Turnabout's Fair Play (6 page)

Teeth half sunk into the cupcake, Flannery raised her eyes, narrowing them and trying to shoot lightning bolts out of them at the petite brunette.

“And in addition to being a bouncer at Rippy’s, he’s a musician, so you know Flan will go out with him when he calls.”

Flannery swallowed her bite and debated with outrage for a second before joining in the laughter. “Three musicians—and y’all act like that’s all I ever date. I’d like to see someone who grew up in Nashville who’s never dated a wannabe singer or musician.”

Caylor raised her hand.

Flannery shook her head. “Doesn’t count—you sing in at least four different groups, not including your church choir, Caylor.”

Even Zarah, who’d reverted back to quiet and pensive after exerting her social skills and having fun during the photo scavenger hunt bachelorette party downtown, laughed this time.

After sorting out the scores—with Caylor’s and Zarah’s teams tying and Flannery’s winning by one point—Caylor and Flannery called it a night, though barely nine o’clock. The other women understood and departed with well-wishes and well-intentioned advice from the married gals on how to sleep the night before the wedding.

As soon as the last one left, Flannery turned off the porch light and joined her two best friends on the sofa.

Caylor’s phone chirped. She looked at it, smiled, and then dropped it into her purse sitting on the floor beside her feet. “That was Dylan. They’re just finishing and should be headed back to Nashville shortly. No injuries, and no one got lost in the woods.”

“Good.” Though Zarah didn’t look as relieved as she sounded. “At least I won’t have to worry about Beth losing it tomorrow if one of the guys had to cancel with a sprained ankle or something.”

“So…has Bobby told you yet where you’re going on your honeymoon?” Caylor waggled her eyebrows. Zarah went from pale to full-on blush in under one second. Had to be a new land-speed record. “We’re going to New Mexico—Las Cruces first, to revisit all the places we went when we were dating the first time, just for a couple of days. And then we’ll be spending a week at a resort in Santa Fe—somewhere we talked about visiting back then.”

“Aw, that’s too sweet.” Caylor’s eyes took on a dreamy quality.

Flannery sighed. Here they went—now Caylor would speculate on where she and Dylan might go on
their
honeymoon—

“Flan—are you okay with this?”

The concern in Zarah’s voice blasted through Flannery’s annoyance. What had she missed? Been volunteered for? “Okay with what?”

“With me getting married. With Caylor’s being engaged. With…well, with having other people in our lives now. You’ve been acting kind of…different lately. Withdrawn.”

“I’d almost call it sulking”—Caylor turned to sit with her back against the plush arm of the sofa, her feet tucked up under her—“except I’ve seen you sulk many times over the past thirty-odd years, and that usually lasts only a couple of hours, not a few weeks or months.”

A cold hand of sorrow linked with a hot hand of embarrassment and wrapped around Flannery’s throat and squeezed, making even shallow breaths difficult.

Zarah reached over and took Flannery’s hand in both of hers. “You know that you’re not going to lose us, right? That we’re not going to drop you in favor of the guys the way your sisters did, right?”

Here they were, the night before Zarah’s wedding, when Flannery and Caylor should be scraping Zarah off the ceiling, and instead, Zarah and Caylor were trying to comfort Flannery.

She burst into tears and flung her arms around Zarah. “I am so, so sorry. I’ve been narcissistic, making this whole thing about me, when I should have been focusing on you.”

As usual, she’d been unable to clarify her feelings in her own mind until the words tumbled out of her mouth. “I’ve been a horrible best friend, thinking only of myself and my fears of how your engagements and weddings are going to change everything for me. I’ve forgotten to be happy for you—and for Bobby. I have to remember that I’m not losing a friend; I’m regaining a high school classmate.”

The statement came out just as ridiculous as it’d sounded in her head, and she sat back, releasing Zarah and joining in with Zarah’s and Caylor’s chuckles. Flannery wiped the tears from her face with the backs of her hands. At least Jack wasn’t here to do his I-told-you-so dance.

