Page 125 of Not Part of the Plan
She felt the tears threaten to spill and blinked them back. She’d already gotten into a screaming match with her lover at work once. She drew the line at crying in front of her team. “Did you know about this?” Emma demanded, poking Niko in the chest.
“Baby, there are no secrets in Blue Moon.” The puppy wriggled around so he could lick Niko’s chin, and Emma’s heart exploded just a little bit.
She laughed, well aware that Niko was right. The public spectacle she’d made of herself last week at the farmers market was still the hot topic around town and had indeed been live-streamed in the Blue Moon gossip group on Facebook. The Beautification Committee had immediately claimed victory and offered Emma and Niko best wishes for their “long and happy life together.”
Summer and Phoebe bustled up and grabbed her arms. “Girl talk,” Summer said, winking at Niko. “Go find the boys and the beers,” she suggested.
They dragged her to the bar where Gia, Eva, and Ellery waited.
“So now that you’ve had all of five seconds to settle into your new future,” Summer began, “what have you two decided?”
Emma couldn’t stop the smile if she wanted to. It was the kind of happiness she’d never known that could come from just letting go. “Well, I spoke to your husbands, and they’ve agreed to let me work four days a week. So we’ll be dividing our time between here and the city. Niko’s planning to be more selective about his projects because he wants to free up more of his time to be here. So far, no definitive wedding plans, but we do know where we’re going for our honeymoon.”
“Where is that, dear?” Phoebe asked.
“Paris.”
Joey walked up with cake in hand when Summer and Gia squealed. She rolled her eyes and walked away.
“Don’t get yourselves all worked up. Nothing’s written in stone. We’re just going to enjoy ourselves for a while,” Emma cautioned.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?” Eva demanded.
“It’s Blue Moon. There’s something in the water here. You might start noticing it soon,” Ellery said innocently.
“More like something in the Beautification Committee,” Emma said, poking a finger in Ellery’s shoulder. “Now can you explain how Mason showed up on my doorstep?” Emma demanded. “And why I think I saw him going into Righteous Subs yesterday?”
Ellery’s grin was contagious. “A brilliant, if perhaps dangerous, ploy to get you to finally realize what you really wanted in life.” She sighed with satisfaction. “It was my finest work yet.”
“How, Ellery? How did you get my ex-boyfriend to fly cross-country and ask me to marry him?”
“Well, I knew you were going to be a problem what with all the abandonment issues and the long-term habit of running away. So first, we decided to make it sticky here.”
“Sticky?”
“Yeah, make you love Blue Moon, love working and living here. Love being around your family. That was our subtle background work, which I’m guessing you didn’t even notice since it’s been going on the entire time you’ve lived here.”
“You mean Gordon and Anthony shoving Bruce’s real estate license down my throat was all part of the ploy?”
Ellery took a long sip of her diet soda through a pink curly straw. “It’s like I always say, we can’t keep pulling the same tricks. We have to evolve with the times. We saw the sparks flying between you two immediately and knew the hard part would be convincing both you and Niko separately that Blue Moon was the wonderful capital of the world. So we focused our efforts there.”
“So you didn’t think we were a terrible couple?” Emma pressed.
Ellery rolled her eyes. “Are you crazy? One look at you guys, and everyone knew!”
“Where does Mason fit in to all of this?” Gia asked in fascination and horror.
“Well, I knew we were still going to run into some old habit issues with you. So I started messaging Mason on Facebook. Super nice guy, by the way.” A dimple appeared in Ellery’s cheek.
“I know. I dated him.”
“Anyway, once I discerned that he wasn’t an insane person, we kept chatting, and I let him kinda sorta think that we were a dating service you’d hired.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Mason being the super nice, sweet guy that he is was happy to help if it was necessary. So I kept him as an ace up my sleeve just in case you were extra tricky. Which you were!”
“Yeah, yeah. Extra tricky.”
