She pointed at a huge photo album on the table at arm’s length away from him. I sat down on her other side as she started flipping through pictures. Half an hour later she had shown us every decoration they had ever made.
“It really looks amazing,” I wanted to stir the conversation in a more important direction. The available date they had. “You said on the phone there is one Saturday in August that no one had booked yet.”
“Oh, yes, dear,” she took a notebook from the table. “My daughter handles the reservations on the computer, but I make her scribble it down on paper for me. I can’t use that thing. Ah, there it is,” she said. “Saturday. August fifteenth.”
“Oh, God,” I resisted the urge to squeal in delight. Tyler would make fun of me the entire drive back home.
I looked at him to share my excitement. His eyes were already on me, but he shook his head with a soft smile on his face. I frowned and he pointed with a finger to the still open notebook. That available date in August was a year from now.
I pulled my phone out and checked the date in my calendar. Fifteenth of August. A Friday.
Shit.
“Do you want it?” she asked.
We both shook our heads simultaneously, but Tyler was the one explaining.
“There must be some misunderstanding. We thought you meant this August.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. We are almost fully booked up until the end of next year.” That explained my wondering about this place being available. It simply wasn’t.
We all stood up and she walked us out.
“You two are the prettiest couple I had ever seen. You will have great wedding photos. And beautiful babies too. I wonder if they will have their mother’s blue eyes, or your green ones.” I was so disappointed I didn’t bother to correct her and explain we weren’t a couple. I walked straight ahead. “She really liked it here, didn’t she?” I heard her asking Tyler.
“I can’t believe there would be a person that wouldn’t want to get married here.”
I snorted loud enough for him to hear. He wouldn’t want to get married here. Or anywhere else for that matter.
“If you two like it so much, why don’t you wait? You are still young, you have time.”
I whirled around to face them and explain we weren’t the ones getting married, but then Tyler’s hand snaked around my waist. The moment he touched me electricity passed between us. He pulled me closer and positioned me on his side.
“We have a bun in the oven,” he said with face turned in my direction. I felt his breath on my ear, and I shivered. The bastard snickered. My cheeks burned from the embarrassment of getting caught.
I wanted to get away from him right that second, but he was holding me tight, so I would have to wrestle my way out of his arms. And I wasn’t the person to make a scene, especially in front of an old lady that clearly favored him over me.
“Congratulations! A boy or a girl?” she asked.
“We don’t know yet, but I’m hoping for a girl.” I shot him a look. It was all a joke, but he sounded strangely confident in that particular statement. Like it was the one truth uttered among a series of lies.
“I have two sons and one daughter, and let me tell you, I love my daughter more.”
Tyler chuckled at her comment, and I felt his laughter vibrate through my body. His presence overwhelmed me. His voice sounded too intimate in my ears. His scent of oranges invaded my nostrils. Was that his shampoo? What a simple choice for a man who lived amongst the smell of a gazillion types of beer, other people’s sweat, and Boston women’s private parts.
I wanted out of there. Out of his embrace. Out of that woman’s sight.
“We really have to get going,” I said to her. “Thank you for your time. Your vineyard is really beautiful.”
We said our goodbyes and she got back inside. Tyler immediately removed his hand from my waist and stepped aside. I got a good look at him. He didn’t seem affected by our closeness. Not even a little bit. I felt all shattered inside and he just smiled like a goofball.
“Lighten up, little Spencer. It was a joke.”
“It wasn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t pee-in-your-pants funny, but it was okay,” he continued to grin at me.
“She didn’t find it funny. She had no idea it was a joke.”
“I didn’t do it for her, silly.”
He did it to lighten up my sour mood. That and his soft voice melted something inside me. It was probably the wall I was building to protect myself from him ever since I decided to go find him in that stupid bar.
Jesus. Why does Boston seem like someone else’s life and not my own right now?
“Let’s just go, okay?” I said. “This was a huge waste of time. Time that we don’t actually have.”
The moment we entered the car, I pulled out my phone and started calling venues. I wanted to prevent him from talking to me. And it worked. At some point I realized I wasn’t making any phone calls. I was just sitting in a car watching through the window wondering why he had such power to affect me while he was driving us to an unknown at least to me location.
He was my first crush and it lasted for years, but I was a grown woman now, not a child. I had a serious life. A serious boyfriend. I shouldn’t be reacting to him the way I did.
“Why do you keep that keychain?” he asked out of nowhere. My head snapped in his direction. How did he know I still had it?
“Keychain?” I played dumb.
“I peeked in your purse while you were working.”
Was that the reason for his odd behavior earlier? The keychain?
I looked through the window, contemplating on how much I wanted to share, if I wanted to do that at all, when his phone started ringing.
“Would you?” He pointed at it. “Check who’s calling?”
Relief washed over me. Maybe he didn’t want to know about the keychain that much if he was so easily distracted.
“It’s your mother. Should I answer?”
“Put her on speaker.” I accepted the call and held his phone in the air between us. “I’m listening.”
“Tyler,” Sylvia’s voice filled the car. “You picked up.”
“Why do you call if you assume I won’t pick up?” It was a valid question, but his mother ignored him, something I was beginning to suspect was a habit of hers.
“We are having an engagement party. On Wednesday.”
A what now?
“Good for you. Enjoy,” Tyler said, amusement in his tone.
I cleared my throat and leaned closer to his phone and him for that matter. His scent hit me like a body blow.
“Mrs. Hartley, it’s Hannah. Clem didn’t tell me anything about an engagement party on Wednesday.”
It seemed weird for the bride not to inform the maid of honor about something like that. And knowing Sylvia’s history of twisting people’s arms into all sorts of things that she wanted, I thought she might be organizing something Clem wasn’t on board with.
“Hannah? What are you two doing together?” Sylvia asked with an accusatory tone.
“We are trying to find a venue,” I went into defensive mode. Why was she so upset about us being together?
“Tyler? Why aren’t you on the camping trip?”