Page 70 of The Spirit of Love
“Oh. No. It wasn’t about the show.”
“It wasn’t?”
“I was going to invite you to this thing I have to go to…” He trails off and peeks at me out of the corner of his eye, which makes me smile.
“What is it?”
He takes a breath. “Feel free to laugh in my face…”
“Oh, I always reserve that right.”
He clears his throat. “By any chance, would you want to be my plus-one at a wedding next weekend? I don’t know anyone else going, and—”
“Oh, I can’t.”
“Right. Of course. Big weird ask.”
“No, I would have loved to. But I’m alreadyina wedding next weekend. One of my best friends. So unless, miraculously,we’re talking about the same wedding, in a city of four million people—”
“Jake Glasswell and O—”
“Olivia Dusk and Jake—” I break off and clamp a hand over my mouth. “You’re the one who doesn’t believe in cosmic coincidences. Explain this.”
He laughs. “Maybe we entered a vortex in Joshua Tree.”
“That and you were recently a guest on Jake’s show,” I say, remembering what Olivia had told me about Jude back when I first met and hated him. “He liked you.”
“Every once in a while, that happens,” he says, running his eyes over my face.
“So let’s go together,” I say brightly.
“You don’t already have a date? I have this image in my mind of you being disgustingly happy with some cheerful beefcake.”
“Maybe I was, once…” I confess. “Unfortunately, that relationship was unsustainable.”
“Too good to be true?” Jude asks.
“Too far away.”
“Alas.”
“Alas.” I smile at Jude. “It’s all right, because I think I just got a pretty decent replacement date. You might have heard of him. Scorsese can’t do an interview without raving about him.”
“I will try my best to live up to that hype.”
“Jude? One more thing?” I say, partly because I see Edie on her way into the kitchen and partly because I’m honestly curious. “Would you ask me to the wedding again, in Portuguese?”
Jude puts down the dish he’s holding and turns to face me.He looks surprised but also game, and his voice drops to a husky rumble as he speaks in the loveliest language I have ever heard.
“Você seria meu acompanhante no casamento de Jake e Olivia no próximo fim de semana?” he asks just as Edie comes in.
“Sim!” I answer.
“I don’t know what’s happening in here,” Edie says, gazing around her newly cleaned kitchen, her eyes landing first on Jude and then on me. “But it sounds R-rated, and I approve.”
Chapter Eighteen
“This is a terrible idea.”
