Honestly, I felt like I’d just dodged a bullet. I was torn between wanting to punch Stuart and wanting to thank him for finding somebody else.
“Fuck!” Zeke cursed. “Let’s get the hell out of here, unless you really want to stay.”
I moved back and shook my head. “I can’t. Not yet. I have to tell everybody—”
“I’ll take care of it, Lia. Go with Zeke.” I felt a gentle touch on my arm as the soft, female voice spoke.
My friend, Ruby, had obviously heard Zeke and me talking. I shook my head. “I can’t just go.”
“Yes, you can,” she insisted. “And you will. You don’t need to make the announcement yourself. Let Zeke get you out of here, and Jett and I will let everybody know.”
“She’s willing to handle it, Lia. Let her,” Zeke insisted.
I bit my lip for a moment before I told Ruby, “Apparently, Stuart and his mother are taking care of the reception, returning the gifts, and all the rest of the stuff that has to be done.”
Ruby snorted. “It’s the least he can do. You weren’t the one who was sleeping with someone else, or the one who didn’t even bother to show up.”
I felt a painful twinge of guilt. Ruby had no idea that I wasn’t exactly a heartbroken, jilted bride. Had Stuart bothered to show up, I would have cancelled the wedding myself. I just would have done it in a much nicer way than my now ex-fiancé had dumped me, and it wouldn’t have happened because I’d been catting around with another guy.
“Say the word and we’re out of here,” Zeke said in an urgent tone.
“Word.” My answer was automatic, since Zeke and I had been using the same lines since we were in high school. “Word. Word. Word,” I added for emphasis. “Get me the hell out of here, Zeke. Please.”
I really needed to escape to get my head together.
Zeke grasped my hand and pulled me into the changing area so I could gather up my things.
We were outside the church and settling into his sleek, black Range Rover moments later.
“Where to?” he rumbled as he started the engine.
“It doesn’t matter. Anywhere is better than here.” I trusted Zeke completely, so I was game for any place he wanted to go, as long as I was seeing the church in the rearview mirror very soon.
“My place,” he decided. “Nosy people will be a lot less likely to find you there.”
It was doubtful that many people would really care enough about my cancelled wedding to search me out. However, Zeke did have an incredible penthouse in a very nice neighborhood, and the security he had in his building was a lot better than mine.
“Okay,” I agreed absently. “Sounds good.”
I still hadn’t been able to wrap my brain around the fact that the wedding I’d stressed over for the last year wasn’t going to happen.
I watched as Zeke rummaged through the pockets of the suit jacket in his lap. He’d taken it off, along with his tie, before he’d entered the vehicle, and I smiled when he finally found what he was looking for. He tossed the two small packets into my lap as he drawled, “I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a pear or a pineapple kind of day, so I brought both. Now that I know it’s a really shitty day for you, I wish I’d brought some chocolate pudding flavor, too.”
I nearly started to cry all over again. Maybe my taste in men didn’t completely suck. As crappy as the entire day had been, being with Zeke made everything seem a whole lot better.
I hadn’t realized that he still stayed stocked up on gourmet jelly beans for me. We’d rarely seen each other in person outside of my coffee shop during the last year or two, and lately, Zeke had been stopping by Indulgent Brews less and less, even though he was my silent partner.
“Thanks,” I said gratefully as I picked up the small bag of pear Jelly Bellies and ripped them open with small smile. “Right now I’m desperate for any flavor I can get since I’ve been on a diet almost continually for the last year or two. I’ve been going through Jelly Belly withdrawals for months now.”
Never once had Zeke laughed at or made fun of my gourmet jelly bean habit. If anything, he’d been my conspirator and my enabler. Maybe because he knew why I’d developed the fondness for them in the first place.
It had all started when I was twelve, and my Grandma Esther had taken me in after my parents had died suddenly in an accident.
Losing my parents at that age, and making a sudden move from rural Michigan to Seattle had both been traumatic. I hadn’t really been that close to Grandma Esther when I’d first moved in with her, not because she and my dad hadn’t kept in close contact, but because I just didn’t see her all that often. She’d always been the faraway grandma who I loved, but rarely saw since she’d lived clear across the country.
Initially, the two of us had bonded over…jelly beans. Eventually, we’d made a game out of matching a flavor to a certain type of day or emotion.
In hindsight, I understood that my grandmother had been using the sugary treats to help me, and to figure out how I was feeling in the beginning. After that, it had just been an activity that we didn’t want to end because it was entertaining. Not to mention the fact that there were very few Jelly Belly flavors that we didn’t love to eat.
By the time I was fourteen, and Zeke came into my life, I’d been totally addicted to those damn jelly beans.
“Why?” Zeke growled the one-word question, pulling me away from my musings.
“Why what?” I asked as I watched him maneuver through Seattle traffic like a pro because he did it every single day.
I popped a few more jelly beans into my mouth. If there was one thing I never got tired of, it was watching Zeke Conner.
“Why in the hell were you on a diet? There’s never been anything wrong with your body, Lia.” He sounded confused.
I snorted. “God, I adore you for saying that, but I had to fit into this damn dress that Stuart’s mother wore on her wedding day, and she was pretty thin when she got married. I still feel like the seams are going to pop at any second now. My body just isn’t delicately made. I think I was born to have a curvy ass and hips, and it’s really hard for me to take weight off.”
“Because there’s nothing there to lose,” Zeke shot back. “And there’s plenty of men who appreciate your curvy ass and hips. Don’t you find it a little ridiculous that you had to mold yourself into a dress instead of just finding one you liked that actually fit?”
I tilted my head as I studied him. “When you put it that way, yeah, it was just a little bit sick, but Stuart was determined that I had to wear his mother’s dress, and he wasn’t overly fond of my curvy ass or my hips,” I said morosely.