Page 33 of The Plus One Professional

“Great!” Devin smiled widely and clapped her hands.

Simon’s expression was unreadable. Usually, I picked up on his tiny tells that revealed what he was thinking, but for the first time, I had no clue. Was he upset that I’d agreed to Devin’s plan? Would he rather I recuse myself altogether?

I honestly didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to try and Sherlock Holmes the clues of his reaction. It was taking everything in me to not break down sobbing.

The next thirty minutes, I worked on auto-pilot. Thankfully, I’d been doing this long enough that I could coordinate a wedding in my sleep, which is what I truly hoped I was doing. If that were the case, then I could wake up from this nightmare, and none of this would be real.

As I showed them to the door, I still had no clue what Simon was thinking or feeling, but at that point, I didn’t care. I just wanted the meeting to be over so I could have the mini-breakdown I felt I’d earned.

When the door shut, I walked to the chair behind the desk and sat down. I thought about calling Olivia or one of my sisters, but instead I took the piece of paper I’d put in my pocket out and stared at it. It had Cole’s number on it. Cole, who was a professional plus one. A man I could hire to go to a wedding with me.

For the first time since I’d seen Simon outside my shop, I didn’t feel like I was going to be sick. Actually, I did, but it was from nerves, thinking about what going to a wedding with Cole as my date would be like. Even if it was fake, just him being there would make it bearable.

No. I shook my head. I couldn’t do that. Hiring Cole would be crazy.

But so was planning and attending my ex's wedding.

14

COLE

My eyes werebleary as I pulled into the garage and parked. Today had been a fourteen-hour day, and last night, I hadn’t gotten any sleep. Part of that was due to Luke being up sick. Leo had shared the 72-hour bug with his brother. Right after Leo stopped puking, Luke was down for the count. So, the past week had been spent getting up in the middle of the night with the twins so my sister could rest. She needed the sleep a lot more than I did.

The other cause of my sleeplessness was Bailey. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her. I heard her voice in my head. I smelled the fresh floral scent of her hair.

I couldn’t remember ever being so infatuated with someone. Even when I actively tried not to think about her, she was still there, at the forefront of my mind. It made no sense. I knew that nothing could happen between us. I was not in the place to have any sort of relationship, and she hadn’t shown the slightest bit of interest.

But none of that stopped me from obsessing about her.

When I turned the corner from the garage, I was sure my sleepless night had caught up with me, and my eyes were playing tricks on me. I saw an angel. Not just any angel; it was an angel in the form of Bailey, in a white sundress, sitting on the steps that led up to my building. White was the one color I could actually see. A halo of light from the setting sun surrounded her, giving her an even greater ethereal appearance.

“Bailey?” I said to myself, half expecting her to disappear, to vanish after I spoke her name out loud.

She didn’t. Instead, her head turned toward me, and she quickly stood.

“Hi!” The white sundress she wore floated up, and she pushed the material down in a very Marilyn Monroe-esque move. Once her skirt was tamed and she was no longer in danger of flashing me, she lifted her hand in an awkward wave and greeted me again. “Hi.”

Fuck, she was adorable.

“Hi,” I repeated. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I was just. Um, I wanted to talk to you.”

I motioned to the door. “I would invite you up, but my neph?—”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I can ask you out here if that’s okay.”

“Okay.”

“Um, right, so, um, I guess first, are you free next weekend? The weekend of the twenty-eighth?”

“The twenty-eighth?” I repeated buying myself some time. I knew that I was free, but I wasn’t sure what I should do here. Should I tell her about Sara and the kids? I didn’t want to lead her on. I didn’t want her to think I was capable of something I wasn’t.

“I’m asking because I was wondering if I could hire you.”

“Hire me?” My heart sank in disappointment. It shouldn’t have. This was actually better than her asking me out. I could spend time with her and not feel guilty about leading her on.

“Yes. Hire you. I have a wedding that I am coordinating and am also a guest. It’s my ex’s wedding, actually. His fiancée hired me without him knowing about it, and then he said he wanted me to be a guest and not work at his wedding. But then she seemed upset, so I agreed to do both. Then I remembered the reviews that I saw on your app. Oh, I looked up your app. I hope that’s okay. Anyway, I remembered the reviews, and I thought, that’s perfect. I need a plus one, and you are a plus one. I know it’s last minute. I’ve known for a few days. I found out on Monday. Right after I ran into you, actually. Which is sort of weird when you think about it. But I don’t know, maybe it’s fate or—" She stopped herself from speaking a mile a minute and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, it’s in Napa. It’s a three-day event. I’m going up there on Thursday and staying until Sunday.”

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