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Em had to admire the skill with which Hadley had just drawn the line. Hadley—delicate and artistic. Emmaline—manly and brutish.
“What can I do for you, Hadley?” Jack asked.
“I was just...checking in, I guess,” Tinkerbell said now. “How’ve you been, Jack?” She gave his arm a squeeze. Nice manicure.
“I’m great.” His face was completely neutral.
“I’m so glad to hear that.” Hadley smiled (beautifully, tragically). A Yankee would’ve recognized Jack’s response as the cold shoulder, but Hadley was Southern, and Southerners could make conversation with a block of wood, it seemed. “Jack, I talked to Frankie today. You know how she just adores you. Even more now, after your big save. Why, she was bragging to all her friends that you’re her brother-in-law!”
“Ex-brother-in-law,” Jack said.
“Well, now, she doesn’t think of you as an ex anything,” Hadley said smoothly. “But shoot, I didn’t mean to interrupt y’all’s evening. Jack, I’ll call you about having dinner. Bye, Evelyn! So nice to meet you!”
With that, Hadley fluttered her fingers and floated away. Jack sat back down and took a sip of beer. Emmaline noted he hadn’t turned down the dinner invitation.
“So,” he said. “When do we leave?”
“Right. That’s another thing. The wedding’s Saturday. It’s in Malibu, so of course I’ll pay for your plane fare and hotel and stuff.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Not necessary.”
“I’m paying for your flight, Jack, or you’re not going.”
He shrugged. “Fine. So we’ll go, I’ll pretend to be your boyfriend—”
“No, no,” Emmaline said. “No. Like I said, I just want a pal.” She sighed, then rubbed her eyes. “You really don’t have to come, Jack. Allison Whitaker would love nothing more than to leave her kids and come with me.”
“But you want to go with a guy, or else you wouldn’t have been looking at mug shots with Carol.”
“Well, yes. If I take Allison, my parents will never believe I’m straight.”
“Are you?”
“Yes! I was engaged to the groom, okay? I’m straight!” Must use inside voice. “It’s just...they think I’m not.”
Jack wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was on Hadley, who was perched alone at the bar, trying to get Colleen’s attention. “Excuse me a second,” he said and got up from the table. He went over to Colleen, said something and then came back. Colleen sighed hugely, then pulled out a menu, went to Hadley and handed it to her.
Based on her excellent powers of deduction, Emmaline would guess that Colleen was ignoring the former Mrs. Jack Holland, and Jack had just asked her to knock it off.
So. The Princess of Beautiful Land was back in town and sprinkling her fairy dust on Jack. And while everyone knew Hadley had cheated on him, men were generally stupid about things like this. People who looked like Hadley (and Naomi Norman, for that matter) got away with some very stinky crap.
“So when do we leave?” Jack asked, sliding back into his seat.
“Thursday?”
“Thursday’s great.”
She paused. “Okay. Thank you, Jack.”
“My pleasure. It’ll be nice to go somewhere warm.”
“Malibu is beautiful. Every day of the year, more or less.”
He finished his beer. “Send me the info on the flight and hotel so I can make a reservation, okay?”
“I’ll make it for you. You’re not spending one thin dime on this trip.”
He smiled at her so suddenly that it was like being wrapped in a warm, soft blanket. “And blah blah blah blah,” he said. Well, he probably said actual words, but Em couldn’t quite hear at the moment, as she was rendered close to death by the beauty of that smile, those crinkling, pure blue eyes, the tousled blond hair, the...the...the glory that was Jack Holland.
Then he stood up, squeezed her shoulder and left, waving at the O’Rourke twins and nodding at his ex-wife, who positively beamed and fluttered, butterfly-like, back at him.
Which took away some of the glow.
Even so, it was a good five minutes before Emmaline trusted herself to stand up.
Do not fall for this guy, she warned herself. Very sternly.
But her shoulder still buzzed from the warmth of his hand.
This was a disaster waiting to happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_3af6a10b-7402-5cca-93af-739b60eaf76e)
“LET ME DO that for you.” Jack gave his date his very best stern big-brother stare. It didn’t work. It never did, now that he thought about it.
“I’m fine. I can put my own stupid suitcase away.” Someone was in a foul mood, but he couldn’t blame her, given their destination. There was a pause. “No, thanks, I mean.”
“I’ll get that,” said a flight attendant, wrestling the bag away from Emmaline. “Have a seat, and I’ll be right back with some champagne.”
“Why did you do this?” Emmaline hissed.
“Because I’m six-three and the seats in coach only fit very skinny dwarves,” he said, sinking into the leather seat.
“Fine. But why did you upgrade me?”
“Because you’re not a skinny dwarf.”
“Is that an insult?”
“Is it? Would you like to be a skinny dwarf? Because even though you’re acting like Grumpy—”
“Okay, okay. Fine. I’ll sit here. But I don’t like it.”
“Of course you do. It’s first class. Relax, Emmaline.”
She flopped into the seat, and Jack had to smile. She was so far from relaxed it was almost funny.
For himself, he was downright thrilled about this wedding. He loved Kevin and the bride for having a wedding, for inviting Emmaline to bring a date, loved that it was across the entire continent. He hadn’t felt this good since before the accident. He’d be away from people wanting to shake his hand and buy him beers, from the food that Sam Miller’s mom kept bringing over, from the hospital parking lot, from his well-meaning but omnipresent family, from Hadley popping up every other day. If his seatmate was grumpy, that was a small price to pay.
The flight attendant came by with two glasses of champagne. “Thanks,” Jack said.
“You’re very welcome.” She smiled at both of them. “Are you a nervous flyer?” she asked Em.
“I am today,” she answered, chugging her champagne. “Oh, shit! I forgot my hair slime!”
