by Codi Gary
Still, it had seemed too soon, and when she’d never developed feelings for anyone else organically, she’d finally decided to take her romantic life into her own hands.
Would Chris understand? Ray had been his best friend, but he didn’t expect her to never find love again, right?
She met his gaze sadly, but determined to be strong. “It’s time. I used to think that my future died with Ray, but the truth is, watching all my friends find love and get married, start families… it made me realize I still want those things. I’m thirty-one years old; I need to move on.”
Chris didn’t say anything for several moments and she sat forward. “Don’t you think?”
She couldn’t tell what he was really thinking, but when he nodded, she almost sighed aloud in relief. She couldn’t have Chris disappointed in her. He was the most important person in her life.
Chris reached across the desk, taking her hand in his.
“You deserve to be happy, Kel. I’ll support you in whatever you do. You know that.”
Kelly squeezed his hand back. “Thanks, Chris. What would I do without you?”
Chapter 2
Chris was an unsupportive dick.
Okay, maybe not out loud. But for the last three days in his head, he hadn’t been able to shake the urge to call Kelly up and tell her not to date. That dating was a stupid idea.
He hadn’t because he couldn’t come up with a single reason why she shouldn’t.
At least none worth really considering, since he was currently out on a date himself. More than a date, really. He’d been seeing Cassidy Palos for over a year, and she was great. Funny, sweet, and pretty without being high maintenance. She was busy with her surgical residency, so she wasn’t demanding, and they got along well together. He could see himself proposing in the future.
Yet the thought of Kelly finally getting back in the saddle and dating again had thrown him for a loop. In fact, he couldn’t concentrate on what Cass was saying over the constant replay of Kelly’s announcement in his head.
It wasn’t that he wanted Kelly for himself. They were just friends, always had been. Of course, there had been times over the years where the thought crossed his mind that there could be more between them, but he couldn’t bring himself to take that step with her. Kelly was too important and if they didn’t work out, their friendship would be forever altered.
It dawned on him that Cass was frowning at him, annoyance flashing in her brown eyes. They were seating across from each other in the middle of the crowded restaurant. In the center of the table was a large candle, an empty bread basket, and a glass bottle of an oil and vinegar mixture. Their dinner dishes were stacked to the right, and they were just waiting on the waiter to come back with dessert.
“Chris? Did you hear a word I’ve said?”
Not a one. Shit. He hoped his smile was charmingly sheepish. “Sorry, I guess I’m tired tonight.”
Cassidy’s expression darkened, and he realized that she was pissed. It was strange because he’d never seen her truly angry before. They’d had little arguments, but never fought.
And he would have remembered that death stare.
“Really? You’re tired?” she said snidely.
Okay, that surprised him. What the hell had he missed? “Uh, yeah.”
“I have been up for forty-eight hours straight, performing numerous surgeries. Yet I still manage to listen to you drone on and on about whatever issue Kelly has with her wedding shop this week.”
The way she dragged out Kelly’s name rankled him. He’d introduced the two of them not long after Cassidy and he had started dating and they’d always seemed to get along. Not a whiff of jealousy or trouble between the two, so where was this animosity coming from?
“What is your problem tonight?” he asked.
She set her purse on the table and started rummaging through it, making the candle flame flick and weave. “My problem is us, Chris. When we started dating, you were the one thing I looked forward to. We’d go out, have fun, talk, make love…things were great. But it seems lately, I actually have to force myself to drum up the enthusiasm to get dressed for our dates.”
Well, that was a blow to the good old ego. “Okay.” He paused, trying to come up with a clever retort, but was too stunned by her frankness. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond to that.”
She rolled her eyes at him with a huff. “I’m bored, Chris. You’re bored too, if you’d only admit it to yourself. You should be upset by what I’m saying, but you’re not, are you? Because you’re just as uninterested in my life as I am in yours.”
Chris was floored to say the least. He wasn’t uninterested in Cass, was he? Okay, there were times when his mind drifted a bit, especially when she started talking about bowel reconstruction, but that’s just because the visuals it created made him queasy. There was a reason he chose a profession that did not have to contend with people’s bodily functions and juices.
“Are you going to say anything?” she asked.
How had he never seen this side of her before? This angry, frustrated person who had obviously been bottling things inside. “What can I say? You’ve obviously made up your mind that it’s over.”
“No, I’m just saying it out loud. It’s been over for months.” She pulled out several bills and left them on the table. “I’m sorry if this is coming across as harsh. It’s not that I haven’t had fun with you, and I do like you as a person.”
Chris held up his hand. “No need to try and make me feel better with whatever the but was attached to that sentence. I’m fine, really.”
Cass sighed. “I know. That’s what sucks. Because if you cared, you’d be fighting this right now.”
Chris was pretty sure he wouldn’t. If someone didn’t want him, there was no way he was going to get down on his knees and try to change her mind. The only thing that did was make the dumper stay with the dumpee out of guilt and how was that fair to anyone?
Cass stood up, smoothing her hands over her navy dress. “Good-bye, Chris.”
“You don’t want to at least wait for the dessert you ordered?” he asked.
