“Enough about food and babies. I want to know what the deal is with you and Cam. You guys drove here together?” Sage asked.
“How do you know we didn’t just get here at the same time?” Grace replied, with one eyebrow raised but otherwise giving nothing away with her features.
“Um, pretty obvious when you walked back here hand in hand,” Sage told her with a knowing stare.
“Crap. You would have to notice that,” Grace moaned. “He just showed up at my apartment and told me I was riding with him, then I almost slipped down the stairs, he caught me, and I suddenly found myself in his car. I didn’t plan on riding with him.”
“I almost miss the days when Jackson was chasing me,” Alyssa said with a laugh. “Wait, he still chases me around, so I don’t really know what’s changed except that we sleep in the same bed every night now.”
Sage had to put in her two cents’ worth. “I fought like crazy not to fall in love with Spence all over again. But it was a lost cause from the beginning because I never fell out of love with him. We can put our love on hold, as I’ve told you, Grace, but once you feel true love, you can never push it away again. You might as well just admit defeat now.”
“He just wants to be friends,” Grace insisted, and the other two women rolled their eyes. “Okay, he might want to be ‘friends with benefits.’ But a happily-ever-after is completely out of the question. It’s come and gone.”
Grace needed to believe what she herself was saying right then, and the problem was . . . she didn’t.
“Well, then you might want to alert Cam to that fact, because right now the man is drinking in every part of you with his eyes. He can’t seem to look away.”
“You two are horrible, and I refuse to stand here and fight when I’m sure to lose. So let’s talk about kids, childbirth, the government—anything other than Camden Whitman,” she begged with large pleading eyes.
“Fine,” Sage told her. “We’ll be good for at least fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be happy with fifteen minutes. Because that gives me time to consume at least two drinks, and then I’ll be numb to whatever you have to say.” Grace injected her words with a syrupy sweetness, and she batted her eyelashes to heighten the effect.
The three of them got something to eat and drink and went in search of a comfortable place to sit—not an easy task for Alyssa, with her belly sticking out a mile.
“You lush,” Alyssa told her with a pout. “It’s just not fair that someone in my condition can have only virgin drinks. The boat sailed on my virginity a long time ago.”
“My heart bleeds for you,” Grace countered. “Your life with Jackson must be a living hell. But this is goooooood. I don’t know what’s in this so-called jungle juice, and I probably don’t want to know.”
“Stop trying to torment me. I’d kill for just a glass of wine,” Alyssa groaned.
“I’ll have one for you. I’m not on call tonight.” Sage smiled broadly.
“You’re just too kind.”
“I know, Alyssa. Oddly enough, I get that a lot.”
The three women sat back, and soon Grace did feel better. She let her worries drift away and simply basked in the pleasure of spending time with her friends. Soon she wouldn’t even notice that Cam was there. Even if she had to lie to herself and play tricks on her mind. The brain was a powerful tool, one that you could program to do what you wanted. At least if you were determined enough.
When there was a murmuring in the crowd, Grace didn’t pay the least attention. There were dozens of people around, so a little chaos was expected. But soon her eyes shot open, when her foot was kicked, making her jump and causing her to spill some of her much-needed drink.
Looking up, she found Kitty standing before her, clutching two pieces of blue fabric in her hand, murder in her eyes. What the hell?
“Kitty? What are you doing here? Were you invited?” Grace asked as she sat up and stared at her client from hell.
“No, I wasn’t invited to this hillbilly festival,” the woman snarled, and looked around in disdain.
“Then what in the world are you doing here?” Grace didn’t notice the crowd quieting so they could all listen in.
“I couldn’t reach you on your cell, which I find quite disturbing, since you are working for me, so I called your mother to find out where in the world you were,” the woman said, looking Grace over to find the device.
“I don’t have it on me. When I’m with my friends, I find it rude to play with my phone,” Grace told her.
“It’s your job to be available to me 24/7, Grace. And there’s an emergency,” Kitty snarled.
“What possible emergency could there be? The wedding is over a month away,” Grace reminded her.
“Does this look like Persian blue to you?” Kitty practically screamed as she thrust one of the pieces of fabric in Grace’s face. “Does it?”
Grace was so caught off guard she didn’t know what to do or say. Her cheeks heated as the display continued in front of her friends.
“When I called the supply house, I told them Persian blue, and it said Persian blue on the tags, so I assumed that was exactly what it was,” Grace told her.
“This isn’t Persian blue,” Kitty snapped. “This is,” she said, holding up a piece of fabric that looked identical to the one she was waving about in anger.
“Honestly, they look exactly the same to me,” Grace told her.