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One and Only(41)

By:Jenny Holiday


“It’s not a good way to live,” Gia said. “I’m lucky that gaining weight hasn’t been a problem for me.” She paused. “At least historically.”

Jane wondered if there was something more beneath that statement, but she didn’t know how to ask. Gia pre-empted her anyway, lifting her drink in a wry toast and shaking her head. “Gah. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay!” Jane said. That had been enough of True Confessions for her, anyway.

“Let’s talk about sex,” said Gia.

“What?” Jane laughed to cover her wariness. Could Gia tell? Was she some kind of sex bloodhound?

“I haven’t had any for a long time, and I would like to.”

“Ah.” She was safe. “Define ‘a long time.’”

Gia gazed at the ceiling as if she were doing math. “Uh, maybe five weeks?”

Jane laughed. “Well, what about someone from the wedding party?” But not Cameron. Because he’s mine. Even though I don’t want him. Or I don’t want to want him, anyway.

“Nah. No offense to Jay, but his friends are kind of…”

“Boring?”

Gia shrugged, but her eyes twinkled.

“You think five weeks is a dry spell,” Jane said, “but I hear that, and I’m like, whoa, your heart is getting a workout!”

“My heart has nothing to do with it.”

“Really?” said Jane, suddenly curious how Gia pulled it off.

“Really,” Gia said decisively.

“How do you do it?”

“What? Be a slut?” Gia laughed.

“No!” Jane cried. “I only mean, how do you separate sex from love?”

“It’s easy. I don’t do love. So no separation required.”

“But how? How does that work? You just decide?”

“It’s nothing so calculating. I just…don’t fall in love.” Jane was about to object again, because that didn’t make sense, but Gia must have anticipated her because she turned in her stool and said, “Look. The way I see it, some people are made to fall in love. Most people, probably. Or they have the capacity anyway. Me? Not so much. Maybe I don’t have the gene for love or something. It’s like we all have different ways of being. I come from skinny stock, and I have light brown eyes. I also can’t fall in love.”

“I see,” Jane said, but she didn’t.

“To be honest, I always thought maybe you and I were alike that way,” Gia said, cocking her head as she looked at Jane. “I mean, assuming all this Xena stuff isn’t sublimation and you’re not actually a closet case.” She winked.

Jane grinned. “Nope. Not a closet case.” She chose not to address the rest of what Gia had said. A week ago she would have agreed with Gia’s characterization of her as immune to love. She’d had the odd crush as a girl, and with Felix there had been…a kind of love. Until there wasn’t. And after that…nothing. For five years.

Now? She wasn’t sure. But she did know enough to know that she needed to back away from Cameron before she got burned. That no good could come of testing the waters with a guy who not only didn’t want to swim but had, in fact, chained himself to dry land.

“So you’re love-proof and calorie-proof,” Jane teased, hoping to get them on to more comfortable topics.

Gia smiled. “It would appear so.”

“Ahhhh! Team Elise is here already!”

Jane and Gia looked over their shoulders to see Elise waving at them from near the door. Gia started humming the wedding march but morphed it into the theme from Jaws as Elise approached the bar. Jane stifled a laugh.

“Okay, you guys,” Elise said, sliding onto a stool on the other side of Gia. “I should wait till Wendy gets here to tell you this, but I’m about to burst from how good this idea is!”

“Well by all means, let’s have it,” Gia said. “Wendy snoozes; Wendy loses.”

“Okay, so you know how the site is large?”

Jane nodded warily. The wedding was being held at a “farm,” which as far as she could tell was code for “expensive fancy rural event center.” They had visited a year ago when Elise was trying to decide on venues, and there hadn’t been an animal or a crop in sight on the “farm.”

“So I got this cute idea from Pinterest last night of making way-finding signs?”

“Way-finding signs?” Gia echoed, her voice full of skepticism that Jane shared.

“Yeah, you know, like cute signs pointing people to the reception, the ceremony, the bar, and so on. The only thing is should we do cute little chalkboards or should we get, like, pieces of wood and do some cute lettering on them?”

“As long as it’s cute, I don’t think it matters,” Jane said, relishing the fact that her comment caused Gia to press her lips together like she was trying not to laugh.

“Oh!” said Elise, throwing her hands heavenward like they were at a revival. “We can do the same kinds of signs on the bathrooms!”

