I shot him a dirty look.
“I wasn’t joking about the first dance,” he said. “I still think it would be cool. And Bells, I have been doing stuff. I figured out what to do for music. My buddy Pete deejays on the weekends. He said he’d bring his speakers and just hook up his iPod and take care of the whole thing. He already has thePulp Fictionsoundtrack, by the way.”
Jeremiah raised his eyebrows at me comically. I knew he was waiting for a laugh or at least a smile. And I was about to give in, just so this fight could be over and I could eat my scallops without feeling angry, when he said innocently, “Oh, wait, did you want to check with Taylor first? See if she’d be okay with it?”
I glared at him. He needed to quit with the jokes and start acting a lot more appreciative, because Taylor was the one who was actually helping, unlike him. “I don’t need to check with her on this. It’s a dumb idea, and it’s not happening.”
Jeremiah whistled under his breath. “All righty, Bridezilla.”
“I’m not a Bridezilla! I don’t even want to do any of this.Youdo it.”
He stared at me. “What do you mean, you don’t want to do any of this?”
My heart was beating really fast all of a sudden. “I mean the planning. I don’t want to do any of this stupid planning. Not the actual getting married part. I still want to do that.”
“Good. Me too.” He reached across the table, plucked a scallop off my plate, and popped it into his mouth.
I stuffed the last scallop into my mouth before he could take that, too. Then I grabbed a bunch of fries off of his plate, even though I had fries of my own.
“Hey,” he said with a frown. “You’ve got your own fries.”
“Yours are crispier,” I said, but really it was more out of spite. I wondered—the rest of our lives, was Jeremiah going to try and eat my last scallop or my last bite of steak? I liked finishing all the food on my plate—I wasn’t one of those girls who left a few bites behind just to be polite.
I had a fry in my mouth when Jeremiah asked, “Has Laurel called at all?”
I swallowed. Suddenly I wasn’t so hungry anymore. “No.”
“She must have gotten the invite by now.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, hopefully she’ll call this week,” Jere said, stuffing the rest of his lobster roll into his mouth. “I mean, I’m sure she will.”
“Hopefully,” I said. I sipped on my iced tea and added, “Our first dance can be ‘You Never Can Tell’ if you really want.”
Jere pumped his fist in the air. “See, that’s why I’m marrying you!”
A smile creeped across my face. “Because I’m generous?”
“Because you’re very generous, and you get me,” he said, taking back a few of his fries.
When we got back to the house, Conrad’s car was gone.
chapterthirty-five
CONRAD
I would rather have had someone shoot me in the head with a nail gun, repeatedly, than have to watch the two of them cuddling on the couch together all night. After they went to dinner, I got in my car and drove to Boston. As I drove, I thought about not going back to Cousins. Screw it. It would be easier that way. Halfway home, I made up my mind that yeah, that would be for the best. An hour from home, I decided, screw them, I had as much right to be there as they did. I still needed to clean out the gutters, and I was pretty sure I’d seen a wasp nest in the drainpipe. There was all kinds of stuff I needed to take care of. I couldn’t just not go back.
Around midnight, I was sitting at the kitchen table in my boxer shorts eating cereal when my dad walked in, still wearing his work suit. I didn’t even know he was home.
He didn’t look surprised to see me. “Con, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He sat down across from me with his glass of bourbon. In the dim light of the kitchen, my father looked like an old man. His hair was thinning on top, and he’d lost weight, too much weight. When did he get so old? In my mind he was always thirty-seven.
My dad cleared his throat. “What do you think I should do about this thing with Jeremiah? I mean, is he really set on it?”
