Page 51 of This Means War

“No, Cole.” Her eyes flash for a second. “Of course she didn’t do that. There were supposed to be other people here.”

“So where are they?” I repeat.

“Well, Jamie and Luke are probably still sleeping,” she lifts her hand and starts ticking off fingers, “but I’m sure they’ll roll in later. Then there’s Carson, Jamie’s cousin, he was supposed to come, but hetexted me this morning that something came up. Eddie, who teaches at Faith, has a daughter with a fever so he had to back out. Ryan, from our church pulled a muscle in his back on the dance floor last night, but his wife Jessica said she’d try and swing by later, though she can’t stay long since Ryan can’t handle the kids for too long thanks to his back injury.”

I sigh. “Don’t tell me. You told her not to worry about it and to just stay home.”

Lydia huffs, but then nods. “Yes, I did tell her that, okay? Can you blame me? They have three kids under four. If I were couchbound, I wouldn’t want my spouse leaving me to handle that action.”

I sigh again. “I guess not. Though,” I add pointedly, “if I had a pregnant friend, I wouldn’t expect her to help with moving 200 chairs.”

“I told you, she thought other people were coming!” Lydia protests. “I was just going to be the one taking tulle off chairs and helping pack up centerpieces.”

“Right, well then stick to those.” I turn and start folding up chairs at the closest table, easily stacking four together and carrying them over to the storage racks. I head back to the table and see Lydia standing there gaping at me.

“Aren’t you going to get on with the tulle?” I ask.

“Are you…helping me?” she sounds bewildered.

“If I wouldn’t let my pregnant friend move 200 chairs, do you really think I’m going to let my pregnantwifemove 200 chairs?”

“Oh.” Lydia blushes scarlet and I’m suddenly not so mad at Jamie. I should be going into the office this morning, but as Lydia’s eyes shine in appreciation at me, I forget about should be’s and settle into being exactly where I want to be instead.

Lydia

As I resumeremoving tulle off the chairs, I try to settle my racing thoughts. I’m supposed to be thinking up new pranks to pull on Cole, but instead I just want to sink into a chair and watch him as he deftly moves stacks of chairs onto the racks. He’s in his running clothes, and I can see the sinews of his muscles each time he lifts a stack. It’s enough to make any girl salivate. Not to mention how he said he wasn’t going to let his pregnant wife move two-hundred chairs. Don’t get me wrong, I totally think women should have equal rights to men and what not, but that doesn’t mean the idea of a man caring enough about me to be protective of me doesn’t make me weak in the knees.

My nail catches on a strand of tulle forcing my attention back to the task at hand. For the next hour Cole follows me from table to table, nabbing the chairs I’ve removed the tulle from. We work in a charged silence. Or at least it’s charged on my end. Our movements feel almost like a continuation of last night’s dancing, except this time I’m leading. And the song playing is that one fromDirty Dancing, where Patrick Swayze is all over Jennifer Grey andshe’s all flirty and teasing him because she knows he wants her. And—

“Lydia,” Cole’s voice pulls me from my fantasy, and I jolt to attention. “Your phone’s ringing.” Cole looks amused as he points to the table where my phone is blasting “I’ll Be There for You”, my special ringtone for Jamie.

“Oh, right.” I abandon my tulle and hurriedly pick up my phone. “Well, hello, Mrs. Springer,” I greet her.

“Hey, Lydia,” Jamie giggles in a very un-Jamie like way, “how’s it going over there?”

“Well,” I eye Cole, who has finished both the table chairs and the rows of chairs set up for the ceremony and has moved on to collapsing tables, “we finished the chairs.”

In the background I hear Luke make a weird growly noise, and I instantly move the phone from my ear. “Luke! I’m on the phone!” Jamie chastises, but I hear her giggle again. “Wow, so sorry about that,” Jamie says to me. “Um, here’s the thing, though. If it’s going okay, do you mind if we–”

“I think you should stay where you are, and I think I should hang up this phone,” I interject as Jamie breaks off in a playful shriek. Before she can reply I hang up the phone and put it down like I’ve been burned. I’m happy for them and all, but wow.

“They on their way?” Cole asks as he collapses a table leg. It’s obvious he heard me tell her to stay and is just making me say it, but I’m too scarred from the phone call to give him a hard time back.

“Um, they’re still sleeping,” I hurry out, my facebetraying me by blushing scarlet. “I mean, Luke is sleeping,” I rush on, “and Jamie is heading back to bed.” I refuse to say out loud that they’re not coming because they’re enjoying their new, uh, marriage benefits.

“I see.” Cole raises a brow, but I just keep talking.

“We’ve made such good progress here anyway, so I figured why make them drive out here.”

“Right.” Cole doesn’t say anything else, just rolls the table over to its rack. Flustered, I bend down to pick up one of the boxes containing the lanterns from the centerpieces.

“Hey, I’ll get that.” Cole rushes over and takes the box from me. His arm brushes against mine, sending warm tingles through my body. Balancing the box in one arm, Cole reaches over and pulls a piece of tulle off my skirt, eliciting another round of tingles. As he adds the box to the crate marked ‘centerpieces’, I try to get control of myself. Honestly though, if I weren’t so worried about my heart ending up broken, I wouldn’t mind enjoying some marriage benefits of our own.

Chapter 36

Cole

“I can’t believewe finished,” Lydia surveys the now empty yard.

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