Always the Last Word (Always the Bridesmaid #4)(17)

"I wasn't shit-talking downstairs. I'm awesome at pool," Adam says as he digs through his pockets for quarters.

"I'll be the judge of that," I say, taking a generous gulp of my drink.

Adam cracks a grin as he racks the pool balls. "Care to make a bet?"

"Put your money where your pool balls are, Iberico."

"Happy Valentine's Day to you too, Duvall," he says with a smile that makes me blush.

Two pitchers of beer and three intense games of pool later, I am proving that I am the superior pool player. Adam has taken the defeat in stride, however, and I have kept my gloating to a minimum. I call this progress for us.

"They look like they're running."

"Who?" I ask as I walk around the pool table to face Adam.

"The horses on your dress. Every time you move, it looks like they're galloping across the skirt."

I look down at my dress. It's one that I made myself, out of some vintage fabric I snatched up at a thrift store. While the background and top of the dress are white, there are silhouettes of horses covering the skirt in bright pinks, yellows, and blues.

I raise an eyebrow as he lines up his next shot. "Are you high right now?"

He laughs, causing him to hit the cue ball harder than intended. It misses its mark and careens right into a corner pocket.

"I will admit that I got the idea for hot sauce and potato chip brownies under the influence when I was sixteen. And it's been about that long since I've touched the stuff," he says, pulling a face. It seems as if the thought of the hot sauce and potato chip brownie concoction still brings a pungent taste to his mouth. He watches me as I retrieve the cue ball. "I like the dress."

"Thanks. It was my dad's favorite," I say as I line up the cue ball with the twelve ball. "He even made me swear to wear it to his funeral."

"Did you?"

"I did, and my mom nearly had a coronary."

I hit the cue ball and it goes right for my target. The twelve ball sinks into a pocket with a satisfying thud. I study the table as I plan my next course of action.

"It is a little, er, bright for a funeral," Adam offers as I stand by him for my next shot.

"That was the point. Dad didn't want a funeral, he wanted a celebration." I add finger quotes with the word celebration. "He told me that my talent was making clothes that made people feel good, and that's how he wanted everyone at his funeral to feel. I mostly felt awkward."

I make my next move and the four ball hits both edges of the corner but doesn't go in the pocket. I mutter a profanity under my breath.



       
         
       
        

"Why would you feel awkward?"

"Look at me, Adam. I was dressed like a bar marquee sign at my father's funeral."

He follows my order and, as his gaze sweeps over me, I feel my face redden. I should definitely slow down on my beer consumption.

"But it made him happy. And why would your mom care? Your parents were divorced, right?" he asks, still looking at me like he's trying to memorize my features. I focus on the green of the pool tabletop, covered in scratches and stained with spilled beer.

"Their divorce finalized about three months before Dad's cancer diagnosis. And it's not like they divorced because of a torrid love affair or anything. They were amicable toward one another, they just fell out of love. Dad seemed to care more about the book he was writing than Mom. He was nuts about the Civil War and was piecing together a book about battlefields in Kentucky. Mom used to joke that he'd die before finishing it." I let out a sadistic laugh. "I guess she wasn't wrong."

Adam finally tears his gaze away from me to make his next shot, and I'm thankful to not have him focus solely on me.

"That still doesn't explain why your mom cared so much that you wore that dress," he says, hitting the cue ball.

"Have you been around a Southern mother? Like, ever?" I ask, watching as the five ball goes into a pocket. Adam grins as he plans his next shot. "Whatever I do is a direct correlation as to how I was raised." I clear my throat and manage to make my southern accent even thicker as I say, "Wearin' anything other than black to my own father's funeral would show to the elders that I was brought up as nothin' but plain ol' white trash."

"Elders? Nothin'?" Adam asks. "I swear to God, Evie, if you put an 'r' in the word 'wash', I'm out of here."

I giggle as I take a sip of beer, and then remember that I'm supposed to slow it down with the booze.

"Seriously, though. She was worried about her reputation?"