“Won’t the bathrooms already have signs?” Gia asked. “I feel like bathrooms in public spaces are generally labeled.”

“But, Gia,” Jane said, “they’re not going to match. They’re not going to be cute.”

Elise pointed a finger at Jane. “Exactly.”





Chapter Eighteen

WEDNESDAY—THREE DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING



Cam was fine until they got there.

Well, fine in relative terms. He had been, after all, trapped in the ’Vette with Groomsman Kent, he of “Isn’t Jane cute?” fame, for two and a half hours on the drive to the wedding site.

Kent was nice. He was an accountant at Jay’s firm. So he was probably pretty well off. He was blandly handsome—with his jeans, Polo shirt, and wavy, short brown hair, he was like a Ken doll come to life. Ken Doll Kent.

And he clearly had a crush on Jane.

Which, to be fair, was totally understandable.

He wasn’t gross about it, at least. There were no crude remarks, no sexist jokes. He was a gentleman. Respectful. Which was a hell of a lot more than Cameron could say about himself when he’d first met Jane.

And Kent wanted to talk about Jane, and nothing but Jane, the whole drive. He thought he was being subtle, in the way that people under Cupid’s spell always were, seizing on any opportunity to bring the conversation back to their target.

“I think it’s so cool that she writes books, don’t you? I mean, do you know anyone else who writes books? It’s kind of a big deal.”

Cam made a vague grunting noise.

“Have you read any of her books?” Kent asked.

“Nope.”

“You should. They’re good. Really clever.”

“Aren’t they for kids?” But Cam asked himself why he hadn’t. He’d read about her books online. They were well reviewed. Everyone seemed to like them. And he was an avid reader—or he’d become one, anyway, in the Middle East.

“I guess technically. But they’re like the Hunger Games books. It doesn’t really matter that they’re classified as young adult. She draws you right into the world she creates.”

She draws you right into the world she creates.

Cam grunted again and stepped on the accelerator, enjoying the vroom of the engine.

“I noticed that you guys left together from the bachelor party,” Kent said with studied nonchalance. “That was just you trying to get her away from that guy who was hitting on her, right? What happened after you left?”

What happened after we left is that she took me home, and I fucked her.

But of course he didn’t say that, merely grunted something noncommittal. His gentlemanly streak might have been late blooming when it came to Jane, but he didn’t kiss and tell. Oh, how he wished he could say that, though—that and more. You’ve read her books; I’ve been inside her body. I know what her pussy tastes like. Ha. That would have derailed Kent the Ken Doll Accountant once and for all.

But it wasn’t like he had any meaningful claim to her. In the twenty-four hours since Jane had left him at Jay’s, she had made it clear that they were done. Not overtly, but in the coolly polite way she’d responded to his texts. Gone was the abashed sexting. He would text, and she would reply, sometimes hours later, with short notes about how busy she was with wedding stuff.

He’d gotten the message.

It was for the best.

It was also unexpectedly disappointing.

Somehow, Jane Denning had wormed her way into his heart. The only way he could make sense of it was to conclude that he, erroneously assuming that he didn’t have any heart left to speak of, had foolishly left it unguarded.

But regardless of the fact that his little fling with Jane was done, Kent the Ken Doll Accountant was not what she needed. She needed someone who appreciated Goddess Mode. No, someone who would cultivate Goddess Mode, who would treat it like a goddamned imperative.

As they turned onto the dirt road that would take them to the farm, Cameron sighed. Resigned himself to spending the next four days being treated with friendly indifference by Jane and fucking frolicking in nature with Kent-Ken and the rest of the wedding party.

He just hadn’t realized exactly what the “nature” part was going to be like.

It should not have been a problem. And at first, it wasn’t. There was a B&B on site, and the wedding party was staying there while the guests would be bused in from neighboring inns on Saturday for the ceremony. As Cam and Kent drove into the parking area, a woman emerged from the administration building. “Welcome to Fournier Farm! I’m Lacy, one of the event coordinators here.” The chipper blonde looked like she had stepped out of a brochure for a dental office. “You’re the first ones here!” She clapped her hands like it was an accomplishment worthy of an award rather than a logical consequence of Cam’s lead foot. “Oh, but look, here’s everyone else!” Lacy walked toward other cars, which were pulling in and parking. “Where’s my bride?”