Page 22 of Just Friends

“Probably,” Rebecca acknowledged. “There are days I don’t want to eat anything I’ve cooked.”

Autumn nodded. “See,” she said, “and Dan doesn’t care. He just wants to get married. So, the least complicated, the better. My mom’s chomping at the bit for a church ceremony, but she has gone uncharacteristically quiet on the matter.”

“She just prefers you married,” Rebecca said. Autumn discovered that she was pregnant during Daniel’s deployment, and he didn’t find out about the baby until he returned almost a year later. In the nearly two months since Dan’s return, he’d left the military, and was a stay-at-home dad until he decided what he wanted to do next.

“Yeah,” Hannah agreed.

“I know,” Autumn said. “She never warmed to me having Danny without being married.”

“What do you want to do?” Rebecca asked. She guessed that no one had bothered to ask Autumn that. Mostly because Rebecca’s mom never once asked that. And Kyle didn’t care about what she wanted either. He told her she had to accept him sleeping around on her because she wasn’t adventurous enough for him in bed. And she should be happy that those needs would get met elsewhere and that he’d not forced her to do it, or that he’d stayed unsatisfied. He was an ass.

Autumn considered for a moment. “Small and simple,” she said. “Maybe only y’all and our parents. Something quick and uncomplicated.”

“And pretty,” Hannah said.

“Of course,” Rebecca said. “Have it on the property at Huntington. It’s gorgeous everywhere.”

Autumn smiled.

The waiter sat a heaping plate of pancakes covered in blueberries and whipped cream down in front of her. She could feel her rear end widen from the smell of the sugar alone, but she deserved these pancakes. “I don’t think I ever thanked Dan for trying to find the clown in the garden last night.”

“That makes it sound like a Where’s Waldo sort of thing,” Hannah said.

“I could live without finding Waldo too,” Rebecca said.

Hannah laughed.

“He wished he would’ve found him,” Autumn said. “He figured out the clown left right after you ran, ‘cause he said it didn’t take him long to search. Then Ben was having a fit about cops roaming the garden while a wedding reception was going on.”

“But some freak dressed as a clown prowling around out there was fine,” Hannah said. “Don’t you guys have security cameras?”

“The main house and the barn,” Autumn said. “Not the garden, yet.”

“Speaking of cops,” Hannah said. “You ready to talk about Weasel, yet?”

No.“What about him?” Then she shoved a giant mouthful of pancake, blueberry, and whipped cream into her mouth. It was heaven.

“Why were the two of you together late on a Friday night, huh?” Hannah asked with a naughty accusation in her tone.

“He’s overly cautious and didn’t want me driving to Chattanooga alone in the dark.” There. Honest, unassuming, and the truth…

“I don’t blame him,” Autumn said. “And…”

“And what?” Rebecca asked.

“How’d he know you were going to Chattanooga?” Hannah asked.

Autumn and Hannah stared at her expectedly. They were waiting for a precise answer.

“Why are you two looking at me like that?” Rebecca replied.

“Oh, come on,” Autumn exclaimed.

“We know you were on a date,” Hannah said.

“We were not,” Rebecca replied. “Just dinner.”

“Right,” Hannah said. “At Angelo’s.”

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