Chapter Eight

Izzy

It had been fifteen minutes since Fiona arrived at my house. Now that the trial had ended and they settled at the eleventh hour, she was as free as a bird, which was clearly a very good thing considering the way she was acting like she’d been cooped up in a barn for years with no one to talk to but the horses.

Fiona flopped backward on the couch, grabbed a pillow nearby, brought it to her chest and closed her eyes as she let out a happy sigh. “This feels so good. I’ve missed this.”

I chuckled as I floated a couple marshmallows in our hot cocoas.

Her eyes, now opened, went as wide as the rim of the mug as she tossed the pillow aside and leaned forward. “Are those the extra large marshies?” She nearly choked, grabbing her chest with her hand.

I cocked my head to the side, extending my arm and passing her a mug. “Please, is that even a question? All other marshmallows are inferior.”

Her eyes practically sparkled as her lips touched the mug and she sipped. “Okay, I’m done with being ridiculous.”

I nodded and took a sip of mine before snapping my fingers. It needed a touch of peppermint extract.

“Wait!” she exclaimed, putting her mug on the coffee table, getting off the couch and following me into the kitchen. She placed her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “It’s just. . . I’ve been away for so long, stuck in the trial that I swore would never end.” She sighed. “I was beginning to forget what all my favorite people look like. Ugh, I was gone for so long and no time to flip through photos on my phone to remind me. You were becoming a green blob of goo in my mind.”

I furrowed my brows. “A green goo blob?”

She tossed her hands up and clapped her thighs when they came back down. “Beats me. And on late nights when I was studying case files, looking through evidence, and strategizing questions for witnesses and every establishment was closed, I was so hungry I thought I could actually bite my own arm off. In fact, there were times I’d think about Louie and see a giant pancake.”

“You see Louie as a giant pancake?”

She nodded and side stepped so I could get to the refrigerator for that extract. Don’t get me wrong, hot cocoa was great, but peppermint hot cocoa was ten times better. As I opened the fridge, grabbed the extract, and put a bit in my drink, I looked up to see her holding a spoon for me to stir it.

She went on, “I just don’t know what to do with myself now that I’m free. It’s sort of weird, actually. I’m so used to being consumed with work and that trial.” She shuddered. “The thought of going to, say, a movie or something is like mind-boggling to me.”

I grinned. “Maybe you need a night out on the town.” I took a sip again and sighed in contentment. “Peppermint?” I asked before returning it to the fridge.

She shook her head.

“You must be glad Louie will be done traveling soon.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I sit around waiting for him.”

I arched a brow. “Where’d that come from? I didn’t say that.”

“I don’t know. Sorry.” She fussed with her hair, tucking some loose strands behind her ears before tossing her head back, grunting, and heading back to the couch. “I think I just need to see him again, you know? To remind me why I’m getting married in the first place.”

I followed her to the couch where I put my mug on the coffee table beside hers and sat down, tucking my feet under me. I faced her and tried to get a read on her, but came up short. “Okay, what’s going on? This doesn’t sound like you at all. You and Louie have always been meant to be.”

She looked up and shook her head. “I don’t know. I mean, what makes us so meant to be? Is it because we love the same things? Because there’s plenty we disagree on.” Then she leaned in and practically whispered, “And hearing about his job actually bores me, like could put me to sleep bored.”

I smacked my lips together. “Fi, most everyones’ jobs are boring. That doesn’t mean you two don’t belong together.”

Leaning her head back, she groaned. “Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. We’d have better luck forgetting the stupid piece of paper and just staying together like we are—engaged, living together. It would be so much easier that way, right? So if it doesn’t work out we can easily go our separate ways without getting anyone involved or making things complicated. And, oof, what if there are kids involved when we decide to separate?”

“All right, you listen to me.” I grew serious and spoke with my hands. “You make it sound so certain, but it’s not. There’s a big if there and more.”

She shrugged. “It could happen.”

“There are a million reasons why two people should never get together, should never even commit to one another so that they don’t have to worry about the future that’s so unclear. But throwing in the towel is not the answer. You and Louie have always wanted to be together. And sometimes the heart wants what it wants and we have no choice but to listen to it. Honestly, if you ask me, the scariest thing is when we don’t listen to it.”

