“Why do you have our picture?”
“Keep going.”
Audrey flipped the page and saw the words The Plan, centered at the top in bold lettering with a heart around them and below there were steps listed.
Step one: get Audrey and Josh both to Dining in the Dark.
Step two: fake back injury so that Audrey takes AcroYoga class with Josh.
Audrey looked up at her sister. “You faked your back injury?”
“Oh that’s nothing. Keep reading.” Viv waved her hand at Audrey.
Audrey turned her attention once again to The Plan.
Step three: Nonna asks Caleb to go to the community center to dance with Audrey in front of Josh to make him jealous.
Again her head lifted. “Did you really plan all this or did you just write this after the fact.
“I knew you would say that.” Viv suddenly materialized her phone and turned the screen toward Audrey and she watched as a video began. When it played she saw that Viv was standing in front of the Christmas tree that the town put up each year downtown and she was with Nonna.
“Hi, Audrey. We are making this video as evidence that we have been planning Project Valentine for months.”
“You two not know what’s good for you, so we’re going to help!” Nonna wagged her finger at the screen.
“We just had a meeting with Sue Ann and Renata and pitched the singles week. They agreed after looking at our proposal. But there is one piece of paper that Sue Ann and Renata didn’t see. It is the real reason behind singles week.”
“Project Valentine!” Both Nonna and Viv chorused together as Nonna held up the piece of paper that was in the binder with the words The Plan on the top.
Viv continued, “So get ready to fall in love, or fall even further in love because like Chris Lane, we’ve got ‘Big, Big Plans.’”
Nonna turned her head to Viv. “Like whose plans?”
“Chris Lane. He has a song called ‘Big, Big, Plans.’” When Nonna’s confused expression didn’t change Viv continued. “He’s the country artist that is married to Lauren Bushnell, well now Lane. She was on the Ben Higgins season of The Bachelor and won.”
“Oh yes, I like that girl. Very good girl.” Nonna nodded in recognition.
They both turned their attention back to the camera. “So this is your friendly neighborhood cupids signing off. We love you both and we just want you to be happy.”
“And get head out of butt.” Nonna added.
Viv smiled in agreement. “Yes, and remove your heads from your asses please and thank you.”
The video ended and Audrey looked at her sister who just motioned down to the binder. “Keep reading.”
Audrey looked back down.
Step four: flatten Audrey’s back tire so she can’t drive up to Moonlight River Lodge so she has to go and ask Josh for a ride.
Viv was right, faking a back injury was nothing.
Step five: once Josh and Audrey get up to the cabin, have Jeremy text that the bridge is “flooded” stranding them at the cabin.
The quotations around the word flooded had Audrey lifting her head. “The bridge wasn’t flooded?”
“It was. Back in November when I went up there to the grand opening of the lodge.”
“But the night we were there, it wasn’t flooded.” Audrey clarified.
Viv shook her head back and forth, clearly proud of her plots and schemes. Without her sister’s prompting this time, Audrey looked back down at the paper.
Step six: Josh and Audrey finally declare their undying love for one another and live happily ever after.
Audrey looked back up at her sister in total disbelief.
“You planned all of this?”
“Yes. Well, I can’t take full credit, Nonna was my partner in crime. But we did it for both of your own good. And it worked! Maybe not as smoothly as we’d hoped, but damn near. That boy loves you and you love him, so don’t let some stupid mistakes get in the way of that or you’ll ruin the plan that I slaved over for months.”
Audrey continued staring at her sister.
“Or that Nonna and I came up with after two bottles of wine during a binge-watch of the Kardashians.”
That made more sense.
Before she could answer she heard her name and looked up. Josh was standing there wearing a white button-down shirt and dark gray slacks. She’d never seen him in slacks before or a button-down shirt. He looked like he’d stepped right off the pages of GQ.
“Well, my work here is done.” Viv stood and grabbed her notebook.
As she passed by Josh she leaned in close and said, “I’m rooting for you but if you hurt her, I will cut off your balls, grind them up, and feed them to you.”
Josh, who was used to Viv’s wild claims, just nodded his head. “Understood.”
Viv continued on her way leaving Josh and Audrey alone. Well, as alone as they could be in a tent filled with two hundred plus guests.
“Can I sit?” Josh asked.
Audrey nodded. As he lowered down in the seat next to her, she said, “You look really nice.”
“You look fucking hot,” he replied, and she felt her cheeks warm.
He took a breath and said, “I’m really sorry, Audrey—”
“It’s okay. I understand—”
“I’m not just apologizing for the past couple of days, although I am sorry for that, I’m apologizing for the past eight years that I’ve been too much of a pussy to tell you how I feel. I wasted so much time, and the shittiest part is, I convinced myself I was doing the honorable thing. I told myself you deserved better, that you should be with someone who you could have kids with—”
“I don’t want kids.” Audrey didn’t know how many times she had to tell him that.
“I know,” Josh grinned. “I’m just telling you what was going on in my head. I told myself you deserved someone who wasn’t fucked up mentally, and physically. I told myself a lot of things, except for one thing, the truth.
“Spending the last couple of days with my mom was a very eye-opening experience. I saw her, really saw her, for the first time. She’s just a person. She’s a messed up, broken person. I think I had this idea of her as someone who didn’t love me. Who didn’t choose me. And deep down, I was scared to let you in because I thought if my mom doesn’t love me, then how could Audrey? And I was terrified that you would leave, just like she had.
“I think that’s why I reacted the way I did when I saw the glasses and pictures. I freaked out because my mind went down a path where you could logically leave me and deep down that was my worst fear.
“But I realized something after I dropped my mom off in Arizona, her not being there for me growing up wasn’t about me. It was about her. Her not being there for me wasn’t because she didn’t love me, it was because she was sick.
“And you might leave me. And if you did, I would be heartbroken, crushed, but I’d rather take the chance at that than spend another day without you.”
Audrey didn’t know what to say. She’d never heard Josh speak this much in her life, especially about his feelings, much less his feelings for her. It was a lot to take in. “Josh, I…”
“Wait, I’m not done. I want you to see something.” He reached behind him and pulled out three spiral notebooks like the one that had fallen on the floor when she was putting the coloring away.