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“Really, D? It’s like that?” Eli asks, and the steadiness in his voice is alarming.
Because I am wrecked.
Eli is teasing Doris while I am trying to remember how to breathe. I lean forward, resting my head on his shoulder. He can’t see my face this way and notice my disappointment.
But then, he said he wasn’t confused about kissing me. I’m the one who asked him to kiss me, and I’m the one confused.
“Are we okay?” he asks, his hands gently kneading my shoulders.
He’s so kind, I think. Too kind. I need to stop mistaking that for something else. Even if … even if I really thought maybe it was more.
“We’re fine,” I tell him. “The question is—are your shoes okay?”
This makes him smile, which is what I want. Even if I also want to die a little. And for him to kiss me again. And to tell himhe can’t kiss me again because I was wrong—we’re not fine and I’m completely confused. Even if he isn’t.
But what is he not confused about?
Is he not confused because he can casually kiss people without catching feelings? I really,reallyhope that’s not what he meant. Maybe he’s not confused because we just set up expectations for our arrangement and kissing is just one more part of that?
Or … is he not confused because he has feelings for me, which are not confusing?
His lack of confusion only sends me spinning into more.
As we head for the door, I quickly bend and rescue the balled-up pink sticky note from the trash, stuffing it inside my pocket before I follow Eli out into the darkness.
CHAPTER 15
Bailey
The thingabout planning a wedding in a week is that you end up having very few choices. Which can be good or bad, depending on if you’re a glass half-full or half-empty kind of person. On the glass-half-full side, fewer choices can mean less decision fatigue. (It also helps if the groom takes on the wedding planning, which I’m so grateful for.)
On the glass-half-empty side, it means I’m stuck in a big-box bridal store trying on dresses off the rack so covered in sequins or ruffles or lace that it feels more like I’m dressing for some kind of drama performance than a wedding. Then again, this wedding kind of is a performance, so trying on dresses doesn’t quite have the emotionaloomphit would if I were planning a real wedding to a man I really wanted to marry.
And I’m going to keep telling myself that Eliisn’ta man I really want to marry. An obvious lie. One that gets harder the more time I spend with him, the more I kiss him.
The more I wonder why he kisses me back and what he’s not confused about.
Does it mean for him anything close to what it means for me?
Shannon tells me to be bold, to ask what he wants, to tell him what I want and how I feel. But the whole kissing conversation blew my boldness budget for the month. I’m not a person who can discuss what I hope for in a relationship the way I can place an order at the drive-through.
Um, let’s see … I’d like to order plenty of kisses, double up on the flirty grins, hold the heartbreak please!
“This one is … special,” Jenny says, ripping my thoughts from where they drifted to Eli’s mouth on mine, his thumb’s gentle press on my throat. “Unique.”
Shannon makes a sound somewhere between a snort and a scoff. “It’s covered in feathers, J. She looks like some kind of bird of paradise bride of Frankenstein.”
I pluck at the feathers circling my waist. If a dress is going to have feathers, you know where it shouldn’t have them? Around areas of the body you want to looksmaller. I look like Big Bird’s pregnant albino girlfriend. I think I prefer Shannon’s description. You know it’s bad when a bird of paradise bride of Frankenstein is the better of two alternatives.
“A bird of Frankenstein,” I say, which makes both Jenny and Shannon laugh.
I smile too, but it’s not helping me feel any better about this. The wedding dress shopping. The realization I’m still trying to wrap my brain around how I am the one trying on legitwedding dresses. The on-ice proposal—oralmostproposal since I’m wearing the ring but he didn’t ask and I didn’t say yes—didn’t make this whole thing feel real. Neither does this.
Not even after our date, in which Eli was adorably awkward—almost like it was arealdate—and then kissed me into a hazeat the shelter. I really should stop kissing him. Just to, you know, havesomereminder of this as an arrangement. But now that the box has been opened, I’m not sure I can put kissing back inside.
I was both grateful Doris cut our moment short peeing on Eli’s shoe and also ready to withhold all future dog treats for reminding me this will have an expiration date. One more thing we haven’t discussed. It feels like for each thing we nail down, there are twenty more we need to talk about. I’m exhausted, a wrung-out piece of laundry drying on the line.
“Can I take a picture?” Shannon asks. “I need to remember this moment.”
