she said, aiming a finger at her groom, who looked a little pale around the gills himself, “this isn’t permanent. When we both have our lives back on track—after my baby comes and I have a job, and when Elaine takes custody of Pet again—we get a simple divorce and go our separate ways, no hard feelings, no complications. Right?”
Gage’s jaw tightened, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in a deep breath. “Right.”
She paced across the room and back, acid building in her stomach as she found the courage to lay out her number-one rule. She wet her lips and squeezed her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “And no sex. This isn’t really a marriage, and … well, we know how sex messed things up for us last time.”
His eyes darkened, and his gaze narrowed. He said nothing, but she knew he was remembering the last time, the only time they’d slept together … and the morning after.
The night of graduation filtered through her mind like an apparition, haunting her. She could still hear the cheers of her classmates as they tossed their caps, could still smell the beer and “jungle juice” Marty Haines served at his postgraduation party. But most vividly, she remembered looking for Gage, not seeing him at the party, but finding him later, waiting for her at her family’s pool house. With a black eye.
Though she’d been tipsy, she’d let him vent about his father, offered him comfort and … one thing had led to another. Zoey had compounded the drunken mistake of sleeping with her best friend with her impulsive gut reaction the next morning. In a panic and without a word to Gage, she’d fled Lagniappe for Europe—a decision that had nearly ruined their friendship.
“No sex,” she repeated. “We can’t repeat that mistake. Our friendship is more important than a night of doing the mattress tango.” She pressed a hand to her swirling stomach. “Agreed?”
Gage held her gaze, his dark stare unnerving. He cracked his knuckles, a sure sign that he wasn’t as cool and collected inside as his relaxed manner suggested. Finally, he turned a hand up in concession. “Fine. No sex. But we still respect our wedding vows. No infidelity.”
She jerked a nod. “Naturellement.”
His scowl reminded her how much he hated her speaking French, a too-raw reminder of her years away “finding herself” in Europe.
“But to keep the divorce simple, I think we should—”
Gage growled and surged to his feet. “Can we not plan every detail of our divorce now? It’s bad enough you’ve talked about nothing but how this won’t be a ‘real’ marriage—” glowering, he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers “—since the minute you put on my engagement ring. If you don’t want to marry me, just say so. Otherwise, can we try to be at least a little optimistic before we walk down the aisle?”
“Easy, Sparky.” She stepped up to him and patted his chest. His broad, hard, well-developed chest. She let her hand linger longer than she should have, and he arched an eyebrow. Leapin’ lizards. “I just want to make sure we’re on the same page before we say ‘I do.’”
She savored the warmth of his skin that seeped through his shirt and felt the reassuring thump of his heart under her hand. Strong and steady, just like Gage. Reminded of all he’d sacrificed to help her, Zoey cupped his cheek with her hand. His unshaven jaw scratched her hand, and she marveled again at the changes in him since high school. Who was this calendar-worthy hottie she was about to marry? Sure, she’d seen him since graduation. Dozens of times. But in her mind, Gage would always be the quiet, skinny boy who didn’t shave until his junior year. The lanky track-team distance runner. The geeky guy no one noticed and whose name was misspelled “Gabe” in the senior yearbook.
But women noticed him now. At the restaurant alone, she’d counted five different women who’d looked ready to jump him if he’d shown even a hint of interest. Her best friend, the late bloomer, the fireman hunk. Who’da thunk it?
“Thanks again for coming to my rescue. Now I don’t have to go home to face my parents unwed, penniless, pregnant and deserted.” She quirked a wry grin. “Just penniless and pregnant.”
He shrugged. As if driving fifteen hundred miles without sleeping, as if putting his life on hold so her baby would have a name, as if saving her from being homeless were nothing.
He wrapped his fingers around hers and moved them from his cheek to brush a soft kiss across her knuckles. A sensation like tiny bubbles tickled down her spine.
“What are friends for? I wouldn’t have survived high school if not for you and your family. Consider this payback.”
The doors to the chapel opened, and a man wearing a sparkly suit that Liberace would envy called, “Powell-Bancroft?”
Gage and Zoey looked from Mr. Sparkles to each other. She saw the get-a-load-of-him grin Gage fought to hide and had to bite the inside of her own cheek so she wouldn’t laugh. “Are you sure this is the wedding chapel and not the Salute to Siegfried and Roy?” she whispered.
Gage’s cheek twitched, and his gaze lit with humor. “Just in case, keep an eye out for tigers in there, okay?” He offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
Her stomach swirled, and her burger-and-fries lunch rebelled. “Is this the right thing to do, Gage? I mean, the last thing I want is to do anything that will hurt our friendship.”
His dark eyebrows lowered, his expression cautious. “I’m sure. I thought about all the pros and cons driving out here. But if you’re not sure, if you need more time to think—”
“That would be so not me. Right?” She raked her hair back with her fingers and gave him a nervous laugh. “Impulsive is my middle name. Isn’t that what my mother says?” She hooked her arm in his and squared her shoulders. “Let’s do this.”
A tinny organ played the Wagner wedding march, and Zoey squeezed Gage’s hand as they strode down the aisle to the vaudevillesque minister. Her stomach seesawed, her lip sweated and her knees trembled. This was hardly how she pictured her wedding day as a little girl.
She swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that rose in her throat when the minister, a show-perfect smile in place, intoned, “We’re gathered here today to join Zoey and Gabe—”
“Gage,” her groom corrected.
The pearly-white smile faltered. “Oh, uh … Zoey and Gage in the legal bonds of marriage.”
Her heart thundered, and she thought she might throw up. Maybe the hot peppers on her burger had been a mistake … but she’d had a strange craving for them and—
“Zoey, do you take Gage to be your husband? To love and cherish in sickness and—” The minister’s voice faded to a drone as she faced her groom. Her groom. Leapin’ lizards! She’d spent her whole life making rash decisions, screwing up, hurting the people she loved. How could she live with herself if, in trying to dig herself out of the hole she’d created with Derek, she was making matters worse by marrying Gage?
She was ready to turn and run when she met Gage’s eyes. Warm, genuine, encouraging. He flashed her one of his crooked grins and, as if David Copperfield had waved his hands and snatched away a silky veil, her jitters vanished. Poof! Gage had been her rock, her refuge, her home base for more than eleven years. With him, she was safe, anchored.
“—until
