The Sweetest Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) (11 page)

“Oh, dear, of course. How terribly rude of me not to call you the moment I found out. Let’s see here. Well, first I should ask who of us you were actually inviting.”

Claire winced. She had no idea. “Everyone.” What else could she say? That all she really wanted was to have Jace back on the phone so she could hear his voice. Try to see him again?

“Oh my. Well, I’m afraid I only have partial answers, then. Tyler said he couldn’t make it.” Did her voice sound strained just now? “Ashley and Lawrence will be there—unless she delivers the baby beforehand, which I really think means no on their part. Ashley is not so good at potentially letting people down, and she usually overextends herself, although having a baby will certainly curb that habit. Now then, that leaves Davis and Cody, whom you haven’t met yet, and they said they’d love to come. Cody is seven now, and he will just love a wedding. Dancing, cake. And I will be there. And my husband. So that just leaves ...”

“Jace.” Claire twisted the phone cord in her knuckles. There really was no reason to get so unnerved by what Jace might have decided. If all went well, there would be no wedding at all. But Claire found herself holding her breath anyway.

“Jace,” Helen called, the phone line sounding muffled. “Honey, it’s Claire on the phone. She’s calling about her wedding. She wants to know if you’ll be there.” A pause. Rustling. “Here, Claire.”

Another pause and a muffled, “Don’t look at me like that. It’s just a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ ”

Rustling.

Claire let out one breath and gulped another in. This was not going how she imagined, even the worst-case scenario. This felt like a huge bet-your-life gamble. She needed to talk to him. And not about the wedding. About old times, about the last six years, about dancing and wine and anything else. Hell, politics even.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Claire said, a bit too happily. “How are you? I tried to stop you when you were handing the phone to your mother, but I don’t think you heard me.”

“I heard you.”

Ouch. “Oh.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Claire,” Jace said softly into the receiver.

A sharp pang ran through her heart. “Oh.” Her eyes began to sting.

“Tyler had a really hard time hearing about you the other day.”

Claire swallowed, but the lump in her throat only grew. “Oh.” She looked around her office as though something might inspire her as she felt her last grasp of hope slipping loose. “I wasn’t actually calling about the wedding.”

“You weren’t?” Was that surprise? Pleasant surprise, maybe?

“No, I was actually calling so I could get your number. I couldn’t think of another reason to tell your mom, and then once she got on the phone, I just ... I just ...” She just what? Choked? Shoved her foot in her mouth?

“Why do you want my number?” Jace asked softly.

“To call you. To ask you if you might want to go to dinner or lunch or something like that.” She couldn’t stop now, not when this might be her only shot, clumsy or not. “It was so great seeing you that I thought we could do it again. You know, catch up.”

She was answered with near silence. The only sound was a gentle
whoosh
of air on the other end. Claire shut her eyes, oblivious to her pounding heart and sweating palms. She worried at her lip and waited.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, either,” Jace said, his voice tight. “I’m not sure how to say this, but Tyler really liked you. I think he might have loved you, and I can’t hurt him like that.”

Claire shook her head. What could she say to that? Screw Tyler? “I understand. I didn’t realize. I mean, I did, I just ... Truly, I never meant to hurt him.” Or Jace. “It was just so nice seeing you, and I thought, well, I thought I could have one more day. Like before. But, I was only thinking of me.” She blinked back tears. “Of how much I’ve missed you.”

The words were a relief once she spoke them, yet she wished she could rewind them, too. She was making a fool of herself, again, over him. And to what end?

“I have to go.”

“Sure. Of course.” Her mind screamed
“no!”.

Another pause. Claire wondered if he’d hung up. She was about to say, “Jace?”

“Do you have a pen?”

A leap of hope bounced through her chest. “Yes,” she nearly shouted, scrambling for one. She wrote the number, repeated it back, and couldn’t help the wide smile from forming.

Hope. Small but real.

And with a meaningful-sounding “Take care,” Jace hung up.

