Page 18 of The Love Audit
Now I wasn’t so sure.
After we spent an hour grilling a sufficient amount of meat and talking a sufficient amount of trash, I followed David and the rest of the men back into the house.
A group of loud but surprisingly well-organized children were setting the large dining table.
David led me to the bar and began to make a martini.
“Eleanor loves one of these at the beginning of dinner.” He poured a splash of sweet vermouth in a martini glass and swirled it around before dumping it out. “And she looooves the way I make it. The secret ingredient is love.” He waggled his eyebrows. “What does your lady drink?”
I had to think for a moment. My mind traveled back to the night Jasmine ruined what would be my first and last date witha stockbroker my mother set me up with. If Jasmine stealing my shrimp and exposing my digestive issues weren’t enough, she’d definitely noticed me glancing at Jasmine sitting at the bar with her coworker all night.
I’d still been fuming from our meeting with Edward Mason and our confrontation in her office. I’d almost canceled the date that I really hadn’t wanted to go on, but I’d been determined not to let Jasmine Morgan ruin my entire day—but fate had other plans.
She’d been sitting at the bar, directly in my line of sight, downing pink drinks in a martini glass. She’d seemed sad, angry, and beautiful. So damn beautiful, making me even more annoyed by her presence. My date had noticed and remarked on it. I’d tried to play it off, but when Jasmine had downed the remnants of her cocktail and stormed over to our table, the final nail had been put in the coffin.
What the hell could she have been drinking?
When we were kids, she and her little friends had been obsessed with the OGSex and the Cityshow. It wouldn’t surprise me if she’d been drinking a cosmopolitan. Plus, I knew that her favorite color was pink—or at least, it was when I knew her.
“She likes cosmos.” I proceeded to perform my best approximation of the cocktail.
David backed into the swinging door of the kitchen, carefully holding Eleanor’s cocktail, with me and a few other fellas trailing behind him, trying not to spill drinks. We were greeted by a chorus of raucous laughter with Jasmine in the center. The sight of my fake wife wearing a pink, polka-dotted apron while using twolarge forks to toss a giant salad and grinning ear to ear stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t just because she was beautiful, because she was easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It was her smile. I hadn’t seen that smile since she was seventeen. It lit up her entire face and made everything else in the room—hell, in the world—a little bit brighter. It was the kind of smile you’d go to war for. It was the kind of smile where once you saw it, you’d do anything to keep it on her face.
The laughter died down, and Jasmine’s smile faltered when she realized that I’d been staring at her. Everyone else in the kitchen noticed it, too.
“I remember when you used to look at me like that,” Eleanor said to David before sipping her martini.
“You mean this morning when I caught you coming out of the shower?” he quipped.
The kitchen erupted in gasps and giggles, and Jasmine hit me with a “that was awkward” expression that made me smile as I approached her with her drink. Our fingers briefly touched as she took the drink from my hand. I watched nervously as she took her first sip.
“It’s perfect, as usual.” She smiled and leaned forward to brush her lips across my cheek, and I used the opportunity to inhale her intoxicating scent.
We gazed at each other until David broke the spell with two loud handclaps and a declaration.
“Let’s eat!”
“So, how did you two meet?” Kitanya, Eric’s wife, asked us while we tucked into the salad course. I looked at Jasmine.
“Well”—she took a sip of her wine before continuing—“I’ve known Derek my entire life.”
“Our parents were best friends and business partners, and we grew up together,” I added.
“My entire life, I felt like Derek was the one person I could count on.” She gave me a look of admiration so sincere that she almost fooled me, making my chest swell in response. “When I was seventeen, my boyfriend broke up with me two days before my senior prom. I was so sure I was gonna spend the night crying and watchingGossip Girlreruns when my mother came into my room and told me to get ready because I was going to the prom.” She turned to me and smiled. I knew most of this story but not this part. “Derek rented a tuxedo and drove all the way from Boston to be my date.”
The entire table erupted in a chorus of “aww”s.
“Well, my mother called me and told me about Jasmine’s breakup.” I shrugged. “I already owned a tuxedo, and it was only a four-hour drive. Plus, I needed a break from finals.”
“It was the sweetest gesture. Plus, he made my ex really jealous, and he could buy me and my friends alcohol.”
“Which I didn’t do,” I chimed in, making the table erupt in laughter.
“Sometimes, you don’t have to search all around the world when you realize that everything you needed was right in front of your eyes the whole time.” David brought his wife’s knuckles to his lips for a kiss.
The other couples at the table nodded in agreement, while the teenagers and the younger children rolled their eyes.
“So how did you and David meet, Eleanor?” Jasmine asked to change the subject. “I’m sure it was more interesting than our story.”
