Taking Chances (Love at Starlight, Book 2)

by Kris Jett

  Luci shrugged. “I mean, no. I guess not. It’s just, it’s Valentine’s Day. I don’t want to go to the ball with just anyone.”

  “Well, you still have a week left. Plenty of time to find the love of your life,” Wynn teased.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Or, just go alone,” Jessie suggested. “Maybe it’ll be like a romantic drama and you’ll find your one true love at the Cupid’s Ball. You don’t want a date to get in the way of that, do you?”

  “Hmm,” Luci said. “Good point. Okay, no date for me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bryce bit into his bacon burger and then wiped his mouth with a napkin.

  Ed took a big swig of his beer. “You know, I’m rather enjoying this new, dons-clothes-and-leaves-the-house-during-daylight Bryce.”

  “Yeah?” Bryce grinned and then took a swig of his beer. “It hasn’t been bad being out amongst the people again.”

  “You seem happier.”

  “I am. The past year had been tough, but things are definitely looking up,” Bryce said.

  “How’s the teaching going?” Ed asked. He grabbed three fries off his plate and shoved them into his mouth.

  “That’s been one of the biggest surprises. Me a college teacher. I never thought I’d enjoy it as much as I have, but I really do like it. The students are seriously interested in web design and they make teaching fun. I didn’t realize I knew so much. I’ve been designing web sites for so long; it’s just been second nature. But, I guess I’m good at what I do.”

  “He says modestly,” Ed joked. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Of course, you’re great at web design. Why do you think I hired you?”

  Bryce took another bite of his burger and surveyed the quiet pub. It was a small place, just down the road from the college, that he’d discovered one day after class. The food was pretty good and reasonably priced.

  “It’s not just teaching that’s pulling you out of your shell though. You’re different,” Ed said.

  Bryce grinned with his mouth full. It was true. He had been different ever since he’d met Wynn. Prior to that, he’d completely shut off his heart to the idea of ever falling in love again. And then he met her and something in him just flipped back on. He saw the possibility of a future with her.

  “Look at that grin,” Ed teased. “I can’t believe you haven’t introduced me to the woman that makes you smile like that yet.”

  “You’ll meet her at the ball,” Bryce said. “Thanks again for doing that, by the way. You’re really helping her family out.”

  “Ah, it’s nothing. We love to play any chance we get.”

  “But it’s Valentine’s Day. You’re really doing me a huge favor,” Bryce said.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re doing me a favor. Nikki can’t wait for this thing. This is much more excitement then the grocery store flowers and cheap Italian dinner I had lined up.”

  Bryce laughed. “Speaking of Nikki, is she still mad at me about the whole Tiffany thing?”

  “Nah, she’s over it. Besides, she’s already on me to hook Tiffany up with this dude, Greg from my work. The constant matchmaker, my wife is.”

  Bryce did a quick self-check of his feelings to see if Tiffany dating another guy bothered him at all. It didn’t. “Yeah, you could bring them to the ball, too. That wouldn’t be at all awkward.”

  “Sure, why not?” Ed kidded. He took another swig of his beer.

  “Tiffany is a really cool woman. I’m surprised she needs Nikki setting her up with men.”

  Ed wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What Tiffany needs and what she gets from my wife are two different things. Nikki constantly needs a project to work on. Once Tiffany is part of a boring old couple, Nikki will leave her alone and find a new sorry single to set up.”

  Boring old couple. That’s all Bryce has ever wanted. It’s what he thought he had when he first married Julia. Only, she had other plans. It was what he was hoping for, maybe, with Wynn.

  “Maybe Nikki needs more hobbies? She could join a book club or something.”

  “She’s not a book club kind of woman, my wife. She went to a Bunco night once and said she wanted to kill herself when she got home.”

  Bryce’s eyes went wide.

  “Joking, of course. She just would rather sit at a bar with me then sit in someone’s house playing dice. To tell you the truth,” Ed added, leaning in toward Bryce, “I think she’s getting itchy to have kids.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She just hasn’t realized it yet. She’s always said she wanted to wait until she was done having fun, but I think she’s there already.”