“No. I told the waiter on the way to the bathroom earlier to pack it up to go.”
Damn. I was looking forward to trying the Oreo cheesecake she ordered.
“All right then. Have a good life.”
She turned away without saying anything in return, and walked past the tables of happy couples talking over glasses of wine and low light candles. The hostess by the door handed a paper to go bag to her, and then she disappeared out the darkened door. A few of the women glanced at her walking out on him, and gave him concerned looks.
It was humiliating to be left alone in a romantic, dimly lit restaurant before the check came, but Chris was surprisingly relieved. Obviously, Cass had concluded their courtship had run its course first, but she was right. He’d gotten comfortable with their relationship, but ultimately, he hadn’t been excited to go out with Cass. It had started to feel like a routine. If he’d been really paying attention, he would have realized that they hadn’t had sex in nearly a month.
How in the hell had he not noticed that?
The waiter came by his table. He was a tall, gangly guy with a patch of hair on his chin. Chris hated the pitying expression in his gaze, so Chris grinned conspiratorially.
“Hey, do you mind adding two more slices of cheesecake to the bill? I’m heading to a friend’s place.”
The waiter’s eyes widened for a second before he grinned. “You got it.”
Now that his waiter thought he was the man, he could leave the place with some dignity.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the numbers, pausing on Kelly’s name. It was a little past eight, and Kelly was a night owl. Dollars to donuts she was up binge-watching something.
Chris tapped on her name and sh
ot her a text.
You up for some company?
What happened to your date with Cassidy?
She dumped me before dessert.
Ouch. That sucks. But yeah, okay, you can come over.
I’ll be there in forty with Oreo cheesecake.
Aw, are we going to have girl talk and eat our feelings?
Shut up.
Hey, I am letting you horn in on my Reign marathon. You better be nice to me.
Chris laughed aloud, and after he paid for his meal, he walked to his car still grinning. One of the perks of having a friend like Kelly; unless she had a work emergency, she was never too busy to hang.
He lost his smile as he realized that was going to change once she started dating. And he was a jerk because he didn’t want it to.
When they were teenagers, it had been Ray, Kelly, and Chris against the world. Sure, he’d gone off to school and Ray had been overseas, but they had kept in touch. Phone calls. Letters. Emails. They were still the three musketeers.
Until the day Ray died. Chris could still feel the raw pain in his chest when Ray’s mom had called to give him the news. His thoughts had immediately gone to Kelly, of being with her and then they’d have each other to get through it. Chris had taken off in the middle of the night to get back to Sweetheart, and shown up at his parents’ place at two a.m. It had been too late to go straight to Kelly’s, but as soon as nine in the morning rolled around, he was knocking at her front door. After Chris managed to snap her out of the grief-filled haze she was in, things were immediately better being near Kelly. It was as though a little part of Ray was still with them when they were together.
He’d stayed for as long as he could, but it still hadn’t felt long enough. Kelly had come to visit him a couple times, but once she got Something Borrowed up and running, she hadn’t been able to get away as much.
On his breaks, he’d come home, eat dinner with his parents, and then take off to visit Kelly. He’d moved back after law school to be close to her. And over the years, no matter what was going on or who he was dating, Kelly was always there.
About a year after Ray had died, he’d waited for Kelly to start dating again, but it never happened. The one time a friend had tried to set her up, she’d called him because she was sick to her stomach. He’d come up for the weekend with ginger ale and a couple movies, and she’d blown off the date. He hadn’t heard her talk about it since. Did she ogle actors in her favorite movies and television shows? Absolutely, but he hadn’t heard her talk about a real man. Not until those papers had shown up, suing her for a lousy date. It was almost comical that anyone could have a bad time with Kelly. She was amazing.
And despite working together and spending most of their free time together, they’d managed to stay friends.
Now, she was going to meet someone and what if it wasn’t like with Ray? What if the new guy was jealous of their friendship? If the guy didn’t get their Star Wars jokes or their obsession with Korean television dramas? Not that he’d ever admit to Kelly that he liked the shows she forced him to watch, but all of that would be gone if she got serious with someone.
Chris shook his head at the direction of his thoughts. He really did sound like a complete, selfish asshole. Kelly was his friend and she deserved to be happy. Just because she was dating, didn’t mean that things had to change for them.
And even if it did, he would still be there for her. They had been through too much to drift apart because of some faceless guy.
A faceless guy who’s going to do everything I’ve been doing for her, but he’ll be getting perks.
Chris jumped as the thought came unbidden. Perks? With Kelly?
No, he didn’t want that. And he didn’t care if she called the future guy to fix her door, or grab her donuts or come over to kill a spider.
Chris was completely fine with it.
Chapter 3
The next day at work, Kelly sat at her computer and scrolled through the emails she’d gotten overnight on TheLastFirstKiss.com. There were fifteen in total, and the first four she’d already slipped into the trash bin on principle. Men who started off emails with Baby, you are so hot or damn, you got a nice frame did not even warrant a response. She clicked on number five, sent from a guy with the username FishGuy79, and smiled.
Hey WeddingGrl31. I promise, if you let me take you out, I will not bore you once. Okay, maybe once, but if you snore, I won’t hold it against you.
