Page 22 of The Wedding Crush

Heat climbs up my neck to my face, but I clamp my mouth shut.

Despite my mounting irritation, I don’t want to exacerbate the situation. I keep my emotion in check. Lashing out won’t benefit me. Adding water to a grease fire won’t stop the burning.

“Okay, we’ve veering off on a tangent,” Morgan warns.

But Avery holds up a finger.

“One last thing,” she says before she drills in her final point. “Maybe you’d have friends if you stopped being a complete grump to everyone who knows and cares about you.”

It’s so absurd.

So preposterous that someone who knows literally nothing about me or my marriage—any marriage, for that matter—is commenting on how and at what speed I should move on.

Falling in love takes time. It’s only logical that falling out of it should require the same.

I pull in a lungful of air, and pin Avery with a pointed stare. I’m prepared to impart some choice words on her but as I push my sleeves up my forearms, I register her attention shifting with my movements.

My gaze flickers to her flushed face.

Now, shockingly silent, her eyes burn a fiery amber hue, her lips parting as she watches me fold my arms across my chest and lean into the curve of my seat back.

Instantly, the curiosity I felt walking into that tent, my eyes searching her out, it surges to the surface of my mind.

Is she checking me out? Is she turned on…by my forearms?

No, couldn’t be.

But just in case, I bend my arm, flexing my bicep as I question, “A complete grump?”

She leans forward, her focus lingering on the bulge of my muscle for a split second more before it snaps up to my eyes again.

“Are you seriously just going to k-keep repeating everything I say as a question?” she stammers.

Her breaths shallow.

Oh, yeah. Something is happening here.

“Maybe.” I dart my tongue out, and trace my teeth over my lower lip, outright ogling her now.

Eager to continue testing my theory, I reach up, dragging my fingers over my lips.

Like she’s under my spell, Avery mirrors my movement, pressing her fingers to her mouth, too, and it’s beyond gratifying. It’s unnerving how fast my pulse races.

Goddammit, it’s an instant self-confidence boost.

Once upon a time, before I started dating Carina, women asked me out for drinks. I’d get phone numbers written on the side of my cup in cafés. I’d catch them staring. I had style and game. Twelve years of marriage, loss, and a divorce may have robbed me of my confidence to get back out there, but in this moment, I’m certain I’ve still got…something.

“What does that even mean? Maybe?” she asks.

“I just…I have so many questions, Miss Ellis.” I lower my voice, playing up the bass. “First, I’m a silver fox, which, thank you. Then something about rainbow cannonballs… Now, I’m a grump?” I raise an eyebrow. “Which exactly is it?”

A light flush creeps over her cheeks.

She swings her legs back under the table and lowers her focus to the half-full wineglass in front of her.

Are we fighting or flirting, Pollyanna?

“Wait, you called him a silver fox?” Morgan asks, suddenly flooring it down that tangent. “I mean, I definitely see it but, what was the context?”

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