Shopping for a CEO (Page 90)

“What are you thinking about?’ Carol asks, interrupting my evil thoughts. “You look just like Chuckles.”

“Oh. Um…nothing.” I shake my head and drink the rest of my mocha latte. I’m not a fan of sweet coffee, but I just ordered on autopilot and here I am, letting sugar cut in on my caffeine dance.

“You okay?” She’s worried. “I’m sorry about Andrew.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Can you handle being around him?”

“No problem. Could you handle being around Todd after you two split up?”

She laughs through her nose. “He never gave me a chance to find out.”

Before I can apologize for my unthinking question, Jason bellows, “CHUCKLES!” and shakes out his foot.

The cat looks about as apologetic as Marie crashing Shannon’s bachelorette party.

“Damn it!” Jason adds.

“Dammit,” says Tyler the Human Mina Bird.

“Ten bucks and I’ll get him to stop,” pipes up Jeffrey, holding out an open palm.

I hand him the money and shoo him and Tyler out of the room. Easiest problem I’ll fix all day.

“What are you doing here, Daddy?” Shannon asks as Jason gives her a barely-there hug, clearly a bit less enthusiastic as she’s half-clothed. “You should be on the men’s side, getting ready.”

“They’re fine. Hamish is passing around another bottle of whisky, and Declan isn’t even here yet. Just me, James, and Terry.” He laughs. “And Jeffrey and Tyler. Have to count them with men, right?”

No Andrew.

“Hamish is passing out shots right now? Before the wedding?” Shannon isn’t wearing her makeup yet, so she grabs the hem of Jason’s shirt and uses it to wipe her eyes. That closeness, that comfortable assumption that Jason will let her, sets my teeth on edge.

“The guys need a bit of the hair of the dog. Last night was brutal.”

“Last night?” Shannon has been living with Amy during the three days before the wedding, so she has no idea that the bachelor party went on for two nights in a row. I only know because Hamish called Amy last night, insisting that “Hamy and Amy” have a meeting to talk about proper hand positioning for the walk down the aisle.

And on other parts of her body.

A Scottish booty call at three a.m. is better left unmentioned the next day.

Amy rushes in, red-faced and fuming. She’s carrying her dress and wearing sweats, but her hair is clean and slightly damp. She has creamy skin, long, ringlet red curls, and bright blue eyes. Amy is the complete package: smart, emotionally secure, and gorgeous.

“How’s Hamy?” I tease.

Marie’s head whips around.

“He’s an ass! A complete ass! The arrogance of that man!” But her red-face is not from anger.

“Did he acknowledge the booty call?” I ask. Marie already knows about it, and Jason just left the room to check on the little boys. He scoops up Chuckles on his way out, holding the cat gingerly a foot away from his midsection.

“He says I made the booty call!” Amy wails.

“What?”

“He told me he was flattered, but he remembers receiving the call and that I’m cute, but not his type.”

“WHAT?” Marie, Shannon, Carol and I all roar with indignation on her part.

“So I put him firmly in his place, and then you know what he did?”

“What?” we ask in unison.

“He tried to get me to introduce him to Jessica Coffin.”

“Why would he try to do that?” Shannon asks.

“He says she’s the best person for going viral.”

“She’s a disease, all right,” Shannon mutters.

“I mean for publicity. He can’t stand the fact that he’s a celebrity in Europe, and here in the U.S. no one knows who he is.”

Shannon snorts as Marie fusses with a ringlet. Fighting physics, Shannon’s hairdresser somehow managed to make her straight, thin, brown hair curl into magical strands that make her look like a princess. I think there’s a sewage treatment plant somewhere in the city that is currently befuddling its engineers who have encountered a seven-hundred-pound block of excess mousse, hair gel and hairspray, though.

Carol looks outside and sees Tyler bending down, dipping his hand in the small reflecting pool. It’s covered with tastefully-placed lily pads, and is both decorative and functional, as Marie informed us when she booked this facility. For the wedding, they’ll close it off, but the gate is open.

“I’m worried about Tyler and that damn pool,” Carol says in a tight voice.

“We’ll have someone close the gate,” Marie promises.

“So,” Amy says absent-mindedly as she peers out a crack in the curtains further down the line, “are you ready for your wedding night?”

And Shannon’s tears come back.

“Is Declan hung over this morning? I want to see him.”

“It’s bad luck,” Marie chides. She motions for Shannon to close her eyes and pulls out a makeup brush the size of a street sweeper.

“I don’t care. I haven’t gone this long without seeing him other than business trips, and I’m falling apart on the inside, and what if he’s changed his mind and wants to call off the wedding and run away with Jessica Coffin and make beautiful Barbies with her forever and ever and marry a woman who knows you don’t drink white wine with beef!”

“I had wedding day jitters the day I married Jason, honey,” Marie says with a sigh, putting down all her beauty supplies and just reaching out to hold Shannon’s hands. “Every bride gets them.”