  “What about you? You want kids?” Bryce asked.

  “Hell, yeah,” Ed replied. “A little man that looks like me, pounding on his own little drum set would rock. Or a girl. A cute little girl who looked like her mama would be awesome, too.”

  Bryce tried to picture Ed as a dad and he could see it. Ed would be a great father to a kid.

  “What about you?” Ed asked. “Think you’ll have kids someday?”

  Bryce thought about Wynn and her daughter Melody. He pictured the three of them together in a home, having dinner together, Wynn pregnant with their kid. He could actually see it. He hadn’t thought much about kids before. Julia had always emphatically said she didn’t want kids. She said she was far too selfish of a person to ever put a child first above her own needs. Bryce had just accepted that he wouldn’t have kids. But now, things just felt different. The future was full of all kinds of possibilities.

  “You know,” Bryce said, “I think I might someday.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Ah, I can’t believe it’s really here,” Luci said. “Everything looks so beautiful. We rock girls, we really do.”

  The three sisters stood at the doorway of the Starlight Pub, surveying their handiwork. The pub was completely transformed into a red and silver, romance-laced paradise. Wynn had had her doubts as to how they were going to turn a cozy Wisconsin pub into a fancy ball, but they somehow pulled it off.

  “It looks like a hallmark store threw up in here,” a voice said from behind them.

  The three sisters whipped around and were face-to-face with Cade and Cash Stone.

  “Cade!” Jessie squealed as she threw her arms around his neck and planted a big kiss on him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Baby,” she said.

  “Happy Valentine’s Day, Sweetheart,” Cade said. He looked adoringly at Jessie.

  These two had it so bad, Wynn thought.

  “And you,” Jessie said as she swatted at Cash’s arm, “can shut on up. It looks freaking amazing in here.” Jessie planted her hands on her hips and scanned the room again. “Mom’s going to love it,” she said in a quieter voice to her sisters.

  “Don’t mind Cash,” Cade said. “He’s just anti-Valentine’s Day because he couldn’t find a last-minute date.”

  Cash shook his head. “Um, excuse me. I could find plenty of dates. There were just none that met my high standards on short notice. That’s all.”

  Jessie nodded toward her sister. “Luci here couldn’t snag a date in time either.”

  “Hey,” Luci protested, “stop making me sound lame.”

  Cash grabbed Luci’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Well, I’ll happily escort you tonight, my dear.”

  Luci shot a desperate look at her sisters. They all knew Cash was a major player and had probably hooked up with more women than the population of Snowy Ridge. But it was just one night. And they were all friends. Sort of. “Ah, yeah. Okay. I guess,” Luci stammered.

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” Cash asked.

  Luci glanced down at her sweatshirt, yoga pants, and Uggs and then frowned at Cash. “Obviously not,” she said. “we’re still setting up.”

  Cash laughed. “I know, I know, I’m just playing.”

  “Yeah,” Cade said, “he’s a riot. You’re going to have a great night. So, what did you guys need us t
o do?”

  Jessie had asked Cade and his brother to come by early and move furniture around to make a dance floor and space for the band. She rattled off a list of instructions and the two men set to work.

  Wynn looked at Luci who was looking at Cash nervously. “What did I agree to?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Just one night,” Wynn said encouragingly. “Hey, what time is Jessie and Cade going to pick up Mom?”

  “Jessie said she’s going to get dressed here in the office and then run out and get Mom in about an hour,” Luci said.

  “Cool. Everything seems in control out here. I’m going to go get dressed now and facetime with Melody and the babysitter to make sure they’re all set for the night,” Wynn told her sister. “Bryce will be here soon and I want to be ready before then.”

  “Sure, sounds good,” Luci said.

  Wynn was headed back toward the office when her phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  Hey Wynn. I’m outside Starlight. Can you come out and meet me?

