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I left a few moments later, wanting to break that tension and go get our things. There was a welcome reception that evening, and we needed to get ready for it. Once I brought everything inside, Carmela took up residence in the restroom to get ready while I got dressed in the main room. As the sun set, she came out of the bathroom wearing a dark blue evening dress and looking absolutely stunning.
“Wow,” I said. “You look great.”
“You don’t look half bad yourself,” she said, smiling. “Come on. I need the extra time to get there on these damn metal monstrosities.”
We made our way across the bridge and to the beach where the welcome reception was being held by tiki torch light. We had made a pact to do our best to seem like a happy couple, and within seconds of being there, I realized I didn’t have to try very hard at all. I really was happy being there with her.
I liked her. There was no getting around that. Even at my most stubborn, I couldn’t deny the way she made me feel. In any other circumstance, I would have tried to see where our relationship would take us.
But as we walked along the lit walkway, I realized I was being ridiculous. Why couldn’t we try? Just give it a shot? Yes, her brother was my best friend, but we were adults. What did my relationship with her brother have to do with anything? If we approached it slowly and eased Camden into it, it might just work.
Watching Carmela smile and be delightful with people at the reception, I made a decision. I was going to talk to her about it. Maybe I could turn our weekend getaway into the opening experience of a new relationship.
I had to try.
15
CARMELA
Leave it to Jade to turn her wedding into a giant production where everyone had to play a part.
As long as I’d known her, Jade had been an actress. Not one that wanted to audition for plays or actually do anything in the field, mind you. Just a woman that liked being the center of attention and would act accordingly. Everything about her had to be a giant ‘thing.’ When we’d been young, it had sometimes been fun being in her orbit. There was always something interesting happening.
But now, with a bitterness that still hadn’t completely gone away and struggling with pain in my ankle and foot, I was not exactly feeling the myriad of events she had planned for everyone. Not that it was going to stop me. I was bound and determined to be my most impressive and well-adjusted self this weekend.
Especially when I had to encounter Trevor’s family. It was the first time since the breakup that I had come in contact with them—or Jade’s folks, for that matter. I was going to be seeing a lot of people who had closed ranks around Jade and left me out in the cold, including former friends. But the more I encountered them, the thicker Mark laid on our ‘relationship’ and went about being the charming doctor that made some of the other women blush and get red with envy.
I was kind of loving it.
Still, with as much as I was enjoying Mark and his dedication to making me look good, I was not looking forward to one of the events planned for the day. In fact, I was dragging my feet getting ready for it, and Mark seemed to notice. He came out of the bathroom dressed for the occasion in cargo shorts and a tight polo, playing the part of the athletic but mature boyfriend to a T. I had to admit, the way the fabric of his shirt stretched over his chest was pleasing as hell.
“You ready?” he asked, eyeing me somewhat critically.
“I guess,” I said. “Can’t I get a doctor’s note to get out of it?”
He laughed.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Though you can think of it like this. If we lose, then you can blame your bum foot.”
“It’s a canoe race,” I said. “How is my foot going to have anything to do with it?”
“Come on. It will be fun.”
Unconvinced, I reluctantly followed him to the little alcove between the island and the mainland, where several canoes were lined up and ready to race along a tiny lake. Most of the other boats were filled already, leaving two empty ones. Mark and I headed to one of them, and just as we got settled, Jade and Trevor appeared and got into the other.
“You have got to be kidding,” I muttered.
It was such an eighties movie cliché. Of course, they were going to be directly racing us. It had to be that way because Jade needed the universe to play along, and so it did. She was the star of her very own John Hughes film, just in real life.
