Cuff Me(35)

Did he?

“The option to get away to a nicer climate sounds nice,” she said, softening her tone. “Maybe I can save up vacation time.”

“And if not, we’ll hunker down in Chicago and drink red wine in front of the fire,” he said. “Maybe binge on whatever show’s the next Netflix rage.”

Jill’s mind happily entered the cozy picture he described. It was everything she’d ever wanted. Someone to cuddle with on the couch, watching crappy TV with excellent wine… maybe even a foot rub. Maybe Vin would suggest ordering extra cheese on the pizza, and she’d pretend to protest because it was too fattening, and—

Jill sat up a little straighter. Wait. Whoa.

Vin?

How had her partner entered that picture?

He’d be back here in New York when she and Tom were in Chicago. Not like he’d be stopping by any longer, and there certainly wouldn’t be any cuddling since she’d be married.

Jill glanced down at her phone, where Vincent’s text sat unresponded to.

That sad text combined with her strange, out-of-place vision made her chest ache.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to reply to his message. If they had any chance of preserving their friendship after her marriage, she had to keep being open with him the way she had before Tom.

Can’t. She wrote back. Tom’s in town. Have an extra egg roll for me.

Jill set her phone aside and asked Tom about the most recent deal he was working on.

Her phone buzzed beside her as Tom talked, and Jill ordered herself not to look at it. Reminded herself that looking at your phone when anyone was talking was rude. And when it was your fiancé, it was downright unforgivable.

And yet, the second Tom stopped talking to peruse her spice rack, Jill tugged the phone closer to read Vin’s response.

Please don’t be mad, please don’t be mad…

K. Also, opened your fortune cookie. Says right here that you’ll die young unless you buy your partner Starbucks for the rest of the week.

She smiled as she wrote back. What does yours say?

That I’m brilliant. Also, well-endowed.

Jill nearly choked on her sip of of wine. Isn’t that what it said last time?

I know, weird, right. Think I should laminate this and hand it out in bars?

“Something funny?” Tom asked as he turned back with a polite smile.

“Nah, it’s nothing,” she said, putting her phone away with a little pang.

But it didn’t feel like nothing.

It felt like… something.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


Oh, that one,” Maggie exclaimed. “That’s the one!”

Elena gave her sister-in-law an indulgent look over her glass of champagne. “You’ve said that about the last five.”

Maggie sighed and leaned back on the pink sofa of the bridal shop, and rubbed her ever-growing belly. “Don’t judge me. You have champagne while I only get this stupid sparkling cider. Also, it’s the hormones. They’re killing me. Yesterday I cried when I saw a pigeon eating a French fry.”

Jill was barely listening as she pivoted in slow circles in front of the enormous mirrors. “I don’t know—I don’t think I’m liking that big bow in back.”

“It dwarfs you,” Ava said in her bossiest voice. “You need something that enhances your small frame, not overwhelms it.”

“But I kind of like the poofy princess dress,” Jill said, her voice just shy of petulant.

Elena tilted her head and gave Jill a look. “Really? Because two dresses ago you insisted on no poof.”

Jill scowled at Elena in the reflection of the mirror. “I changed my mind.”

She saw the look Ava and Elena exchanged. Not that they were trying very hard to hide it.

Jill whipped around, her finger pointing at them. “What was that? What was that look?”

Elena didn’t miss a beat as she smoothly stood up and swooped Jill’s champagne flute from the side table and came to stand beside her. “You’re edgy, darling. Talk to us.”

Jill accepted the flute and stared at her best friend.

Elena looked perfectly together and gorgeous as always. She was wearing one of those pencil skirts that she seemed to own a million of, in every color, and a simple white blouse. Her black hair was pulled back in a neat chignon, her makeup flawless, her manicure un-chipped.

She made Jill feel small and frumpy.

Which wasn’t fair. At all.

It wasn’t Elena’s fault that she was gorgeous.

Nor was it Elena’s fault that Jill had been in the mother-of-all funks for the past week.

It wasn’t Elena’s fault that Tom had been busy and hardly remembered to call. Or that when he did call, Jill was always working on the time-consuming Lenora Birch case.

Or that said case had yet to turn up so much as a potential clue, much less an actual suspect.

Jill pressed a thumb between her eyebrows. “Ladies, what say you we abandon the dress shopping for the day?”

“Done,” Ava said, not bothering to hide her relief.

“We can go back to my place,” Elena said. “Eat junk food and bash boys?”

Jill gave her friend a look. “You’re having guy trouble?”

“It’s not for me, honey,” Elena said soothingly, petting Jill’s head. “Is everything okay with you and Tom?”