Page 42 of Unless It's You
She glances back up at me, another smile, and then her mobile vibrates on the table. Stella yanks her hand from mine and grabs it.
“It’s Reese!” She leaps up and darts away from the table, with a worried glance back at me.
I take a deep breath. What am I doing? Why did I tell her all those things, thoughts that should stay firmly within the confines of my own mind?
Why is Stella Hart making me act like this?
17
STELLA
BUCKET LIST DAY 8
“Reese! What’s wrong?” My heart races and the calm I was feeling with Ethan seconds ago has vanished. My stomach twists in anticipation of something horrible. I push the door to the coffee shop open and step outside onto the busy sidewalk, dodging a man on his cell phone. Inside is too crowded for this conversation, too dense with people sitting around tiny tables, and not with Ethan right there.
“Oh no, nothing’s wrong. I’m sorry to worry you! Everything is so great, Stella!” Reese’s voice is gleeful. High pitched. Light with happiness.
“You scared the shit out of me.” The panic gripping my insides loosens. I lean up against the glass window of the coffee shop, my knees shaky.
“I have good news—the best news. Oliver and I are engaged. We’re getting married!” she screams, rattling my brain.
“Oh, congratulations! That’s amazing.” A rush of relief washes away the rest of the stress, leaving my legs feeling like putty. “Tell me all about it.”
I concentrate on Reese’s joyful words and can’t help but grin at her storytelling of how her Scottish boyfriend proposed at the tattoo parlor where he works. I’m happy for her. Her relationship with the man she met in Scotland a year ago sounds, well, just perfect. I hope it is.
Reese is definitely wife material. Girlfriend material. Mother material. And she settled into her fairy-tale romance with Oliver seamlessly. Something I’ve never been able to do, not since Hunter screwed me up a decade ago.
“We’re thinking that we’ll get married next summer in Scotland.”
“Really? Wow, that’ll be so beautiful.” Scotland, one of the places I should be going to this month to satisfy Evelyn’s bucket list instead of cheating with Graham’s advanced Photoshop skills. My insides churn. I wonder what crazy things Evelyn put on Reese’s list?
“Have you been, Stella?”
“Not yet, but it sounds like next summer I will.” I cringe. That’ll be much too late for the bucket list.
Then it occurs to me. What will I tell my sisters when we all come clean about our lists after everything is settled? Will I have to lie to them and say I’d actually gone to Skye? Shit, this is getting so complicated. I guess I can google pictures and read travel blogs until I know everything about it.
“I have an important question for you.” Reese’s voice is lower, more serious.
“I hope it’s not about the bucket list.”
She laughs breathlessly, more like an excited teenager who just got asked to prom than an almost forty-year-old soccer mom.
“Nope. I would love for you and Maddie—and Chelsea, obviously, my daughter would kill me if I didn’t include her—to be my co-maids of honor. I’m not going to make a big deal of it, and I know you hate marriage and weddings and, like, love,” she rushes through her speech like a nervous bridesmaid.
“Reese, I don’t hate love! Or weddings or marriage. That would make me an absolute grinch. I just don’t want it for me.”
“Wow.” Reese pauses. “I have thoughts on what you just admitted out loud.”
“You know what I mean. I promise I don’t hate those things. I just don’t want to get hurt. And that’s what letting a guy I date close to me would lead to.”
“Way to bring the mood down, little sister.”
I laugh. “I’m sorry. Ignore everything I said.”
“Okay... but I wish you’d let someone in for real. You deserve so much more than you’ve gotten.”
I groan. “Seriously, can we get back to your engagement? And of course I’ll be your co-maid of honor.”
