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I cut her off. “Nope. Nope, I’m not interested, Ruth.”
Her eyes narrow. “In which part? Theo, or me matching you?”
I look at the ceiling before I speak. “Both. You know I love you and Layla, and I one hundred percent believe in the matching you two do, but I want to find my own love. And two, I am not. Interested. In. Theo. Abbot.” I state each word clearly, with purpose. I don’t need her to get any further ideas about this.
She makes a noise and pushes off her perch.
“Well then, I apologize for offering to find one of my favorite people someone to love.” She brushes at imaginary wrinkles on her slacks.
“Ruth.” I nearly whine. She’s not going to give me grief for this.
“Oh no, darling, I’m not mad, just saddened you don’t want to find love as badly as I want you to.”
I bark out a laugh at her ridiculousness. “Oh my goodness. You deserve an award for that piece of acting.”
She sticks her nose in the air. “You know, I went to the Tony’s and the Oscars a few times back in my day with Dorthy. She’s actually won a Tony.” This seems to curb her disappointment and attempt to guilt me. I’ve known this woman for a decade, and yet I still haven’t given in to her request to match me. I use the opportunity to switch gears.
“Oh, how is Dorthy? I ask.
“She’s just fine. I’m actually going to go visit her in New York next month for a few days,” she says as she starts to walk to the doorway.
“Oh, that will be fun,” I reply. Her best friend Dorthy lives in New York, which is where Ruth was born and raised. Even though their friendship is long-distance, the two are still very active in each other’s lives.
“Yes, I’m told her building has been overtaken with smoking hot eye candy these days.”
“Oh, so you are on the prowl, then?” I giggle at the thought.
She waggles her brows. “No, my dear, but it’s always fun to watch Dorthy hit on unsuspecting young men.”
I chuckle. I’ve never met the woman, but I’m sure it is.
Ruth leaves my office and I let out a deep sigh. That was an exhausting conversation. Ruth is normally pretty easy to talk to, but I feel rung out.
The last thing I want to do is think about Theo Abbot, a.k.a. Mr. Grumpy, but damn it, he’s all I can think about now. Turning back to my computer, I click open a new web browser tab and start to type in his name but close out the tab before hitting enter.
“Nope, you’re not doing this, Cassie,” I mutter to myself.
I will not entrain outlandish theories that grumpy Theo Abbot would match with a sunny, happy person like me.
I click over to my email to force myself into safer territories when I see several new emails. I send a little thank you up to the big man upstairs for the distraction.
The first email I open up is from a bride I worked with last month. She and her new husband got married on a beach in Mexico. I wasn’t the planner, but HEA coordinated the wedding from afar. The email is about how happy she was with the wedding and the work we did for her, and that she just submitted a five-star review on Google and Facebook. She mentions that if she could have done one thing differently, she would have taken me up on the offer to find her a local, professional photographer.
I chuckle at the thought because I remember when it came to securing the photog, she begrudgingly wanted me to find her one, but her grandfather was a studio photographer and had his heart set on taking her wedding photos. She shares a link to a cloud drive for me to check out the photos with the approval for me to use what I would like for our blog and image diary of our coordination of her wedding.
Clicking the link, I see several folders with the different events. Excited to see how gorgeous the ceremony was, I click on that event first. As I start to scroll through the images, I notice that they are quite good and wonder what the issue was.
When I get to the fifteenth or so photo, I suddenly notice it.
I gasp. “Oh, oh my.” And fall into a fit of giggles. Because oh my goodness, there are so many boobs.
I can’t wait to share this with the rest of the team.
Chapter 6
PUNCHED IN THE GUT
THEO