“I don’t know where you’ve gotten the idea that you’re losing either of us, just because we’re getting married—wait, yes, I do.” Caylor cut Flannery off before she could interrupt. “It’s because of your sisters. But come on. Think about what we’ve been through and done together over the years. Friendship like that doesn’t go away.”

Flannery shrugged. “I guess.”

“You guess?” Caylor scoffed, and even Zarah smiled. “Who else would, in their thirties, take a day off work, have a sleepover, and stay up all night so that they could watch a royal wedding together at five o’clock in the morning?”

“Or what about that trip to Gatlinburg last month?” Zarah raised her brows. “Who else but us would put up with your being on the phone the entire tour of Cade’s Cove?”

A snort escaped before Flannery could stop it. “Caylor, you’re a romance novelist. You would have stayed up—or gotten up—to watch the royal wedding. You just talked us into doing it with you so that you wouldn’t feel like such a nerd. And about the phone thing…I’m trying to get better. You notice I haven’t been on it all night, except when we were coordinating our meet-ups downtown with the other girls.”

“You know what the solution to your problem is, don’t you?” Caylor looked down at her fingernails.

Flannery was pretty sure she knew what her lifelong friend was going to say—and certain she wasn’t going to like it. “What’s that? Chocolate? Sushi? Chocolate sushi?”

The left side of Caylor’s broad mouth quirked up in an expression that was more familiar to Flannery than one of her own from a lifetime of knowing her. “No—let us help you find a guy. You know, Dylan does have three brothers….”

Flannery snorted. “
Younger
brothers. I’m not interested in being a cradle robber like you, thank you very much.” Although Dylan’s brother Spencer was
quite
handsome—but there was that pesky eleven-year age difference. Besides, she’d already determined: no good-looking men. Ever.

“Hey, you never know till you try it.” Thank goodness Caylor, a year older than Flannery at thirty-five, had gotten over her issue with the seven-year age gap between her and Dylan. Much as Flannery hated to admit it, Caylor and Dylan were perfect for each other.

“It’s only fair that you let us try to find you someone—after what you put me through last year trying to set me up with someone.” Zarah poked Flannery’s knee and then hid a yawn behind her hand.

“If I recall, I only managed to match you up with one or two guys—and nothing ever came of those.” But if she read the expressions on her friends’ faces correctly, they weren’t going to let go of this idea anytime soon. “Oh, all right. I’ll do it. But I reserve the right to veto any of them I don’t think I’ll like.”

Caylor and Zarah exchanged an exasperated look.

“One condition to the veto exception.” Caylor crossed her arms.

Flannery turned and matched her position. “What’s that?”

“That you agree to go out with Dylan’s brother Pax. You’re always insisting that geeky scientist guys are more your type—and he fits the bill perfectly, in addition to being cute. And I don’t want to hear about the age difference. As you once said, using his age as a reason not to go out with him is just an excuse. And you’re not getting any younger, you know. So
tick-tock
, honey.”

The reference to her age infuriated Flannery. How dare Caylor use Flannery’s own words—spoken when trying to get Caylor to admit she had feelings for Dylan a few months ago—against her?

Caylor extended her right hand across Zarah toward Flannery. “Deal?”

Flannery narrowed her eyes, chewing the inside of her cheek. Go out with Dylan’s younger brother? Let Zarah and Caylor—who’d managed to snare absolutely fabulous men—set her up on dates?

She sighed and shook Caylor’s hand. “Deal.”

Chapter 4

J
amie dashed the sweat from his eyes as he ran up the steep part of the road that circled the townhouse community. How could it be possible that only twenty-four hours had passed since his life derailed from the tracks? Twenty-four hours ago, he’d been intoxicated with the idea of promotion, of attaining that next step on the career ladder. A career he’d never planned on, a career that took more than it gave, a career that completely changed him and his outlook on life. A career that had been so unceremoniously yanked out from under him.

