Page 2 of A Complicated Bride

“Jerry Maguire, 1996.” I couldn’t help myself, but I refused to match his stunning smile. This was no time for…whatever this was. I couldn’t exactly call it flirting, could I?

I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life without interference by anyone—least of all another man. Still, the heart wanted what the heart wanted and my ticker refused to slow down. I thought of doing some deep breathing exercises.

Of course I knew I was getting way ahead of myself, as usual. This man did nothing more than offer to help with my bags for pity’s sake. So what if he threw in a few movie quotes. And so what if he knew how to fill out a suit.

Was I getting overly defensive now?

Of course I was. Too many people had been running roughshod over me for too long, telling me what to do, how to live my life, what was best for me.

“You’re showing off,” he said. “Too obvious. What you should have said was ‘As if.’”

I bit my lip to stifle my knee jerk response, Clueless, 1995. He arched a brow at me during the beat of silence while I wrestled my movie game show contestant persona under control.

“I’ll get my own bags.” I was helplessly aware of the chip on my shoulder aimed at squashing this innocent man’s toes, but my attitude was like a runaway train. It would keep going until… it came to the end of the line. Whatever that meant.

Mr. Movie Quote shook his head at me but kept his grin going. He stepped aside while I took hold of my bags and trudged through the door into the entryway.

There I stopped and rested my eyes on the quaint old-fashioned desk with the open guest book and the long feathered pen in its penholder—just as I’d remembered from my last visit long ago. Mist covered my eyes as if they were itchy from pollen, but it wasn’t the pollen. I clenched my jaw as if that would stop the tears and my heart raced in panic.

I couldn’t possibly cry. I didn’t cry. This wasn’t sad. This was a happy moment.

I was saved from enduring any more of my own lame pep talk when the spitting image of Audrey Hepburn, my aggravatingly adorable cousin Julie, flew into the entry from the kitchen.

“Lily! What on earth are you doing here? Come here and give me a hug.” Her arms were open and there was nothing that would stop me from going right for that big warm familial hug. Not even that look on Mr. Fast and Hot I saw from the corner of my eye—because of course I’d been keenly aware of him and kept him in my view. It was a look of piqued interest, but reserved at the same time.

The fast movie man with the impeccable suit, whoever he was, picked up my bags as if in defiance of my earlier insistence that he shouldn’t, and carried them up the stairs.

I held onto Julie, a lifeline to our simpler past when life was uncomplicated and expectations of us were no more than to make our beds in the morning and help with chores before we jumped in the lake, splashing and laughing the summer days away.