Taylor waved a hand and it smacked against Loch's menu, sending it flying. "Oops." She grimaced as he leaned over to pick up the menu, nonplussed. "I'm sure you'll hear about it. What about your baby appointment? Did you have it today?"
"I did." Greer patted her slightly rounded stomach. "Everything is shipshape."
"When do you find out if it's a boy or a girl?"
"I . . . asked the doctor not to tell me," Greer lied. Telling others the gender of the baby before Asher seemed like a bad idea. "As long as it's healthy-and it is-I don't care."
Taylor made an impatient noise in her throat. "You're better than I am! I'd be hitting up every fortune-teller the moment I got knocked up to see if they could tell me the gender. I hate waiting."
"It's fine," Greer began, when arms wrapped around her from behind and squeezed, and Greer found herself being hugged by bridezilla herself, Gretchen. "Hello, there," she said, awkwardly hugging her friend back.
"God, I am so freaking glad to see you," Gretchen said, slapping a gigantic bag on the table. "Now, I have seven different cake samples that I brought for you to try. I'm not happy with any of them, but the lemon one has potential. Except I'm not sure that I should do lemon for an entire wedding cake, and if I only do it for one tier, I worry the other six tiers are going to be shit. I don't want a shitcake! And I tried to talk to the baker about adding more eggs to the recipe but he got all huffy with me and now he won't return my emails and I am freaking out, Greer. Freaking. OUT." Gretchen hauled small plastic containers onto the table and shoved them in front of Greer. "So you need to eat these and tell me what you think so we can freak out together."
"Told you," Taylor whispered from behind her menu.
"Have a seat, Gretchen?" Loch said easily, and got up to pull the chair out next to Greer.
"Aren't you a sweet, overfed thing." She reached up and pinched his cheek, then sat down and opened the first container. The sickly sweet scent of sugar wafted through the air. "You need to try these before we order, Greer. I'm serious. I can't function until I pick out a cake."
"Which flavor was Hunter's favorite?"
"He said he'd go with whichever made me happy. And since none of them do, that's the problem."
Greer dutifully picked up a plastic fork and pushed her glasses farther back on her nose. "Let's get this taken care of, then, shall we?"
***
By the time lunch was served, all the cake samples had been tasted. Greer had agreed that lemon had the best flavor, though the others were by no means bad. Taylor liked vanilla, which earned her a scathing look from Gretchen. Poor Loch declared that he liked carrot the best, which sent Gretchen on another tirade, because she refused to have carrot cake as one of her tiers. "No vegetables," she hissed at him, snatching his plastic fork away before he could take another bite.
"I see. I believe I shall check with the kitchen and ask for some coffee. If you ladies will excuse me." He hastily got up from the table and raced away as Gretchen glared after him.
"I'll go help Loch," Taylor volunteered and got up. She stepped on her own scarf, detangled herself, then nearly careened into a nearby table as she tailed after the European man.
The moment they left, Gretchen gave Greer a calculating look. "So what do you think?"
"I do think the lemon is quite tasty, but if you'd like, I can definitely speak with the baker-"
"No, silly! Those two!" She wiggled her fingers after Taylor and Loch, who were standing at the counter and talking. Taylor was leaning in awful close to the big man. "Am I good or what?"
Ah. Matchmaking. "You planned it?"
"Well, not truly. So remember I wanted to kill Levi for being a douche-nugget and dropping out of my wedding? Hunter wanted to sub in Griffin, but Griffin actually asked us to invite Loch instead, as a favor to him. Apparently there's some stuff going down in the home country and he needed an excuse to come to the states." She shrugged. "I wasn't too keen on it until I saw what a hunka-hunka-burning-love the man was and decided Taylor needed to bag herself some of that."
Greer smiled to herself. Count on Gretchen to matchmake in the midst of her wedding plans. As if she didn't have enough on her plate. "They seem to get along well?"
"They do, though I think she's blown him off a few times to play her game, and I don't know what the hell's going through that head of hers." Gretchen gave Greer a puzzled expression. "Here I am, practically gift wrapping the man and handing him to her, and she wants to go play games online."
"She takes her games very seriously."
"That man has serious buns. I mean, they're not as good as Hunter's, but whose are?" Gretchen got a dreamy look on her face. "You should have seen-"
Greer held up a hand. "Stop right there. I don't want to know."
"Party pooper." She looked over at Greer and then peered at something past her shoulder.
Automatically, Greer turned to look, and was surprised to see Asher in a pale gray business suit, making his way across the crowded restaurant to them. Well, that was odd. "How did he know I was here?"
"I might have checked in on an online app," Gretchen said, patting her phone. "And I might have mentioned you were here with me."
Greer shot her a look.
"And then I might have tagged you on Facebook. And him. And then when that didn't get a response, I texted him." She gave Greer a sunny smile. "You're welcome."
She had noticed Gretchen reaching for her phone several times, but she'd thought it was to text her fiancé, or to take notes on the cakes. "You're the worst."
"Or the best. You be the judge." She gave Greer a sly wink.
"Just for that, I'm changing my vote from lemon cake to carrot cake."
Gretchen's eyes widened. "You whore."
Greer chuckled and then took a nervous sip of her water. It wasn't that she was upset that Asher was here. After all, Taylor and Loch were, and they'd discussed wedding stuff. It just made sense for another person in the wedding to show up and hang out. And Asher was good friends with Gretchen. And they were all in town.
So why was her face feeling so very hot at the moment? Greer's cheeks felt like they were scalding.
Maybe it was because over the course of the last week, she'd had filthy phone sex with him. Repeated filthy phone sex . . . and now she was going to have to look him in the eye and act like nothing was weird.
Taylor and Loch returned to the table with four coffee cups a brief moment before Asher arrived. "Well, if it isn't the three prettiest ladies in New York," Asher drawled, taking a chair from a nearby table, flipping it around, and parking it next to Greer. He leaned in and gave her temple a brief kiss before straddling the chair.
"And Loch," Taylor chimed in. "Don't forget him."
"I guess he's pretty, but he's not my type." Asher leaned in to Greer and murmured. "How was that kiss, by the way?"
"An excellent greeting." One that made her hormones go haywire, but otherwise excellent. She tried not to smile like an idiot because Gretchen was giving her a knowing look, and instead slid her coffee toward Asher. "You drink this for me. I'm avoiding caffeine."
"I'll make sure to roll it around on my tongue, just for you." He gave her a sultry look before taking a sip.
Oh god, was she feeling awkward and flushed before? That was nothing compared to how she felt now. Greer was torn between wanting the floor to swallow her up and wanting to fling herself into his arms.
Luckily, Taylor rescued her. "You know what would go great with that coffee, Ash? Cake. Gretchen has samples and she's trying to pick the best flavor. You should try them for her."
Gretchen thumped the stack of samples back onto the table and offered Asher a fork. "If you tell me that you prefer the carrot, I'm going to punch you in your dirty mouth."
***
Despite the initial weirdness of Asher's appearance, lunch was wonderful. It was the first time that Greer felt she could truly relax in the last few weeks, and surrounded by laughing friends? It was invigorating. They ate lunch, then lingered for dessert, just so they wouldn't have to give up their table. Taylor had a terrible sweet tooth and worked on a fudge brownie sundae despite the endless bites of cake they'd had earlier. They sipped coffee, talked, and then fought over the bill.
Greer barely paid attention as Asher put down his American Express Black and insisted on paying. At some point, his hand had migrated to a possessive clasp on her thigh under the table, and her entire focus had gone there.