He rounded the curve and started across the top of the irregular circle. Two times around was about a mile. He usually ran twelve to fourteen laps, depending on if he’d snoozed the alarm clock or not. This morning he was on twenty and counting. Running. Heart pounding. Matching his breathing to the rhythm of his feet pounding the pavement. Moving. Round and round, getting nowhere fast.

What would he do now? He was a little ahead on his mortgage payment—maybe two months—and only had five or six car payments remaining. And he had been socking away at least a hundred dollars a month for the past few years. But without steady income, his savings would dwindle quickly. And then what? Unemployment checks? How did one even go about getting those?

He supposed the answer to that would be in the thick envelope of paperwork and booklets the HR rep had given him before he left Friday. And maybe she’d even explained it, but he’d been in such a haze of shock, he could barely remember how he’d gotten from the office to Cookie’s house.

Another job was a must—because he couldn’t just sit around doing nothing every day. He’d flip fast-food burgers—and if it took too long to find a real job and money started to run out, he could sell the townhouse and downsize, move to a less-expensive area of town.

Even back to Murfreesboro.

He stopped at his driveway, pacing the length of it to cool down. Never. He’d worked too hard and too long to get out of the ‘Boro. He’d die before going back.

Too many thoughts. Too much silence. He needed to get out, to go somewhere active, crowded. Somewhere the noise would drown out the questions and worries in his head. Somewhere he could think straight.

After a quick shower, he threw on jeans, a Country Music Marathon T-shirt, and athletic shoes. No point in shaving right now—might as well wait until it was time to get ready for the wedding.

He grabbed his netbook on the way out the door and shoved his sunglasses on against the blaze of the early-morning sun.

The Starbucks in Nipper’s Corner was, as he’d hoped, crowded. He placed his order and then nabbed one of the armchairs by the window before someone else could.

The buzz of voices combined with the grinding and hissing of the coffee-making equipment soothed Jamie’s mind—almost as if the chaos were being transferred from the inside out.

After picking up his venti, triple-shot, nonfat, sugar-free, caramel-flavored latte and breakfast sandwich, he opened the mini-laptop.

E-mail first.

Only a few. Not a single one from church, even though he’d e-mailed his small-group leader about getting laid off and asked to be put on the group’s prayer list.

Instead of dealing with the junk e-mails from places he shopped and newsletters and newspaper headline subscriptions still sitting in the virtual in-box, he clicked a button on his quick-link toolbar and was instantly transported to one of his absolute favorite websites. He scanned the front page. No new news items since he’d last logged in.

He thought about browsing the forums, just to see what new discussions he might like to join in on, but something told him to check his profile, to see if he had any private messages first.

No. No messages. But he did have an alert about a new post by one of his favorite contributors. He clicked the link, settled back in the plush chair, grabbed his sandwich, and started reading, happily discovering the piece was a continuation of the writer’s previous work.

“Excuse me, are these seats taken?”

Jamie tore his eyes away from the small screen and looked up to find the question had come from a beautiful Asian-looking woman. Not what he’d expected from the soft Southern accent.

Jamie looked around. Last time he’d noticed, the other three overstuffed armchairs had been occupied. Now he was the only one in this nook of the coffee shop. “No, they’re available as far as I know.”

She pushed her shiny, long, black hair behind her ear, and the diamond wedding ring set on her left hand sparkled in the sunlight streaming in from outside.

Something about her seemed familiar, but the rings told him not to even go there. Oh well. She was out of his league anyway. Especially given what he’d just been reading. Exchanging a polite smile with the woman, he returned his attention to the computer screen.

“Chae, here’s your—”

Jamie snapped his head up at the male voice, almost as familiar to him as his own. “Danny? Danny Seung?” He slapped the netbook closed, hopped to his feet, and pulled the Korean American man into a backslapping hug. “What are you doing here?”