Claire set down the receiver and immediately rewrote the number in clear, even handwriting. A bit of pride filled her up. She’d done it. She’d faced her fears, and she’d gotten a scrap of potential, something to work with. She had absolutely no idea how she would execute anything after the rejection she’d just been given, but she would find an angle.

She went to her keyboard to madly fill in her co-conspirator while she had the next five minutes available until Oliver came knocking. She was late for Italian takeout.

* * * *

Jace felt for the little yellow Post-it note in his pocket, folded up against his cell phone. The number Claire called from. He might be up for the Worst Brother Award in this lifetime after all he’d done. He’d have to figure that one out. In the meantime, he refused to be the worst boyfriend.

Claire’s call proved two things: one, that smack in the middle of his mom’s kitchen, Jace could still feel like a sixteen-year-old with a crush; and two, he could not put off ending it with Bels any longer.

He called Ashley, canceled tonight’s Lamaze class fill-in for Lawrence, and drove.

The ten-mile drive to Bels’s house in Ahwatukee Foothills ended well before he was ready for it to be. For a moment, he sat in his car and replayed the emotions churning inside him. Maybe to be sure. Maybe to sift through the heartache and guilt and want to find some trace of love for his girlfriend still there.

But there wasn’t. And when Bels peered through her living room blinds and sent Jace a sweet smile and wave, dread kicked him hard.

He was never good at this. He should be after the last two. Two vibrant, smart, and wonderful women who wound up with broken hearts because his wasn’t available. Now there would be three.

It seemed unfair. Cruel. Like he’d pissed someone off upstairs. Maybe he had. Maybe this was his penance for betraying his brother and best friend.

Either way, he got out of the car and waved back, but didn’t smile. Somehow, that would be a lie. Bels finally deserved the truth. Jace could only hope there wouldn’t be too much crying. Or thrown, breakable objects. As he stepped into the evening shadows of Bels’s front porch, the light there switched on and the front door opened.

She was already in her pajamas. Good.

“Hey you,” she said, tilting her head. Wariness colored her gaze.

“Hi, Bels. Can I come in?”

“Of course you can, silly,” she said. But her words didn’t sound lighthearted.

“What’s the matter?”Jace asked, tucking both hands deep inside his jeans pockets. Why did doing the right thing have to feel so wrong? “We ... need to talk.”

~~

Chapter Thirteen

“Don’t do it,” AJ warned from the kitchen.

Millie ignored him, turning up the volume on the TV. A foot scrubber that attached to a shower floor? Sold! She’d take two, thank you. “Don’t be jealous.”

AJ came around the bar, bowl of cereal in hand. “What happens to the ten-foot egg things stashed in the bathroom?”

Pressing her lips together, Millie kept typing. Two more clicks, and the shower thingies would be hers. “If you saw my feet right now, you’d understand.”

“You have gorgeous feet,” he said, plopping down next to her and faking a grab for the laptop.

“Don’t even think about it.” She moved the laptop out of reach and moved to the chair. He smelled too damn good. All earthy and spicy. How was she supposed to shop in those kinds of conditions? “My feet
are
pretty, thanks to genius inventions like this.”

She might hate the Arizona heat, but wearing flip-flops in springtime definitely floated her boat. Besides, if she didn’t buy something, the pressure building inside might erupt into an emotional storm neither of them needed. Firefox froze up. Millie narrowed her eyes on AJ, who looked all innocence. He couldn’t skew their signal. Could he?

It wouldn’t shock her. He disappeared into any apartment bedroom and came out with files inches thick on their targets. He had a direct line to heaven, had Karma Court on speed dial. How difficult could a measly satellite signal be by comparison? He winked, crunching his cereal.

The latest stack of his retrieved files sat on the coffee table, strewn. Three, to be exact. Jace’s. Claire’s. Belinda’s. She needed a break. She needed to buy something. AJ snaked the remote and turned the TV off. “Good news and bad news.”

“No, thank you.” She entered the last of her credit card info and selected two-day shipping.

“It’s a game changer.”

Nope. Didn’t want to hear a word of it. Wallowing in her total ineffectiveness suited her nicely. “Maybe later.”