  Shit! It was Eric. And he was in Snowy Ridge.

  Wynn glanced up from her phone and looked at the door. Was this some sort of joke? Was he out of his mind? Couldn’t he have called and warned her? She was about to throw a ball and didn’t have time for whatever nonsense he was about to throw at her. He couldn’t just show up unannounced and expect she’d hand over Melody for a visit. That’s not how things were going to work.

  Wynn could feel the anger rise through her. She was pissed. He wasn’t going to walk all over her like this. She was the primary parent. She was the one with Melody every single day of her life. Wynn jabbed hard at her phone and replied to Erik’s message.

  Be right there.

  Wynn moved quickly to the office to retrieve her coat and hat and then flew out the door into the Starlight parking lot, looking for Eric’s car. When she spotted it, she marched right over, threw open the passenger door, and climbed in. She’d never been this angry before in her life and she was about to let him have it.

  “Okay,” she begun, “This is totally unacceptable. I am about to co-host a huge event in less than an hour and you can’t just show up and expect a visitation with Melody. Maybe I should have set some firm rules in place from the very start but this showing up out of nowhere without so much as a call stuff? No way. Not happening, buddy.”

  Eric shifted in his seat to look at Wynn and smiled. “You look beautiful when you’re angry.”

  Wynn looked at him like he was crazy. “Well, then I’m about to look flipping stunning, because I’m furious.”

  “Wynn,” he chuckled, “calm down. I’m not here for a visitation with Melody. I’m here to see you.”

  Wynn shook her head and frowned, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. But it made no sense. Why on earth would he drive all the way out there to see her? She looked at her phone and then at Eric. “We both know your phone works just fine. Wouldn’t a text have been a better idea than a seven-hour car ride?”

  Eric shook his head, still smiling. Like he was privy to some inside joke that Wynn didn’t understand. It only enraged her more.

  “Listen,” he said, “you’d mentioned the ball to me in one of our texts. Did you think I wouldn’t want to come and support my mother-in-law?”

  “Huh?” Wynn was really confused now. “You’re saying you came all the way out here to go to the ball? That makes no sense. Why?”

  Eric put his hands up in surrender. “Okay fine, fine. I didn’t just come out here to support Diedre. I also figured you’d need a date to this thing.”

  Wynn sat there, staring at Eric, jaw dropped. Was this fool completely out of his mind?

  “Not to sound repetitive but, huh? You thought I’d need a date? We’re divorced. Or did that slip your mind? And why would you think I’d need a date? Because your life went on and mine just completely stopped and I’m incapable of finding my own dates? Speaking of your life, where’s your fiancé?” Wynn looked around the car like she half-expected Brittany to be sitting in the back seat. That is where children were supposed to ride in vehicles after all.

  Eric took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel, flexing his forearm muscles. Without looking at Wynn he said, “Brittany and I are done. It’s over.”

  Wynn’s jaw dropped for the second time in less than two minutes. “What?”

  “It just didn’t work out,” he continued. “We’re too different. She’s really immature.”

  Ha! Wynn wanted to scream. Imagine that. The teenager was immature.

  “It kind of got on my nerves, to tell you the truth. She always wanted to hang out at the mall or this local pizza place her school friends always hung out at. Some of them even worked for me at the store so you can imagine how inappropriate that would have been.”

  Wynn had to cover her mouth to keep from howling with laughter. He was worried it would look inappropriate to fraternize with his young grocery store employees? But dating one was somehow different?

  “And she would only text me in emojis,” Eric continued, “so I’d have to constantly guess at what she wanted. It was frustrating to say the least.”

  Wynn looked outside the passenger window. She didn’t know if she wanted to laugh out loud hysterically or scream at him in anger. What did he think it would be like dating a teenager? And now that it was a bit annoying, he dumped her? He broke up a marriage and left his child for this girl, and a few emojis were going to send him running. He really was such a jerk.

