Page 42 of Finding Jess

Jess turned to the mirror, smiling. “I like this one,” she said before her eyes flitted to the side, meeting Sam’s in the reflection.

Sam pulled her eyes away to look back at Scarlett. “You guys both look great.”

“You wanna try some on?” Scarlett asked, throwing Sam a teasing look.

Sam huffed a laugh. “You mean I can’t just wear this to the wedding?” she asked, waving a hand down at her plain white t-shirt and jeans.

“Wear whatever you want,” Scarlett replied with a light shrug as she turned back to the mirror. “But you might stand out a little.”

“Fine by me,” Sam muttered as her phone buzzed in her lap with a new text from Caleb.

She swiped it open to see a message asking her to call him.

Scarlett groaned. “I have way too many dresses to try on. I’m gonna be here for hours.”

“So?” Jess muttered, smoothing down the front of her dress. “This is like your favorite thing to do.”

“Yeah, but I have a million other things to do today. Can you try some on for me?” Scarlett asked. “I just want to at least see them on someone in person.”

Sam stood up from the cushioned chair. “Hey, I gotta step out for a sec,” she mumbled, reading a second, more urgent sounding text from Caleb. “Be right back.”

Sam stepped out into the main area as she clicked the call button on Caleb’s contact.

He picked up on the first ring, immediately launching into the latest problem arising with their new client.

She listened intently as he continued, taking her through each and every detail of what he viewed as another new major road bump. Luckily, she’d listened to enough of these panic filled rants from him to be able to quickly decipher what was actually a big problem, and what was mostly just his own stress.

And in this particular case, it seemed to be the latter.

She listened to him rant for another minute before realizing it would take more than a phone call to settle his stress.

“Alright,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ll be back at the office in a bit and I’ll take a look at everything.”

Sam hung up and checked the messages on her phone one last time, scrolling through the most recent emails as she rounded the corner back to the dressing room area. The bottom of a wedding dress fluttered in the corner of her vision.

“Hey Scar,” she muttered, closing out a message thread as she slipped the phone back into her pocket.“Sorry, I have to—”

She stared ahead, freezing mid-step. She blinked once, her mouth parted with the unfinished words.

Jess’ eyes met hers in the reflection, and she somehow looked just as frozen in place. She turned slightly, away from the mirror, and Sam could see then which dress she was wearing. It was the one she’d picked out. The one that somehow now seemed a thousand times more stunning.

Jess glanced down, running her fingers across the trail of lace on the front of the dress. “She needed me to try some on for her.”

Sam just stood there, unable to stop herself from staring as her mind went blank.

Jess looked like she was about to say something more, but then she stopped. And the way she stared back at her in thatmoment—the cautious intensity—sent some long-lost feeling coursing within her.

A feeling that definitely shouldn’t belong to her.

And with that feeling came a warning.

“Uh—I,” Sam stammered, shaking her head and looking anywhere else. “I have to go.”

Jess might’ve nodded her head or given her some type of questioning look. Sam knew her well enough to imagine the exact way her eyes would’ve tightened around the edges, waiting for an explanation.

But still, Sam refused to look. Refused to let herself take even one more small glance.

It wasn’t right. She might not have known exactly what that feeling meant. But she did know she had no right to feel it. Whatever it was.

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