Page 30 of The First Best Man

Taking a deep breath, I describe the encounter, not leaving anything out. When I finish, Tucker stares at me silently for a long moment, then shakes his head and grunts.

“She really is a raging bitch, isn’t she?” he says finally, and a little shock shivers through me. “I swear, I don’t know how she and Logan were raised in the same house by the same parents. They couldn’t be more different.”

A dark chuckle vibrates in my chest as I lean in and stage-whisper, “Penny and I decided she was achangeling when we were nine years old. I still haven’t found any evidence to disprove it.”

“A changeling?” he asks with a confused expression.

“It’s when faeries steal human babies and replace them with an unwanted faery child.”

“What?” he barks out on a laugh.

“Tell me Blaine doesn’t look and act like some kind of deranged pixie,” I say, then shove a forkful of fries into my mouth.

“You know, you might actually be right,” he says with another laugh, and whatever tension I was still holding in my muscles drains out of me as I laugh with him.

He takes a bite of fries and chews slowly, his gaze turning vacant for a moment before he meets my eyes again. He chews for another moment, swallows, and clears his throat before speaking again.

“I bet you look sexy as hell in that dress, and Blaine’s just jealous.”

Heat pools in my cheeks and my belly at those words. My first instinct is to disagree. Blaine could never be jealous ofme. But then I remember how wearing that dress made me feel, and I meet his liquid, blue gaze.

“You’re right,” I breathe, then give him a single nod. “Idolook sexy as hell in that dress.”

His voice deepens as he says, “I can’t wait to see you in it.”

Tension fills the space between us for several long beats, then Tucker grins and scoops up another bite of fries and shovels it into his mouth. I watch the muscles tick in his jaw as he chews, and when he looks backover at me, his eyes crinkle around the corners as he swallows, never dropping his smile.

“You better eat before I finish the whole thing,” he says, pointing his fork at the veritable mountain of chili-cheese fries on the plate.

A laugh bursts out of me at the absurdity. I don’t think we could finish the whole plate if we were both starving to death. There’s pride in Tucker’s expression as he takes another bite, watching me the entire time. My heart flutters in my chest.

Making me happy makes him happy.

Oh, God.

Clearing my throat, I stab a fry coated in cheese and hold it up in front of me. “Is cheese a carb?”

“The line is butter, Regina George,” he says without missing a beat.

I drop my fork to the plate and stare at him for a beat with my mouth hanging open before asking, “You’ve seenMean Girls?”

“Hasn’t everyone?” he asks with a shrug.

“Sure, but you’ve seen it enough times to recognize a misquote?”

He shrugs again, and I reach over and wrap my fingers around his bicep. “That is, like,so fetch.”

Tucker chuckles, then dips his head and nips his teeth at my fingers with a growl. I squeal and jerk my hand back, and he grins at me before taking another bite from our plate. He stares straight ahead as he chews, giving me a chance to study his profile.

He’s so damn handsome. And so kind. He’s funny. Charming.

Everything I could ever want in a partner.

Except for one glaring problem. He doesn’t live here. He lives in San Francisco, and I can’t see a world where either one of us gives up our lives to join the other. Not for someone we’ve known for a handful of days, anyway.

And he’s leaving after the wedding. Monday, he’ll be gone, and this week will be nothing but a memory.

If I were a more experienced woman, I would’ve taken him home with me days ago. That’s a fact. But I’m not experienced. Hell, I’ve never even made it past first base, and I can barely count the sloppy, drunk kiss I got from Jamie Halligan at a party in eleventh grade as a base hit. It was more like a bunt where the fielders made an error, and I barely hit the bag in time.

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