Turnabout's Fair Play (40 page)

Flannery ran her knuckles along his smooth jaw—and electricity coursed all the way up her arm. “You were just young and hurting. And you’re trying to make up for lost time now, which is all you can do.”

“I guess.” He looked at the front of the gabled craftsman. “Ready to go in?”

She opened her door. “Ready.”

The red, paned-glass front door provided the only pop of color in an exterior done all in shades of gray. She liked the effect.

The door opened before Jamie could ring the bell.

A young couple met them at the door. The man stepped out and gave Jamie a backslapping hug. “Good to see you, man.”

“You, too.” Jamie inclined his head to the delicately beautiful woman. “Chae.”

“Jamie.”

Flannery looked between the two of them, concerned by the frostiness in Chae’s voice.

But Jamie’s smile didn’t falter. He put his arm around Flannery’s waist. “Danny and Chae Seung, this is Flannery McNeill.”

Having read up on Korean etiquette online last night, after seeing Danny’s greeting of Jamie, she wasn’t certain how to greet them—bow, handshake, nod of the head?

Danny solved it for her when he extended his hand toward her. She shifted the gift basket to her left hand and shook Danny’s. Chae stepped out onto the porch and extended her hand to Flannery as well. For as fine and delicate and petite as she looked, she was almost the same height as Jamie—and Flannery herself when she didn’t have her shoes on.

Oh—she should have changed shoes before she left the office! Then Jamie never would have known, and she wouldn’t be standing here, towering over him and Chae.

Flannery extended the basket toward Chae and Danny with both hands—as she’d read was proper. “Thank you so much for inviting us to dinner. I’ve been very curious to meet Jamie’s friends.”

Chae took the basket, giving Flannery a warm smile. “Thank you.”

Danny’s eyes almost disappeared when he smiled like that. “And Jamie’s friends have been very curious to meet you. Please, come in.”

But instead of immediately following his friends inside, Jamie braced one hand against the wall and started kicking off his shoes.

Flannery looked down, dismayed to see several pairs of shoes lining the wall of the house near the door. No wonder Jamie hadn’t cared if she’d worn heels or flats—she’d be barefoot anyway.

When she’d read online that, as in most Asian cultures, it was tradition to take one’s shoes off before entering the house, she’d assumed that since Danny and Chae had been born and raised in America, this would be one of those old traditions they’d let fall by the wayside.

No such luck. And it had been more than a month since her last pedicure. She grabbed Jamie’s shoulder for stability and glared at him as she stepped out of her shoes and pushed them into line beside his.

Jamie grinned at her. “Don’t look so concerned. If you haven’t noticed, your pants completely hide your feet.”

And if she’d realized she’d be barefoot tonight—which, yes, was her fault for assuming Danny and Chae wouldn’t follow this tradition—she would have worn something else, not pants cut to be worn with three-inch heels.

Danny closed the door behind them once they’d stepped onto the plush, oriental-style rug in the entryway. “Sorry about the shoe thing, but we have to revert back to the old ways when the grandparents are here.

Chae gave her an apologetic grin over her shoulder. “I hate going barefoot,” she whispered. “But when Hamo and Habo are here, it’s a mortal sin to wear shoes even in our own house.”

Hamo and Habo turned out to be Chae’s maternal grandparents. Though Flannery prided herself on immediate retention of names, keeping track of six grandparents and four parents with names unfamiliar to her brain and tongue proved difficult. She did get to practice her bow, much to the giggling of the grandmothers, who gave her an impromptu lesson on posture and angle and where her eyes should point.

They sat down to dinner almost immediately. Dish after dish of food appeared on the table, each person having multiple individual bowls and plates to eat from. Flannery wasn’t sure what most of it was—even with Chae’s and Danny’s explanations, but she tasted everything, including the vegetables.

Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to eat anything else, two of the grandmothers came out of the kitchen with a sticky-rice dessert. Unusual and complex in its flavors, the dessert grew on Flannery enough so that she finished her whole serving. While she would have loved a good hazelnut coffee to go with it, she settled for hot tea to wash it down.

Flannery volunteered to help in the kitchen, but the mothers and grandmothers shooed her and Chae out. The fathers and grandfathers retired to the living room, but Danny suggested they go sit out on the deck where they could talk.

The scorching heat of day hadn’t dissipated much. But the deck caught a nice cross breeze, and so long as Flannery sat still, she stayed pretty comfortable, since she’d been instructed to remove her blazer as soon as she entered, leaving her in a sleeveless blouse.

Jamie rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows and sat on the rattan love seat with Danny. Chae led Flannery a little farther down the expansive deck to two armchairs with deep cushions.

“I thought maybe you and I could have some time to talk.” Chae motioned for Flannery to sit before she did.

“I’d enjoy that.”

“How did you and Jamie meet?” Chae crossed her legs and braced her elbow on the arm of the chair, leaning toward Flannery.

She told her the story of the cookout last fall, Zarah’s wedding, the work project that didn’t happen—at least for Jamie—and running into him at the airport.

“So, when you first knew him, you thought he was…conceited and disdainful of others’ feelings?” Chae narrowed her eyes and glanced down the deck at her husband and Jamie.

Flannery followed her gaze. Jamie and Danny sat side by side talking, legs crossed the same direction—even their arms draped across their laps the same way. In their white shirts and dark trousers, they looked like the most bizarre pair of twins she’d ever seen.

“
Condescending
and
arrogant
were the words I used—
irritating
, too.” She turned her attention back to Chae.

“But now you’re dating him. What changed?”

“He did…and I did.” She shook her head. “Even though I vowed to myself I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t…change?”

“At my friend’s wedding. I’ve seen so many women become unrecognizable when they fall in love and get married. And I vowed I would never do that—I would never let falling in love change me. But I guess that’s because I’d never actually been in love before.”

