Page 62 of Can't Help Falling in Love
Perfect with your coloring. I’m going with the soft pink. Lexi, the midnight blue has you written all over it. Let’s have some wine and play dress up. Tomorrow night?
Nerves bubbled, making her hands feel shaky. She’d gone from no plans to too many plans. One job to too many jobs. One friend to several. Being single to exclusively dating someone who seemed too good to be true.
When the phone rang, she actually jumped before she pressedACCEPTon her Bluetooth.
“Hello.” Her breath whooshed out.Fucking breathe. Calm the hell down.
“Hi.” Will’s voice came through the speaker like much-needed oxygen that soothed all her fraying edges.
“Hi.”
“I want to see you.”
She smiled, ignored the incoming texts.
“You just saw me. A lot of me.”
“Mmm. Now I’m addicted. Come over.”
“I have to work.”
“After?”
She should say no. But she didn’t want to.
“It could be late.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Lexi felt like she was watching her heart from afar, watching it slip slowly from its rusty, vine-covered cage and from her grasp. “I’ll see you tonight.”
When they hung up, she went back to the group chat.
Jackie
We should plan an engagement party for you, Lexi.
Becca
Any excuse for a party. Also, check this out. You two are so hot I’m fanning myself with my phone.
Little fingers of guilt tapped on her shoulder, sending her nerves for one more loop the loop on that roller coaster. It didn’t matter that they thought she was engaged. She wasn’t really lying. Okay. She was lying but still. They were just excited to have reconnected but it would die off and by the time everyone learned the truth, they probably wouldn’t even still have the group chat.
She clicked on the link and gasped. It was clearly a photo from Side Tap, and the credit saidSeattle Times. Lexi recalled the photographer who’d been weaving in between people.
Seattle’s own William Grand supporting his longtime friend Ethan Reynolds’s “Fall Festacular” at Side Tap Brewing while getting cozy with his fiancée.
Becca sent another link. This time to her own Instagram where she’d shared the photo and captioned it:
Look at these hotties! My girl Alexandria the Great & her fiancé, William Grand of Grand Babies. Aren’t they beautiful? SO many good wishes for them. Drop a congratulations below.
There were more hashtags than Lexi knew what to do with. There were also several thousand likes. Holy shit. The photo itself was beautiful. Not quite black and white, not color, it was that in-between style. In profile, it captured them with their gazes locked on each other, Will’s index finger stroking down her cheek.
They might not be engaged but there was absolutely nothing fake about the feelings between them.
In that moment, Lexi understood her mom’s desire to hide in the house and push the outside world away. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that option.
Lexi
