“You were going to wear it?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” She swallowed back a sigh. “Things didn’t work out.”
“I hate to hear that.”
“It was for the best.” She forced a smile.
“What happened?” His tone made it clear he was just being polite and didn’t really care that she’d gotten jilted on her wedding day, but his question still bothered her. She wasn’t past the hurt yet.
“Yes, apparently at the last minute my ex decided he preferred a stock car racer to a quiet bookworm.”
“Ouch,” Tom said. “That sucks.”
Yes, indeed. “He also said I was boring.”
“Hey, I’m sorry.” He probably meant he was sorry he’d asked.
“It was six months ago. I’m over it.” For the most part, she was over Jaxon, but she wasn’t over the “boring” comment. “Of course, my parents had to pay for the reception hall they’d rented, and my aunt Ellen doesn’t know what to do with the four pounds of hand-molded pastel mints in her freezer. Does your sister need any candy wedding bells?”
“Uh, no, thanks.” He looked like he wanted to get out of there ASAP. “About the dress—are you sure you want to sell it? I mean, a nice person like you, I’m sure you’ll get a chance to wear it eventually.”
Nice. That cursed word again.
“I need the closet space.” She didn’t tell him how fervently she wanted to get it out of her apartment, out of the suburb of Roseville, and preferably out of the state of Illinois. Start over somewhere new and exciting.
“I can understand that.” He glanced around at the tiny one-bedroom apartment.
“Why did you call me a ‘nice’ person?”
“Well...” He averted his gaze, pretending to study the voluminous skirt of the wedding dress. “You do seem nice.”
Something inside her snapped. He was a stranger. She had nothing whatsoever to lose by asking him The Big Question. So she asked.
“I am nice, really nice, so why don’t hot guys like you want to marry nice women like me?”
He raised his arms in a gesture of surrender. “Miss—Jude, I don’t know you well enough to—”
She leaned in. “No, I really want to know. What’s wrong with being nice?”
“Just because some jerk broke up with you—”
“He dumped me at the church when I was about to put on the dress, and then he tried to tell me I’m too good for him.” Why was she telling him all this? Zip your lip, Bailey.
“Look.” He raised his palms. “I had no idea what was in that guy’s head, but there’s nice, and then there’s being a doormat. Maybe that’s the real problem. Do you let people walk all over you?”
“I’m not a doormat.” Was she?
He shrugged and lifted the other lacy sleeve of the gown. “I think Tara will like this.”
“Fine. You can have the dress for three hundred less than I paid for it. I can show you the receipt, but only if you tell me what’s wrong with being nice. I bet you’ve broken up with women and used the same lame excuse that she was too good for you. Or that she’s too sweet. Or you just wanted to be friends.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever said that...exactly.” He ran a finger around his collar and glanced at the front door. “But let me just text Tara to see if the dress will do.”
“Go right ahead.” Jude flapped a hand. “I can wait.”
Whew, boy.
Jude Bailey might be cute as the dickens, but right now, holding his feet to the fire the way she was, she didn’t seem all that “nice” to Tom.
He texted Tara a picture of the dress—and told her Jude’s sob story and why the brand-new bridal gown was so cheap—but his twin didn’t answer right away.
Darn it. He wanted to grab that dress and get out of there.
That left an awkward silence between them as Jude stood near the open door, her phone in her hand as if she intended on calling 911 at the slightest provocation.
Message received. She was the cautious type and she didn’t trust him. Not that he could blame her. He was a stranger, and she was home alone.
“Could I see the receipt?” he asked just to make sure he was getting the dress at the discount she offered.
“First,” she said. “Answer my question.”
Tom grimaced. It wasn’t an easy question to answer. She’d hit a sore spot. He’d used precisely those same words just days ago to break up with a cute, but marriage-minded redhead he’d been seeing for a couple of weeks.
He wasn’t the love-’em-and-leave-’em type. He just enjoyed his freedom too much to settle down right now. His handcrafted furniture store was finally a success, and he wanted to bask in that glow for a while.
And then there was the ridiculous no-sex bar bet he’d made with his best buddies just last night—Jake, Dirk, and Seth. For the first time since they’d met in their frat house at the University of Illinois, all four of them were flying solo at the same time.
After a basketball game that Tom and Seth won, they ended up at a trendy nightclub lamenting their trouble with women. The drunken conversation had devolved into a celibacy challenge along the lines of their favorite frat house classic movie—40 Days and 40 Nights.
At some point, Dirk, a day trader, slapped three hundred dollars on the middle of the pool table and ponied up a bet that sent the rest of them running to the ATM.
“Forty day and forty nights, lads,” Dirk said in a horrible imitation of an Irish accent. “Twelve hundred dollars up for grabs. No sex for forty days and that includes refraining from… er…shall we say…self-care. Whoever lasts the longest wins the pot.”
They’d done a similar challenge in their college days, and Tom had lost on the thirty-ninth day when a waitress he’d been crushing on slipped him her phone number. As it turned out, Dirk had put her up to the seduction, leaving Tom feeling cheap and used.
Dirk hadn’t let him forget it either. For ten years he’d been bragging about besting Tom, who was easily the most competitive of their group and had gotten his head turned by a sexy wiggle and soft giggle.
This time, Tom was determined to win that bet and put an end to Dirk’s gloating once and for all.
“Well?” Jude asked, fixing him with her intelligent blue eyes.
Tom blinked, momentarily lost in thought. “Huh?”
“What’s wrong with being nice?”
“Um, it’s not the niceness per se.”
“No?” She didn’t look as if she was buying it.
“Sometimes, the chemistry just isn’t there. Or maybe the timing is wrong.” He shrugged, wishing she’d let the whole thing go.
“Bad chemistry.” She wrinkled her pert little nose and stared at him. “Next you’ll tell me men do like nice women—but only as pals.”
He shifted from one foot to the other, torn between wanting to cheer her up and yearning to escape because those rosy lips puckered into a kissable O where doing him in and thirty-nine days stood between him and twelve hundred dollars and the title of sole survivor.