This guy was funny, which held promise. She hopped over to his profile and…
Good God, that was a long ass beard. Like Duck Dynasty on Rogaine long.
Kelly tilted her head to the side, considering if he shaved it, he might not be so bad.
She’d put him in the maybe pile. She could handle a guy with a beard if he kept it trim. And the flannel lumberjack look could be sexy.
When she clicked onto the next email for OneFineEvoDude she smiled. He sounded intelligent. At least he could form full sentences with proper grammar and punctuation. Several emails had been nothing but short hand, and it had been hard to decipher what some of the abbreviations meant.
She wrinkled her nose when she clicked on his name and saw his picture. Kelly couldn’t even say whether he was attractive or not. She was too distracted by everything else. He was wearing a neon yellow tank top and sporting a man bun next to his powder-blue Prius.
Nope. Beards she could handle, but hipsters with man buns were out.
Kelly sank back into her chair with a sigh, completely deflated. It was Friday morning, and tonight most single people would be getting ready for their dates. Yet she’d scrolled through what seemed like hundreds of profiles and there was not one that sparked anything in her. No interest. Not even a flick of curiosity.
She stood up and ran her hand along her bookshelf. It was filled with bridal magazines, wedding planning books, and a handful of romance novels mixed in for her down time that Rylie had told her she had to read. Across her office on the red, textured wall were framed accomplishments. Her wedding for actress Mia Ryder splashed across the cover of People. A framed copy of her first commission check. A “Thank You” letter from Governor Marcus Barker after she had managed to arrange for his son to parachute in for his own wedding while on leave from the military.
None of these things filled the lonely space in her heart that wanted a man of her own.
Someone knocked on her office door, and she ran around the back of her desk, skidding in her stocking feet on the wood floor. She caught herself on the desk and closed the screen quickly. She did not need any of her employees seeing what she’d been searching. The only person she’d told about TheLastFirstKiss.com was Chris.
“Come in!”
Veronica Torres poked her head in, her dark hair hanging in loose waves. “Hey, boss, there is a weird guy here saying you have an appointment.”
“Weird how?” Kelly knew she had an appointment with actor Hank Townsend regarding his little sister’s wedding, but Hank wasn’t what she’d consider weird. Hot. Panty-melting, definitely. He had to be to land some of the highest-paying roles in Hollywood. Women didn’t watch action flicks because they enjoyed planes blowing up and elaborate car chases. At least, she didn’t. And she had every movie he’d ever made on her shelf.
Yeah, she might have been a wee bit obsessed with him and trying hard to hold her inner fan-girl at bay.
Veronica lowered her voice to a stage whisper, her red lips twisted in disapproval. “He’s wearing one of those stupid fake glasses and nose things and he’s talking in a really bizarre accent.”
“I can hear you, you know,” a deep, Scottish brogue said dryly from out of sight.
Veronica shrugged. “I know.”
Kelly smothered her laughter with a cough. Hank was big on being incognito, but sometimes his disguises caused more of a stir than if he’d just been himself. The tabloids
loved to paint him as eccentric and strange, so it was no wonder Veronica thought so as well.
Plus, Veronica had a low bullshit tolerance. It was the only reason Kelly hadn’t promoted her to wedding expert yet. Dealing with stressed out brides was a high-pressure gig. There was a lot of biting your tongue and smiling, and Kelly just wasn’t sure she could placate.
“Let him in, Veronica.”
“Okay.” Veronica pushed the door wide and addressed someone out of sight. “You can come on in, sir.”
Kelly stood. When Hank walked into the room, Kelly had to bite her lip to keep the giggles at bay. Hank was wearing a loud, red Hawaiian shirt that did nothing to hide his broad, muscular shoulders. A straw hat sat cockeyed on his full head of dark hair, and his glasses and nose even had a black plastic mustache attached. In his hands was a three-inch-thick coral-pink binder full of papers.
He looked like he was completely off his rocker; no wonder Veronica was ready to give him the boot.
“You can close the door, Veronica,” Kelly said.
Veronica gave her a look as though to say, are you sure?
Kelly nodded.
“I’m at my desk if you need me.” Veronica shot Harry a distrustful glance as she pulled the door closed.
Once it clicked shut, Kelly came around the desk. “Mr. Townsend, I presume.”
Hank smiled behind the disguise. “What gave it away?”
“That you’re my ten a.m. appointment.” She shot him a wink. “Otherwise, I would never have recognized you.”
“Well, aren’t you a saucy one.”
Man, he had a great voice. Although in most of his movies, he sported an American accent, Kelly thought that they should utilize his real one. It was freaking hot.
“I am. Would you like to remove your hat and nose, so we can get started?”
Hank set the coral binder on her desk before he pulled the straw hat and glasses off. He dropped both items next to the chair opposite her, and getting her first in-person look at him was awe-inspiring. With bushy dark eyebrows, a full head of thick, black hair with just the hint of red, and stormy gray eyes, he was smoking. In a craggy, manly sort of way. Like he should be wearing a kilt and riding across the moors stealing lasses from their betrotheds.