Flannery leaned toward Chae, lowering her voice to ensure Jamie couldn’t hear her, though it was probably an unnecessary precaution. “Over the last week or so, I’ve struggled with the idea that falling in love with Jamie has changed me, until I realized something very important.”

“What’s that?” Interest sparkled in Chae’s dark eyes in the twilight.

“That the change is for the better. I’m not a different person than I was before. I know so many women who talk about how they weren’t ‘complete’ before they fell in love. But for me, falling in love didn’t ‘complete’ me—it’s enabled me to be more completely myself than I’ve ever been in my life. And I think that’s a pretty positive change.” She looked back down the deck toward Jamie.

He caught her looking, ducked his chin, and gave her a secretive, smoldering grin.

Her toes curled against the deck—hidden by the long hems of her pants. Yes—she’d never felt so alive, so free to be herself, to say whatever came to mind without having to worry how Jamie would take it.

She vowed to herself she’d never make another vow like that again.

Chapter 28

J
amie ran his finger under the tight collar. “Is the tie really necessary?”

“I thought you loved wearing suits and ties. At least that’s what you said at church when I teased you for wearing that.” Flannery reached up and straightened the knot at his throat.

“I don’t know.” He stepped into the bathroom to check his appearance in the mirror. “I know it’s been less than two months since I got laid off, but I think I’ve gotten used to wearing T-shirts and shorts or cargo pants every day. This itches and strangles.”

Flannery headed out the door, her “Whatever” trailing behind her. He grinned at his reflection. He loved getting under her skin—though he’d tread lightly tonight. After a spur-of-the-moment overnight trip to Birmingham to meet Flannery’s parents yesterday, she’d been pretty grumpy on the way back to Nashville this afternoon. And she’d been even grumpier when she remembered that dinner with Zarah, Bobby, Caylor, and Dylan had been changed into an evening at an art gallery opening for a last-minute exhibit Dylan had landed, requiring business-formal attire.

When he arrived at the condo to pick her up, he’d found her still dressed in jeans, hair in rollers, makeup half on.

The speed in which she’d finished getting ready impressed him.

“Are you coming?”

Better not poke the sleeping dragon any further. He turned off the bathroom light—and the kitchen light as he passed through—and waited in the hall as Flannery locked the door behind them.

Sullen silence filled the elevator on the way down to the ground floor. Jamie tried to think of something to make her laugh, but everything that came to mind would probably annoy her instead. So he sighed and kept quiet.

She stalked out ahead of him when the doors opened. The knee-length, bright-blue satin dress looked even more spectacular on her than the black one she’d worn at Zarah’s wedding. She’d pinned her hair up so that a cascade of fat curls tumbled down her back, only partially hiding what the crisscrossing straps of the dress revealed of her shoulders and upper back.

And he just now noticed she was wearing flats. Good thing he hadn’t seen that upstairs; he might have made the mistake of commenting on it. He probably wouldn’t have been able to convince her today that he really did like it when she wore heels—because
she
liked to wear them, and he liked what she liked.

He jogged across the marble-tiled lobby to catch up with her just in time to open the door for her. She gave him a tight, tired smile and exited. Thankfully, he’d gotten a great parking space on the street right in front of her building.

He opened the car door for her—but blocked her from getting in. “You don’t have to go. You can call and tell Caylor you don’t feel well—headache or whatever. I can go, make an appearance and spread apologies all around, then pick up something for dinner and bring it back here.”

The tight lines in Flannery’s forehead and around her eyes and mouth melted into fatigued gratitude. She reached up and caressed his cheek. “Thanks, but I need to go. Just give me a few more minutes to be in a bad mood, and then I promise I’ll be pleasant for the rest of the night.”

“Maybe this will help get things going in the right direction.” He cupped her cheeks with both hands and kissed her, ever so gently.

She sighed a little and leaned in to the kiss, tangling her fingers in his hair.

After two more little pecks, he hugged her, cradling the back of her head with his hand. “I love you. Even when you’re cranky.”

“And I love that you still love me even when I’m cranky. And I’m sorry for being cranky. But if I’d known Sylvia and her family were going to choose this weekend to drive up from New Orleans to surprise Mom and Dad, I wouldn’t have suggested we pop down and surprise them.” She kissed his jaw right in front of his ear, and a shiver rattled his spine. She chuckled and stepped back. “Now, we’d better get going. I know this is one of those events at which showing up late is fashionable, but—”

“But you hate being late. I know.” He stepped aside and waited until she was seated and situated before closing the door and going around to the driver’s side.

Neither of them had been to this area of Franklin before, so Flannery used the GPS app on her phone. But that seemed to get them even more lost. Finally, when she was to the point of trembling with frustration, he took the phone from her, scrolled through her contacts, found the one he wanted, and called.

“Hey, Flan, where are you?”

“Hi, Caylor, it’s Jamie—and we’re lost.” He told Flannery’s friend where they were—and Caylor guided them the rest of the way in—on a street that didn’t connect all the way through town but was interrupted by Franklin’s old town square.

“We’re here. Thanks, Caylor. We’ll see you in a minute.” He pulled the car around to the side of the building and parked.

Flannery pulled down the visor and checked her appearance in the mirror then pulled out lipstick and put some on. A rosy pink, just a few shades darker than her natural color.

“Do you know how much I want to kiss you right now?”

“Do you know how much I’ll never get tired of hearing you say that?” She smiled at him—and just like someone had flipped a switch, the sparkle had returned not just to her eyes but to her smile and her demeanor. She kissed his cheek then wiped off the transferred lipstick with her thumb. “And do you realize that we just took our first road trip without getting into a single fight? That’s better than we do at home sometimes.”