He set down his bowl and smacked his lips. “It proves that you might be right.”

Millie shut the laptop lid. “Oh?”

AJ leaned back on the sofa. He might as well be shirtless, for all the shirt did to outline every sharp contour of his toned abs. Millie kept her gaze away from his mouth, which she would love to kiss just for speaking the words. Even if they might be lies.

“Jace Fletcher ended things with Belinda Frank.”

“What?” No! Or, yes! Maybe? If Jace ended things with Belinda, which might mean that he and Claire would face one less obstacle in being together. “Wait, is that the good news or the bad news?”

He ran his hands through his jet-black curls. “That will depend entirely on you, Millie.”

* * *

“Another one bites the dust, huh?” Tyler asked, then drank from the dark import bottle.

“A severe oversimplification.” Jace settled his elbows on his knees, the folding lawn chair creaking under him.

“But true,” Tyler said.

A couple of beers and conversation with his brother usually centered Jace. But usually, he didn’t have Claire so fully on the brain.

“Yes, but don’t sound so cavalier. It’s not like I meant for things to happen this way.” Jace leaned back into his lawn chair, soaking in the cool shade on his shoulders.

Tyler sipped again. “I don’t know, Jace. This is the third girl you’ve introduced to Mom and dumped immediately afterward.”

Jace wrinkled his nose. The beer in his hand lost its appeal when his stomach soured like that.

“What if it’s your pattern?” Tyler continued.

“My pattern?” He didn’t want to know. “Big words, bro.”

“Yeah, well, big or not, we all have patterns. Yours is no one is good enough, even when they are, especially when they are. You don’t trust enough. Mine is love ’em and leave ’em. Never get too close. Too serious. It allows me to be irresponsible and stay the baby.”

“But, we’re both the baby.”

“No, you’re the golden boy.
I’m
the baby,” Tyler said.

Either he had drunk too much, or Tyler was waxing philosophical. It made sense, a little. Tyler
was
the baby, their mom’s unspoken favorite, the one she still doted on and didn’t want growing up. And Jace was the golden boy, the brag-about, “can do no wrong” child.

Maybe he wasn’t lovestruck by Claire. Maybe it was just a pattern. Nobody would ever be good enough.

“But you loved one of them.” He couldn’t help but point it out, regardless of how sensitive a topic Claire was. Or was it because of it? Jace didn’t know.

“Yep. The one and only.”

Not what Jace wanted to hear. Of all the women in the world who had adored Tyler,
she
was the one who stole his heart? But Tyler hadn’t even really known her.

Not the real Claire. Not like Jace had. Jace had seen beyond the brilliant smile and poise down to the vulnerable young woman, unsure of herself in the world but determined to find out who she was and where she fit. He set his empty bottle down on the glass table and took in Tyler’s balcony view overlooking downtown Scottsdale and, in the distance, South Mountain.

“Claire,” Tyler said, “getting married.” There it was, spoken out loud.

Jace forced himself not to roll his eyes. He chewed his thumb between his teeth instead. He could not change the past, he reminded himself, or his brother’s mind. He knew that better than anyone. When it came to being wrong about anything, let alone about his own feelings, Tyler Fletcher never gave in.

At sixteen, fully busted sneaking out, to this day, Tyler swore he was sleepwalking. Yeah. With a six pack in hand, and next to Ashley and Jace.

Jace should have let the matter go. “If we’re talking patterns, why is Claire the only one you ever loved, anyway? I mean, it’s been years. How can she still have a hold on you?” How could she still have a hold on Jace?

Tyler frowned a bit and tilted his head toward the afternoon sun. “There was just something about her, something ... addictive.” He put his hands behind his head. “She’s almost the only one I never had sex with. Maybe that’s part of it. The mystery. We dated for months, and I never got past second base.”

Jace quickly covered his shock with a short cough. Tyler’s eyebrow shot up. Jace cleared his throat, hoping to make the badly faked cough seem a little more natural.

“Jeez, is it so hard to believe that I could love a girl I hadn’t slept with?”

“No,” he said. A lie.