Page 65 of The Wedding Menu

“If you keep thinking so much, your brain will need a new hard drive,” he says, crossing his fingers over the soft sweater he’s wearing. God, the way it frames his shoulders, and the collar of his shirt raised around his neck. How the fabric falls over his thighs, wrapped in dark jeans. Has he always looked this good?

“Why are you here, Ian? Was all this a trap?”

“A trap?”

“Yes. You get me here, then show up.” I shake my head. “If you wanted to meet, you could have asked.”

The band is setting up on the stage, the harmonic strumming of the guitar mixing with the clinking of glasses and the surrounding voices. “You’re forgetting I told you to come with Frank,” Ian says, a hint of a smile on his face.

“He couldn’t leave Mayfield this weekend. Why areyouhere?”

“BecauseIcould.” He smiles. “Are you happy?”

I am. So much. And I’m not just happy to be in someone’s company. There’s hardly anyone else I’d rather be here with than him. “Yes,” I say.

We study each other for a moment before the man onstage calls the audience’s attention, and we both turn to the band.

Bursting into a loud fit of laughter, I look up at the dark sky peppered with shiny stars. Ian’s lucky I’m fond of him, because his latest unpopular opinion would send teeth flying if shared with the wrong people. “Being a man is just as hard as being a woman.” The audacity.

“Seriously? Your best argument is that men are constantly criticized?”

“Mm-hmm. You would have never called a woman a toddler for drinking chocolate milk.”

“I absolutely would have,” I say as he lets some peanuts fall out of his fist and into his mouth. “You’re just trying to rile me up, but I can end this discussion with one painful, bloody word.”

“Always with the period,” he grumbles. “Women have more antibodies, live longer, and can cry in public without being called wusses.”

“You can cry if you need to,” I tease. “I won’t call you a wuss.”

With a chortle, he pokes my side. “They’re also less likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases, antisocial behavior, alcoholism, and our suicide rates—”

“Did you prepare for this?” I ask, resting my feet on the third chair at our table, the split in my black dress baring my legs. Either that, or this topic comes up a tad too often in his life.

“I’m winning, am I not?”

I roll my eyes, and when I notice his insistent stare, I take a deep breath. “Pregnancy, labor, physical inferiority, sexual harassment. Men never get called sluts for sleeping around or frigid for not putting out. And what’s with female nipples? They look just like men’s do, yet they’re basically forbidden. Men hardly get catcalled, aren’t expected to have children, and are praised for focusing on their careers.” His eyes land on mine, but I only stopped to catch my breath. “We get paid less, we get interrupted more, and men never need to fake an orgasm, do they?”

He tilts his head as though he’s considering my words. “Looks like I didn’t prepare enough.” Then, taking a sip of his drink, he nods. “Your turn.”

I brush my hands together to get rid of the salt from the peanuts Ian stole from somewhere, then hum as I think of my next unpopular opinion. After “A man’s hands represent half his physicalappeal” and “The fun part of watching a movie is talking through most of it,” I need a good one. I settle on “Pickup lines are cute.”

“Pickup lines?”

I nod. “The cheesier the better.”

“Huh.”

His brows bend in a silent question, and as I smile down at the table, heat creeps up my cheeks. “I don’t know. They’re cute. It’s not like I’d bring a guy home who approached me with a line. But if Frank used one to make me smile, I think I’d like that.”

“I have the perfect one for you.”

My eyes dart to him. Great: now it looks like I was begging for pickup lines. “I didn’t mean—”

He holds his hand out, and when I hesitate, he extends it a little more. With a sigh, I rest my hand in his, preparing for what I’m sure will be the cringiest thirty seconds of my life. But his skin is warm, softer than I pictured it being, and my breath catches in my throat in response. We haven’t touched since Barb’s wedding, and this somehow feels different.

Then he looks at me. His eyes are so full of depth, I could get lost in them. His smile is so genuine, so young and carefree, it radiates all the joy that’s been missing from my life lately.

It’s like something flips inside my mind. I almost hear it click—like a switch. And I see something more in him than I did a few seconds ago.