“Surely they have stores in L.A.,” Jack murmured.
“Not this stuff. I order it online. From Sicily. It’s hard-core. Sicily understands hair frizz. You can’t even buy it in America.”
“Made with angel wings and freckles?”
She took his champagne and drained that, too. “And the blood of infant fairies, yes.”
The flight attendant kept up with her unflagging, slightly creepy smile. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can get you.” She moved down the row.
Emmaline fiddled with her phone and rebuckled her seat belt a few times. Pulled out her hair elastic and then put her ponytail back in. Opened the shade. Closed the shade. Tried to put her champagne flute in the seat pocket. Put it on her tray. Took it off her tray.
“Will you stop fidgeting, please?” he said, taking the glass from her. “Just calm down. Your hair will be fine. We’ll have fun.”
“My hair will not be fine, Jack. And this is my ex-fiancé’s wedding. It will be as fun as a hanging.”
“The food will be better, though.”
“Hardly. They’re vegans.”
“Now you tell me. When I’m trapped on a plane.”
Emmaline was pretty enough when she smiled, Jack thought. Granted, she looked a little on the homeless side at the moment—scraggly hair and no makeup, gray sweats that screamed don’t look at me—I’m sexless.
He wondered if she was. She always seemed pretty sparky to him. Granted, his contact with her had been limited to “Hi, Em/Bye, Em” at the police station or O’Rourke’s and the occasional body check during a hockey game (much more fun than checking Gerard Chartier), but she seemed to have a little something going on.
“We don’t know each other that well, do we?” he asked.
“I guess not.” She started fiddling with the tray back again, so he took her hand.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s not like we’re flying off to face the firing squad.”
“That would be a cakewalk compared to this.”
The plane began taxiing down the runway. Emmaline took her hand away so she could clench the armrests. “So do you like having sisters?” she asked.
“No. You want some?”
“I already have one. Angela. You’ll like her. She’s very beautiful.” Her knuckles were white.
“Tell me about the bride and groom,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “Right. Kevin Bates and Naomi Norman.”
“The Norman-Bates wedding?”
Another smile tugged at her lips. She had a pretty mouth, pink and full and sweet.
Ah. She was talking, her words rapid-fire. “Yeah. So, he was my boyfriend from eighth grade on. We went to the same college and lived together and seemed pretty happy, more or less. I was, anyway. Then he fell for someone else and...that was that.” She shrugged and looked out the window.
Jack had grown up around females. He’d been the date for a lot of women in the past few years. Actually, he’d always been good for that sort of thing. He’d asked Eve Mikkes to the prom many years ago because Eve was nice and funny and had been in a fire when she was younger, which had left some pretty severe scars on her face and hands. He’d gone to five high school reunions in the past few years, three weddings and a fiftieth wedding anniversary. He had the aforementioned sisters.
So he recognized a woman who’d had her heart broken.
“The love of your life, huh?” he asked.
She glanced at him, then returned her gaze to the clouds. “Yep.”
He took her hand once more and squeezed it. “Stick with me, kid. I promise you we’ll have fun.”
* * *
EMMALINE MET THE ONE in eighth grade during dodgeball, a game that further proved that gym teachers hated children. A few years before, someone’s parents had sued the school to eliminate dodgeball, but then someone else’s countersued to have it reinstated, and while there was currently a lawsuit to have it banned once more, the dreaded sport was still allowed, apparently, because Ms. Goldberg was smiling her snakelike evil grin and fondling her whistle.
Bad enough that Emmaline was already a target of her classmates. She didn’t need to be pelted with red rubber balls. But worse than that, as everyone knew, was the choosing of the teams.
She tried to look nonchalant and unconcerned, even as her palms sweated and her heart thudded, as the horrible ritual began. Lyric Adams (daughter of a middle-aged rock star and his fourth wife) and Seven Finlay (son of an award-winning British actress and her third husband) were the popular kids, and anointed by Ms. Goldberg to do the honors of bolstering or destroying the egos of their classmates, one by one.
“Ireland,” Lyric called, and Ireland, who was the daughter of big-deal producers, bowed her head graciously as if accepting her own statue and cantered over to her best friend’s side.
“Milan,” Seven countered.
Most of Emmaline’s classmates were named for a place—in addition to Milan, there were two Parises, three Londons, a York, a Dallas and a Boston. It sounded more as if Lyric and Seven were in a geography bee than gym class, but hey. Emmaline wasn’t kidding herself. She would’ve loved a cool name. Would’ve loved to have been one of the popular kids, even though she recognized their cruelty. She would’ve settled for less, even...would’ve loved to have been able to turn to the new boy and make a joke about all the map names and how the two of them were outcasts because of it.
That wasn’t possible, however.
“Jupiter!” Lyric called with a hair toss.
“Diesel,” Seven countered.
Her fellow pariah had moved from a town that most of Em’s classmates had never heard of...Tacoma or something. His parents didn’t work in the entertainment industry, and he was therefore already marked as an undesirable. Also, he had a human name, which didn’t help.
Kevin. Kevin Bates.
Kevin was also—insert dramatic pause—fat.
In Malibu, it was far more socially acceptable to be a heroin addict or murderer than to be overweight. When he walked into Algebra, Emmaline’s classmates stared at him as if he had a nipple growing out of his chin. To be fair, many of them had never seen a fat person in real life. Not in Malibu. Not on the pristine beaches or exclusive mountains where their families cavorted. Being fat? Who would’ve dared?
Why hadn’t his parents sent him in for gastric bypass? A tummy tuck or lipo? At the very least, why not a fat camp? Surely if there had been a surgery to fix Em’s problem, her parents would have jumped on it. Why not fix something that made life so hard? In Malibu, it seemed that imperfect children were tossed into the ocean, or sent to live in a more normal state.
