Page 8 of Accidental Wedding Crasher
“I disagree. You must have great stories.”
“A few, but you need to get to know me better before I start on that.” With a wink, Mia took a bite of her canapé. “So, I told you how I ended up at this wedding. How about you? How do you know the happy couple?”
“Tyler Parks, the groom, is one of my closest friends.”For now,Evan added silently.
“And do you know the bride?”
“Not really. We’ve met a few times, and she seems nice, but I don’t know a lot about her.”Except that she’s pulling my friend away from work.Realizing that this direction of conversationwas a minefield, Evan decided to steer things another way. “So, apart from teaching and crashing weddings, what else do you like to do?”
“Oh, you know, normal things. A lot of my time is taken up with teaching, planning lessons, or grading, but when I have free time, I like to hike, especially on the beach, read, see my friends, stuff like that. How about you?”
Evan grinned as he realized this was a difficult topic as well. “Well, to be honest, I work. A lot. Being a CEO takes up a lot of time.”
“I can imagine.” Mia gave him some side-eye. “But you must have hobbies too, right?”
“I like to travel,” Evan suggested. He really did travel a lot, and he mostly enjoyed it, but he traveled for work more than pleasure. On the rare times his family convinced him to join them for a vacation, he often ended up spending most of his days in the hotel room with his laptop, attending to urgent business back home. He hadn’t had a proper vacation since his last spring break in college.
“Really?” Again, Mia’s eyes lit up, just as had happened when she found out that he liked math, too. “Where’s your favorite place to visit?”
“There are lots of beautiful places in the world,” Evan hedged. “I liked London.” He liked London because he’d negotiated a very successful deal for Reign there with an enormous London-based publishing company. He hadn’t had much time to see the sights, and it had rained almost the whole time. He had enjoyed seeing the double-decker buses and phone booths that he’d only seen in pictures and movies before, though.
“I’ve always wanted to visit there.” Mia snagged another canapé and popped it into her mouth. Her expression was thoughtful.
“Do you travel much?”
“A little.” She swallowed. “I’ve been on road trips all around California, and I do a lot of camping. When I was younger, my family camped almost every weekend, and I still love it, although I don’t get out as often. I also lead an outdoor after-school program one day a week at my high school, so I sometimes travel a little with them.”
“And you have summers off, right?” Evan prompted. “Do you often travel then?”
“A little,” she repeated. “Lots of camping. But I don’t have really specific plans for this summer yet.”
“You should go to Europe or something,” Evan suggested. “Or Hawaii. I’m sure you’d love it if you love nature. You can camp there, too.”
“It isn’t quite so easy for me to jet off to other countries,” Mia explained. She tilted her head, her brow furrowing. “Is it so easy for you?”
“Not really,” Evan admitted. “I have so much work that it’s difficult for me to step away.” She looked a little judgmental, so he reached for a comparison. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to leave your students in the middle of a semester, right? It’s the same way for me.”
“I suppose I understand. I love my job, too, and I wouldn’t want to leave my students. But I do think there’s more to life than work, you know?”
Evan shrugged noncommittally. He was having such a nice conversation with Mia that he didn’t want to steer into a topic that they would disagree on.
“Sure, but work is pretty great, too.”
“So are days off.” Mia smiled. “Today, for instance. I was annoyed about taking a Friday off, but this has turned out to be much more fun — and more of an adventure — than I expected.”
“Same for me,” Evan admitted. Talking to Mia was certainly more fun than working, though his to-do list was still playing in the back of his mind.
Finishing her apple cider, Mia looked around at the other wedding guests and the opulent venue and sighed. “I should probably go, huh? I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for covering for me. And I’m sure you have plenty of other people you’d like to chat with, like your friend Tyler.”
Evan should have agreed. After all, he had plenty of work to do, and once Mia left, he could get back to it. But he was having fun with her — more fun than he’d expected. And he could work later.
“No. I’ll be fine. We have to keep pretending that we’re here together. Come on, we can dance again.” He held out a hand and gave her his most charming smile.
Mia hesitated, then grinned and nodded. “All right, all right. Let’s go.”
They returned to the dance floor, where Evan took her in his arms again and they began to sway to another instrumental cover. More people had joined the dance floor now, including several of the elderly relatives who’d accosted Evan earlier andkept him from his work. They smiled at him now that he was dancing with Mia.
The song that played was a soft, sweet love song about lost love and hope for a better future. Mia smiled as it began. “I love this song.”
