in pity. “After what you’ve been going through at work, the last thing you need is more stress outside of it. Has Lindsay been the Bridezilla to end all Bridezillas?”
There was the fact that she had saddled me with Janet. “Well, no. I’ve seen plenty of episodes ofWhen Brides Attack, and even I have to admit Lindsay isn’t that bad. She’s a lot, though, and she expects a lot. It’s better if I keep out of sight so she forgets I’m there.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “And all this led you to dating a model how?”
“Oh.” I pulled my legs up onto the chair and gave a little smile. “I ducked Lindsay and escaped into the city and discovered him posing in Bainbridge’s famous Christmas window display.”
“And?” She twirled her finger in the air like she could unspool the story faster.
I went on. “I guess he works as a mannequin. He’s the center of the big display they do every morning from ten till noon.”
She whistled. “That’s a long time to stay perfectly still.”
“It really is. I could’ve sworn he was just a regular plastic mannequin, but as I was staring at him, he turned his head and winked at me.”
“Eeee!” Isla squealed. “That issocool! He broke character for you. It’s like one of those guards at Buckingham Palace finally moving when someone tickles their nose—and then asking for their phone number.”
“I know.” My insides warmed with the memory of Tanner’s sole focus on me. “When the show was over, I went into the store and looked for him.” I frowned, still not quite understanding the events that followed. “I met a strange employee lady who took me to him. He was just standing in the storage room statue-still.”
Her nose wrinkled. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah. And then Faye—that was the employee—she was all, ‘I’ll leave you two alone.’ And I started looking around for the cameras because I thought Lindsay must be messing with me, but as soon as Faye left, he and I started talking, and we have a date for lunch tomorrow!”
Isla shrieked and pounded on the bed. “Woohoo! Yeah, you do. That’s awesome.”
I smiled so wide it hurt. “I know! I can’t wait. I just wish he’d been free for lunch today. I only have four more days till Lindsay’s wedding, and I don’t want to waste any time.”
She nodded knowingly. “I get it. You’re hoping the hot model guy will squire you to your sister’s nuptials, and Josh won’t think you’re sad and lonely.”
