“Don’t be sorry. I get it.” She reached for the two water glasses in front of us and handed one to me. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
For the next fifteen minutes, I told her everything Harris and I had already accomplished. She was so impressed and excited about the new turn of events the wedding was taking that we both lost track of time. It wasn’t until Dad and Harris appeared at the table that we even realized we were still sitting in the middle of Carina’s.
“You two seem to be having a good time over here,” Harris muttered dryly.
“When we didn’t hear from the two of you, we got worried.” Dad dropped a kiss on the top of my head before kissing Mom on the lips. “How are my two favorite girls doing?”
“Jess, wait until you hear about the cake the kids have picked out!” Mom gushed.
Dad’s eyes sparkled with relief and love for her as he dropped down into the seat beside Mom. “Tell me about this cake, Lu.”
Harris took the seat beside me as I told my dad about the new cake we had picked out. As we ordered dinner, Mom told us about their trip to Paris. Her cheeks filled with pink, and I knew she was leaving out a lot of details, something I was immensely grateful for. And I left out plenty of my own details as I told her about the trip to Colorado.
The night, something I had been dreading only an hour before, turned out to be one of my favorite dinners of the year. I was reluctant to call an end to it, but Mom asked if we could have lunch the next day. Happier than I had been in forever, I kissed her cheek and hugged Dad before Harris ushered me into the back of the Range Rover Marcus had pulled up in front of the restaurant.
“Night, baby!” Mom called.
“Night, Lu. Love you.”
I waved at them as Marcus pulled away. “Everything go well?” my bodyguard asked cautiously from the front seat.
Harris chuckled. “I’d say it was a success.”
Marcus seemed relieved. “That’s good. I don’t like it when the women are at odds with each other.”
“Me either, man. It turns the entire universe upside down.” Harris tucked me closer against him and touched his lips to my forehead. “But everything is perfect again. Right, sweetness?”
I snuggled deeper into him. “Yeah, babe. It’s perfect.”
Chapter 11
Harris
February
Lucy folded my T-shirt and placed it in my carry-on, quietly humming to herself like she didn’t have a care in the world. Meanwhile, my head was a fucked-up mess, and all I could think about was throwing her down on the bed and spending the next three days making love to her until neither one of us cared if we missed the parties our friends were throwing us this weekend.
All the things Jace had promised me we would do when we got to Vegas didn’t sound nearly as fun as they had a few months before. Having a guys’ weekend just drinking and blowing money at the tables held zero appeal for me. Whoever had invented bachelor and bachelorette parties was a dumbass who didn’t understand what it felt like to be so jealous at just the thought of the woman he loved having some dirty motherfucker dancing with his junk in her face.
I told Lucy exactly what my weekend plans were, down to which casinos the guys were taking me to. Yet Lucy hadn’t said a single word about where she was going this weekend, what Kin had planned for her. All I knew was that she had been happy about it all week and practically dancing from the excitement. Which meant she had to know at least some of what her maid of honor had planned for her.
“How many button-ups do you want me to pack for you, babe?” she asked as she stepped into my side of the closet.
“Two is fine,” I gritted out.
She sent me a smile over her shoulder. “Grab your toothbrush and other toiletries from the bathroom. You don’t want to be late to the airport. Jace will be here any minute.”
“Fuck Jace,” I muttered, but I did as she had requested. I’d tried to back out of this fucking weekend three times already, but my friend and best man hadn’t even listened to me. I didn’t know what was going on with that dickhead, but he was starting to piss me off. There were moments when I wondered if he was on drugs. But Jace was pretty straight-edged about that shit, and he never looked high.
He hadn’t confided in me what was messing with him, though. And I knew for a fact that he hadn’t mentioned what was happening with him to Kin. I didn’t need Lucy to tell me to figure out Kin was about two steps away from walking away from their relationship.
Either Jace was blind to the fact that his girlfriend was about to leave him, or he just didn’t care. I was going for the former, because I’d seen how hard it had been for him the last time they had been broken up. How desperate he’d been to get her back after leaving her to deal with her mother’s death all alone.
That Kin had put up with Jace’s secrets this long surprised the hell out of me. She had been fighting for them this time around, but that fight was quickly fading. She didn’t have the same light in her eyes she’d once had, and I could see the spark of life starting to flicker out.
So why the fuck couldn’t Jace see it?
I tossed my toiletries bag on top of the clothes Lucy had just packed for me, making her roll her eyes at me before putting the little bag in its rightful place. “I’ll text you when I get to my hotel later,” she promised, seeming oblivious to the fact that I was anything but happy about my bachelor party.