Page 76 of Own the Eights Gets Married
Georgie
“I can’t believe you won’t walk the five feet it takes to get to Jordan’s gym from the bookshop. This is getting insane, Georgie. Your wedding is in two days! Two days! You guys need to talk,” Becca whisper-shouted across the shop.
Georgie slid a copy ofPride and Prejudiceonto the bookshelf and sighed.
The wedding may be in two days, but the last two weeks had flown by in a hazy blur.
Three hundred and thirty-six hours—not that she was counting—had passed since she and Jordan turned in their shit shovel and their engagement had turned into a full-blown shit show.
And just to be clear, it wasn’t that the weather was hazy. Nope, the wedding frau was right. The last two weeks had been unseasonably warm and sunny with high temperatures near eighty degrees every day since she and Jordan had flunked out of wilderness bridal boot camp.
They’d driven back to their Denver bungalow in silence, and then Jordan had packed a bag, collected the contents of their dryer’s lint trap, and left.
She couldn’t blame him. She was the one who said they were done.
But what was she talking about? The boot camp from hell or their engagement?
And why didn’t she know the answer?
In this alternate universe, time passed in a nebulous tumble of routine.
Yes, she went through all the motions. She’d open the shop. She’d close the shop. However, out of spite or out of morbid curiosity, she’d spent a ludicrous amount of time over the last fourteen days researching lemon verbena.
For the past two weeks, she’d written a myriad of blog posts on the perennial shrub. Lemon verbena required full sun to flourish. Perfect for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, the drought-resistant plant could also be used as an essential oil or its leaves employed in making herbal teas.
She’d interviewed gardeners and spent hours online gazing at the herb’s delicate white flowers hidden in a sea of deep green leaves.
Some sources claimed it was associated with supernatural forces and could protect against dark spells.
Unfortunately, her lemon verbena dryer sheet wasn’t able to protect her and Jordan from whatever dark place they’d entered.
They communicated through the blog by going tit-for-tat with their posts.
She’d blog about the lemon verbena. Then, he’d hit back with a post touting the importance of pushing past one’s mental blocks. She’d write about treatments to stop snoring, and he’d come back with the pitfalls of binging on raw cookie dough.
One thing was for sure. Under extreme stress, they’d reverted to the worst version of themselves.
The fragile beauty queen turned into an inflexible eight, and the former weakling turned into a hyper-masculine, single-minded ten.
“Seriously, Georgie! You’ve got to snap out of it. Has anyone else figured out Jordan left the bungalow?”
Or that she possibly kicked him out?
It was a legit question. Thankfully, only the perceptive Becca seemed to pick up on the disconnect between the bookshop owner and the fitness trainer next door. Not even Cornelia Lieblingsschatz or any of her wedding minions seemed to know.
“It’s coming down to the wire, Georgie. Is the wedding still on?”
Georgie blinked and met her friend’s gaze. “I think so.”
Becca’s jaw nearly hit the floor. “You think so? Your mother has invited all of Denver to this shindig, and that scary wedding lady is sending out emails left and right on wedding party etiquette and panty lines. Panty lines, Georgie! She made me send her a picture of my ass in the bridesmaid dress with the underwear I planned on wearing that day so her people could inspect it forvisibility issues. First of all, who has people for that? And second, that’s nuts! I get that she’s a wedding genius, but sheesh, panty lines procedures?”
Georgie swallowed past the lump in her throat. She hadn’t called off the wedding, and, as far as she knew, Jordan hadn’t either.
But was it on?
She steadied herself and attempted to make sense of the situation. “Think of it this way, Bec. From what I’ve heard, the champagne engagement breakfast was a real hit, and Jordan and I were only there for ten minutes. I’m sure, between my mother and the wedding frau, the actual wedding will go off without a hitch.”
Becca left the counter and joined her next to the Jane Austen section.