I shake my head. "Not really. I mean, as a realtor, she has to keep up appearances and all that. Her face is plastered on four billboards in Bowling Green, so she has to be seen as respectable. She was just worried about how I was doing. She wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting myself or anything."

"She just expressed that concern as-"

"Annoyance and backhanded compliments? Yep." I shrug. "It's okay, though. If her getting on my case helped her grieving, then I'm fine."

"Are you though? Fine, that is?" he asks, moving toward me as I look out over the pool table at my options. 

"Yeah, I'm okay. It's been over a year. I still get sad sometimes but I think that's normal," I say, glad that my tongue doesn't betray me by letting him know that sometimes I miss my dad so much that my body aches like I have the flu. That every time I help a bride find her wedding dress and she talks about her dad walking her down the aisle, my heart feels like it's going to rip itself apart.

Even though I don't say any of this aloud, Adam must sense that something is off kilter. He wraps one of those strong arms around me and pulls me in for an awkward side hug. I turn to face him and practically fall into him as I wrap both my arms around him.

"Sorry," I say, my voice a combination of a hiccup, a laugh, and a sob. He rubs slow circles on my back and I take the opportunity to compose myself. A few deep breaths later and I'm back to my senses, albeit a little dizzy from the scent of vanilla and flour that seems to radiate off of him. I separate myself from Adam and he has the courtesy to not meet my eye.

"All right, back to kicking your ass at pool," he says, tapping the pool stick on the side of the table.

"Wow, you're drunker than I thought if you actually believe that you're winning," I say, happy that he doesn't dwell on my moment of weakness.

"Neither of them has staked the other with a broken pool stick. You owe me ten bucks," Carter says to Rachel when they join us a few minutes later. She elbows him in the side.

"Who's winning?" Rachel asks, looking over the pool table.

"We're all at a bar on Valentine's Day. Are any of us winners?" Adam asks.

"So, what you're saying is that Evie's kicking your ass." Carter grins.

"I hate you," Adam replies dryly.

"Guess who's downstairs, Evie," Rachel says, her voice taunting. I raise an eyebrow. "Grant."

"Huh," I say, and immediately cast my vision to the floor so as to not meet anyone's eye.

"I thought you'd be more excited," she says.

"Yeah, I am," I say quickly and force a quick smile on my face. "Why wouldn't I be?"

I glance over at Adam who is focusing on his next shot.

Why wouldn't I be happy to see Grant?





Chapter Fifteen



Don't ask me how but I managed to leave the bar without Grant seeing me.

Also, don't ask me why I tried so hard to keep Grant from seeing me. I don't know that I have an answer. All I know is that I left the bar and hightailed it home in the back of a cab alone. And, once I got home, I spent three hours piecing together the skirt on Connie's gown design. It's amazing what I can accomplish when I'm a little drunk and mildly frantic.

I wake up the next morning, er, afternoon to my phone ringing next to my ear.

"'Ello?" I croak out.

"Are you dead?" Adam asks.

"Hard to say," I mumble as I come to a sitting position on my couch. I'm wrapped up in a spare bit of fabric from the wedding dress. God, do I lead a sad existence or what? I rub my face. "What's going on?"

"I didn't know if we were still on for the cooking and sewing lesson. Maybe not if you're dead?"

"I have a bit of a headache. I don't think you experience pain if you're dead."

"That's very scientific of you, Evie."

"Shut up," I say, a miserable laugh rattling around in my chest. "Let me get a shower and some caffeine. Want to meet up in an hour?"

"At your place?"

"Er, sure," I say as I look around my living room. There's fabric and parts of sewing patterns scattered throughout the room. "Just don't judge, okay?"



       
         
       
        

"You've met me, right?" he says before hanging up.

An hour later, I'm showered, awake due to the sheer power of caffeine, and have managed to at least move all my sewing projects to a corner of my living room.

Adam is right on time. His arms are full of reusable grocery bags that are teeming with food. I lead him in and, within the hour, we have made (and devoured) black bean burgers and sweet potato fries from scratch. There was supposed to be a cake, but Adam and I have agreed to not speak of it again.