Nick called me. “I saw the Good Morning America segment. You were brilliant. My father just called and absolutely loved it. So did the board. I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m glad your dad is pleased.”
“Everyone loved you. You were a hit! Social media is exploding...and all great things! Everything you said felt real and genuine. It was like you were speaking directly from your heart. Do we really have a love as soft as the dawn, as radiant as the sun, as bright as the moon?”
“I said what they wanted to hear.”
“I thought it was touching.”
“Well, you love when your women brag about you.”
He laughed. “See you soon, love.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
“Wait. I’m the one true love of your life and all I get is a “see you soon.”
“Goodbye, love of my life. I’ll be counting the seconds until our lips meet once again.”
“Now that’s more like it.”
I smiled.
The limousine pulled up to my apartment at eight o’clock sharp. As per my instructions, I was waiting down at the curb, fidgeting slightly in my new dress. There may have been a heavy trench coat draped over my shoulders, but that still didn’t mean that I didn’t feel absolutely naked underneath. I was still recovering from the initial shock of having opened the box just an hour before.
“I’m pretty sure I lost a toe!” I exclaimed as I slid into the backseat with a big smile.
“I’m sorry, miss. This limo is reserved. I’m going to have to ask you to please exit the vehicle. I can call you a cab...”
“Is this a joke?” I asked laughing.
The limo driver, a man I had gotten to know extremely well in the last two years, stared back at me in utter shock. His mouth fell open, and a second later, he reached for his phone.
A second after that, my own phone began to ring.
I extracted it from my purse in surprise, then gazed up through the partition. “Is this some sort of joke about it being a stretch limo? Because I know you can hear me just fine—”
“Abigail?!”
I froze in place, watching as he swiveled around so far, he almost fell out of his chair. As far as I knew, the man had been clean and sober for the last fifteen years. Unless he’d had some sort of relapse in the forty minutes since I’d called him, there was something bigger going on.
“Yeah—who were you expecting?” I studied him carefully, unsure as to what exactly I should say. “Are you okay, Bob? Did something—”
“I’m sorry,” he choked in a raspy voice. A flush of embarrassment reddened his cheeks, but he still seemed completely unable to take his eyes off me. “I’m so sorry, I just...I honestly didn’t recognize you. I thought some strange woman had just climbed into my car.”
I didn’t know whether to take that as a slight or a compliment. In the end, I settled for another of my famous jokes. (These always went over rather well, I thought.)
“And your first thought was to call me? Bob—I’m flattered.” I ignored the exasperated look on his face as he rolled up the partition. “Rest assured, I will protect you with my life. No matter how many strange women come out of the—”
By that point, the partition was up, and I had to settle for laughing alone.
I tried to keep track of where we were going, pressing my face against the window like an impatient child. But either Bobby didn’t know exactly how to get there, or Nick had instructed him to take the most circuitous route known to man.
About twenty minutes later, after we’d passed the same billboard three different times, I scrambled up to the front of the car, and banged on the divider. It rolled down only an inch.
“You’re not going to tell any more jokes, are you?”
My eyes narrowed.