My mind began reeling and for some reason I kept thinking about Bo, how even though I didn’t want to admit it, a piece of me was so curious about him, about what it would be like to be with a man like him. Maybe we weren’t compatible on paper, but sometimes these things—like who we were attracted to—couldn’t be helped.

She quirked a brow and gave me a questioning look that had my stomach clenching. “Are we still talking about Louie and I?”

Was I that obvious?

“Of course,” I answered far too quickly. “Who else would I be talking about?” Feigning ignorance, that was the way to go here.

Shrugging, she answered, “Oh, I don’t know, perhaps you and Bo. I happen to know firsthand how much time you two have been spending together lately.”

I brushed her off. “That’s ridiculous and only because of you, might I remind you. There is nothing between Bo and I.”

But what if I wanted there to be?

I shook my head at that thought.

No, absolutely not.

What was I thinking?

Even one date with that man would be a recipe for disaster.

“Please,” I went on, with a little too much protest, even to my own ears. “You’ve been with your head in those legal documents or whatever for way too long.” I got up and began spiraling. “Bo and I are too different. Plus, he doesn’t even see me as anything more than your maid of honor and probably a nuisance.” I stammered, sort of nervous I couldn’t come up with enough reasons why we weren’t good for one another. Ha, got it! “I made him decorate a tree even though he doesn’t like Christmas.”

“The horror!” One of her hands flew to her mouth and she gasped.

Obviously, she was mocking me, so I gave her my best bite-me look and crossed my arms.

“Make sure he doesn’t go to the police with that information because you might end up in a holding cell. I mean, that has to be some sort of crime, right?” She smiled. “I’m sorry, Izzy. It’s just, she who doth protest too much,” she let her words trail off. “Besides, I always saw potential there.”

“It’s because you’re all googly eyes for Louie, you can’t see straight,” I tried more casually, but I knew she was right. Heck, I thought the same thing before the words even came flying out of my mouth, but what else was I supposed to do? It wasn’t like I could admit that I thought Bo was cute—okay, criminally handsome.

And that day that I stopped by with shopping bags and we decorated his tree, don’t think I didn’t notice how adorable he was hanging that garland or those little candy canes off me. Was it possible he was opening himself up to the joy of the season? Or at least me?

Maybe I was delusional.

But then why would he talk a little about his past and his given name?

I was getting confused. I was just trying to help the man like Christmas while he was here, enjoy himself a little, you know? That was all. And plan the wedding. But thankfully that was all just about done now.

Yeah, Fiona was misreading the whole thing. “Subject change, please,” I insisted finally, getting out of my own head long enough to say that.

She kicked her feet in the air and chuckled. “You are so obvious. How is it that Bo can’t see it when he’s around you? Because there’s no way you hide it any better around him.”

I rolled my eyes and fussed with my fingers, playing with my cuticles. “You’re one of my best friends,” I mumbled noncommittally.

She shot up like a jack in the box and pointed a finger at me. “Ah-ha! So you admit it? You’re feeling some sort of way about Bo.”

I grabbed her finger and pushed it away from my general direction. “Yeah, sympathy. I feel bad for him and the way he grew up. Any man who can grow up to be as grumpy as he is must’ve had a difficult upbringing. Plus, it seems like he’s been burned in the past, maybe by an ex-girlfriend, because he has deep-seated trust issues.” Hello, he thought I’d sell his personal information to a blog! I would never do something like that.

Wagging her eyebrows up and down, she playfully goaded me, “You like him.”

I reached over and grabbed my hot cocoa, missing the marshmallows that so obviously melted. “I’m not looking for a heartbreaker, okay? Someone that’s just going to be here one day, making me feel some sort of way about him”—I put that last part in air quotes—“only to be caught off guard and left feeling empty when he leaves.” Which he would, I knew. Leave, that was.

Bo had no intention of staying.

And so what if I was starting to look at him differently?

That changed nothing, right?

We had no future, so what was the point in having a present?