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“I—I don’t know.” Worry rippled through her.
“Idoknow. You will break into the maintenance closet—definitely in your wheelhouse—and pilfer a box of Bic stick pens. Black, red, blue. Whatever you can find.”
“Red?” Unacceptable. The panic must have shown on her face. He reached up and smoothed the wrinkle from her brow with his thumb.
“No one will care. Not Ari. Not Ex. Not the guests. Roll with what life throws you sometime, and watch what happens. You heading off every potential problem isn’t what keeps the world spinning, Peaches. It does that on its own.”
“I wish I could be spontaneous.” She swallowed a gulp of her wine and tried to shake off the idea of red ink on the crisp white pages of the gold guest book.Appalling.
“Planner through and through, huh?”
“And back around and through again.”
He laughed. She liked hearing him laugh. Liked the way it crinkled the corners of his eyes and loosened his posture. She noticed she was sitting ramrod straight and purposely tried to relax her own posture. It was easier to do while wearing the flat sandals she’d changed into after the high heel snapped off one of her pumps. She’d stashed the spare pair of shoes in her bag in case of emergency this morning. One point for her for planning ahead.
“How’d you start wedding planning, anyway? And don’t give me a phone-it-in ‘It’s what I’m good at’ answer. I want the real story.”
“That’s going to require a lot more wine.”
“I can arrange for that.” He moved to stand and she put her hand on his arm to stop him. Warmth from his skin transferred to her palm. He was so much more attractive than when she’d first spotted him in Royal. Maybe because she knew him better now.
He folded his arms on the table in front of his beer. “C’mon, Peaches. No one is here but us. It’s completely off the record. Unless you still don’t trust me.”
“It’s not that,” she blurted out before she thought about it. Oddly enough, shedidtrust him. He’d been nothing but accommodating and agreeable. Plus, she liked finding out more about him. He operated so differently from her. He was sort of fascinating. “But if I tell you, you have to tell me something juicy about yourself.”
“You mean like my wedding conquests past?”
“Ew.”
“I’m joking.” He gave her another of those broad, crinkly smiles that made her belly clench and her face heat. His sincere expression towed her in when he amended, “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone. How about that?”
As stoic as Rylee appeared on the outside, shelovedsecrets. Intrigued, she pursed her lips. Trick’s gaze zoomed in on her mouth. She licked her bottom lip, watching as he shifted in his seat. A zing of awareness flitted through her veins.
While her past wasn’t a topic she typically discussed, she was aware that the situation with Trick was far from typical. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she warned him with three words. “Are you ready?”
“Born that way.” He grinned. “Hit me.”
“Okay. Here goes.”
Trick leaned in, expecting to hear a tale of a young, spunky, headstrong Rylee Meadows. Picturing her diving into the unknown excited him in a way that felt almost foreign. While he generally lived life flying by the seat of his pants, the women in his life rarely “excited” him in a way other than the physical. Rylee was a bold-faced exception to that rule. Not that he wasn’t physically attracted to her—he could hardly keep his mind off kissing her again—but he was also insatiably curious about her.
“I grew up in a country club, don’t-lift-a-finger household, I was taught that becoming a wife was the penultimate goal. I’d been dating a man two years older than my twenty-two, but Louis seemed older. He’d graduated with a degree in business, and had lined up a lucrative spot at my family’s company. President was in his future.”
“A professional.” Trick wasn’t surprised. Everything about Rylee screamed that she should be married to a doctor or a lawyer. Or the president of a company. “Does he still work for your family’s company?”
She nodded. That must suck.
“Anyway, my future was laid out for me. It wasn’t one I chose. My parents were thrilled that their daughter was engaged to a man who could provide, and had come from good stock.”
“Sounds sexy,” he said with a dab of jealousy. He couldn’t imagine referring to a significant other as “stock” but then he wasn’t from her world, was he? No one had expected too much from him after he’d been diagnosed with ADHD.
He’d been raised in an upper middle-class neighborhood in LA. His mom and dad worked hard every day. While his younger sister had been encouraged to pursue college, their parents hadn’t pressed Patrick in the same way. Cassie had gone from a high school student to a college student in a blink. Trick had attended film school, but had found a career adjacent to movies. He’d always done his own thing, made his own choices.
“I didn’t feel butterflies or sparks for Louis,” Rylee continued, “but I remember how well he was liked. I’d known him for years. He was a country-club kid, too. Nearly everyone in our families’ circles gushed over how “perfect” we were together, and how “beautiful” our future babies would be.”
Trick swallowed a mouth full of beer to keep from offering criticism. This Louis guy sounded bland. Tepid. Unforgivably boring. He didn’t know Rylee, but what he knew of her suggested that a cardboard cutout of a husband was the last thing she needed in her life. She deserved someone who would take care of her, not someone who expectedherto take care ofhim.
“I took a few college classes, but didn’t fully commit to a full-time curriculum. Just generals while I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. By the time Louis proposed that summer, his mind was made up. I wouldn’t work. He was making great money. I was going to be a wife, a mom and live out the rest of my days in wedded bliss.
