Page 101 of The Grump Next Door
Dean and I carefully don’t look at each other.
“I should…” I gesture vaguely at my soaked everything. “The rehearsal dinner starts in two hours and—”
“Go!” Ivy shoos me toward the door. “We’ll finish up here. You need to get ready!”
Perfect. It’s just enough time to get ready, check on last minute details and to have a small, private breakdown.Yay, me.
Two hours later, I’m blow-dried and dressed and trying not to think about Dean in the rain. It’s going poorly.
CeCe eyes me as I apply mascara for the third time, my hand shaking slightly. “You okay?”
“Fine.” The word comes out too fast, too high.
“You sure? Because you’ve been staring at that tube for five minutes.”
I blink, realizing she’s right. The mascara wand is frozen halfway to my face. “Just thinking about the rehearsal.”
“Uh-huh.” She sprawls on the bed, watching me with those knowing eyes that see too much. “And this has nothing to do with tent wrestling in the rain with—”
“We were saving the tent.” I focus very hard on my reflection, not meeting her gaze.
“Sexually?”
“How do you save a tent sexually?” But my cheeks are warm.
“I don’t know, but you two managed it.” She’s grinning now, delighted by my suffering.
I throw my lipstick at her. She dodges easily, laughing.
The rehearsal’s at some restaurant in town. One of those places that tries too hard with Edison bulbs and reclaimed wood everything. I drive with CeCe because I need the moral support and also someone to stop me from doing anything stupid.
Like thinking about Dean’s hands on mine.
Or the mud on his cheek.
Or the way he said my name in the rain.
“You’re doing it again,” CeCe says.
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“Your I’m-thinking-about-Dean’s-wet-shirt face.”
“I don’t have a—”
“You literally just sighed.”
“I’m TIRED.”
We pull into the restaurant parking lot. I can see the wedding party through the windows. Everyone laughing, mingling, being normal humans who didn’t just havea momentin a storm.
Dean’s already there. Of course. Standing by the bar in a fresh shirt and dark jeans, looking like he didn’t just wrestle nature itself.
He sees us pull up. Watches through the window as I get out of the car.