  “And, well,” he went on, “I guess the idea of being married to me suddenly didn’t seem as appealing to her as it once did.”

  Wynn whipped her head back around to look at Eric. He was staring down at his lap. Ah. The truth comes out now. Sounds like it might have been Brittany who did the dumping.

  “She decided being a step-mom wasn’t as cool as she thought it would be. She had envisioned some kind of Teen Mom type shit, I guess, I don’t know. Life’s not a reality show though and suddenly the idea of taking care of a kid scared her. She suddenly saw me in a different light and actually called me old. I’m not old, am I?” He turned to Wynn and waited for a response, looking at her with the same big blue eyes Melody looked at her with.

  She sighed. How on earth did she get saddled with the job of making him feel better? “No. You’re not old. You’re only thirty-three. But,” she added, “to a teenage girl you’re pretty old.”

  Eric looked shocked.

  “Oh, come on,” Wynn said, “you couldn’t have thought that was a normal relationship.”

  Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess I did. For a while. Brittany quit the store too. She said she’s going to go to beauty school. She wants to open up her own salon one day.”

  Wynn thought about this. “Well, that sounds like a good plan for her.”

  Eric shrugged again.

  Wynn pulled out her phone and checked the time. “Shoot, I really have to go and get dressed. People are going to arrive soon.” She grabbed the door handle to let herself out.

  “Wynn,” Eric said. He grabbed her free arm to stop her.

  She glanced back at her ex-husband.

  “I was hoping you and I could give things another shot. Try to be a family again, you. me, and Melody. That’s why I really came out here tonight.”

  Wynn bit her bottom lip. She wanted to rant and scream at Eric. He was such an unbelievable, arrogant, prick. He threw away their family once for this random bag girl at his store and then the minute she dumped him he comes slithering back. Wynn wanted to call him every awful name she could think of but he looked so pathetic sitting there, looking at her with such hope in his eyes.

  “Eric,” Wynn started. “I need you to listen carefully to me and understand what I’m saying completely. Okay?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry you drove all the way out here but you and I are never getting back together. A hundred, thousand percent not getting back together. You understand?” She wa
ited a moment for him to say something but he didn’t and she really didn’t have any more time. She’d wasted enough time on this nonsense already. “Now I have to go. Good bye.” Wynn sprung from the car and raced back into Starlight.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Bryce pulled down his driver’s side shade and looked at himself in the mirror. He reached up and patted his hair but it was already set in place. He ran a hand along his jaw line. It was weird to have nothing there. On a whim that afternoon, he’d shaved it off. He started growing it when Julia had thrown him out because he knew she hated beards. And then he just sort of got used to it and liked not having to shave all the time. But he felt like a fresh look today and hoped Wynn would like it.

  He’d dressed up for the evening as well. Nothing too fancy, but he bought a new navy blazer that he wore over a light blue shirt with a pair of new khakis. Bryce turned off the car and started to exit but then turned back around. He’d almost forgotten the corsage. He picked up the clear box with the carefully arranged tiny red roses and baby’s breath. He hadn’t bought a corsage since high school prom and he felt a bit silly going into the florist to order it but he’d promised Wynn that he would bring her one.

  Bryce headed up the path to Starlight. It was a beautiful night. The moon was huge and the twinkle lights edging the pub lent themselves to the atmosphere. He knew it would be a magical evening. When the moment was right, he wanted to tell Wynn how he was feeling about her and hopefully she felt the same about him.

  Bryce pushed open the door to Starlight and was immediately impressed. It looked amazing. The transformation was incredible and the room practically screamed romance. Candles were lit on every surface and tulle and more twinkle lights hid everything that made the pub a pub. It looked like a shimmery dream. Waiters wandered the room with trays of appetizers and champagne. There was a nice woman, one of the pub waitresses Bryce thought he remembered seeing last time he was here, collecting tickets at the front. Everyone paid fifty dollars a head for the evening and they expected the bulk of the town to turn out. All signs pointed to it being a successful fundraiser.