Page 40 of Unexpectingly Happily Ever After

″That’s nice of him. I guess he wants you to see him dance.”

″Actually, he doesn’t,” Morgan laughs. “He says he’ll be too self-conscious with me in the audience. But I begged him. I said if I was going to be getting to know him better, I need to see it for myself, rather than imagining the worst.”

″You’re going to be getting to know him better?” I ask at the same time Brit cries out. “Strippers are not self-conscious! Who is this guy?”

Morgan only shrugs with a soft expression in her eyes. “He’s Bron.”

″At least you’re getting something out of it. We have appointments at the spa in an hour,” Brit reminds her.

″I might be a little late for that,” Morgan hedges, heading for the door.

And then she’s gone, not giving me a chance to ask what the heck was going on.

″I can’t believe she just did that,” Brit says in a quiet voice after the door closes behind her.

″She must really like him.”

″Well, she needs to like me better since I organized this weekend to celebrate our friendship,” Brit says in a haughty voice.

″Celebrate our friendship?” I echo. “That’s nice enough, but I thought this was your stagette?”

Brit gives a wave. “That’s what all the little girls from last night called it. Hens’ nights. Bachelorette parties. I’m beyond that.”

She stalks through the room, heading for the terrace. Her focus seems to be shifted away from Morgan, but I can read Brit even better than Morgan and something is off. “Have you talked to Justin?” I ask as she pulls open the door. We’re high enough that the sounds from The Strip are a faint buzz, like white noise.

″This is agirls’weekend, so why would I talk to him?”

″I’m going to talk to J.B. now,” I call as she steps outside.

″If you must.”

It’s not like I need her permission. I connect to FaceTime. Even though I’m sleep rumpled and still wearing last night’s makeup, the good thing about being married is that J.B. has undoubtedly seen me look worse.

With the time difference, it pains me that I’ve missed seeing the kids before they went to school, but J.B.’s smiling face answers the call. “Hey, babe.”

″Are the kids okay?”

″And I miss you too. Are you having fun? The kids are fine–sent them off to school with money for lunch.”

″You have to send them food for lunch!” That’s the grin I love, the one that shows his dimple. “I miss them.”

“I know. They miss you too.” He runs a hand through his hair, mussing it up. It’s eleven-thirty back in Toronto and usually, he would be getting ready to head to the restaurant. But I can tell he’swearing one of those soft T-shirts that stretch at his broad shoulders, so he must be working from home. I can’t believe how good it is to see J.B. It’s only been twenty-four hours but all I want to do is stare at the phone, rememorizing the lines and curves of his face. I wish I was home so I could throw my arms around him and press my nose into his chest to breathe in his J.B. smell.

But if I wasn’t here, I would be at school, with eighteen 5-year-olds, breathing in their special scent of glue and crayons.

″Tell me what trouble you’ve gotten into,” J.B. demands with another grin, this one that has the butterflies in my stomach taking flight, even after six years of marriage.

″Morgan met a man,” I report. “He’s a stripper.”

″Do I want to know how she met him?”

″Perfectly innocently–we were at a bar and he had all his clothes on. But she’s got us tickets to see his show tonight.”

J.B. raises an eyebrow. “That will be interesting.”

″Do you mind? Because I’m not asking permission.”

″You shouldn’t have to.” He frowns. “Do you want me to mind?”

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