Page 44 of Cooking Up My Comeback (Twin Waves #1)

TWENTY-NINE

AMBER

S tanding in Hazel’s master bedroom on May fifteenth, surrounded by my closest friends, I should be focused on perfecting my best friend’s wedding day hair and makeup. Instead, I’m obsessing over the fact that Brett’s been acting weird for three days.

Not bad weird. Careful weird. Tiptoeing around me when we literally just stood up to Chad together and won. We’re supposed to be in the victory lap phase of our relationship, not the walking-on-eggshells phase.

“Hold still,” I tell Hazel, carefully working a section of her hair around the curling iron. “You’re going to make me mess up, and then you’ll have lopsided curls in your wedding photos.”

“Sorry. I’m nervous.”

“About marrying Jack?” Michelle asks. “The man who renovated your house with you and thinks your rubbery scrambled eggs are ‘charming’?”

“About whether I remembered to tell the caterers that Uncle Bob is allergic to shellfish. And whether Ellen will actually walk down the aisle or decide to chase butterflies instead. And whether the flowers will hold up in this humidity and?—”

“Hazel.” Jessica sets down the mascara and takes her hands. “Breathe. You’ve planned this wedding down to the last detail. It’s going to be perfect.”

“What if it’s not?”

“Then it’ll still be your wedding day, and Jack will still be waiting for you at the altar appearing as though he won the lottery,” Michelle says.

Hazel takes a deep breath and nods. “You’re right.” She turns to me. “Okay, finish making me beautiful.”

“You’re already beautiful. I’m just enhancing what’s already there,” I say.

I go back to work on her hair, sectioning and curling each piece with careful precision, but my mind keeps wandering to Brett’s careful distance and way he’s been texting before coming over instead of appearing unannounced and how he asked permission before kissing me goodnight yesterday, as though it was presumptuous.

Just as I’m hair spraying the finished look, Ellen’s voice carries up from the family room down the hall: “Lucas! The flower girl basket is broken!”

“Define broken,” Lucas’s voice responds with the patience of a man who’s learned that four-year-old emergencies rarely require actual emergency services.

“The handle came off and all the petals fell out and now they’re mixed up with Scout’s dog treats!”

A pause. Then Lucas speaks in a slightly strained voice. “Scout ate the flower petals?”

“No, Lucas. The flower petals ate Scout.”

Preschooler logic remains bulletproof.

Michelle and I exchange glances.

“I should probably—” Hazel starts.

“Stay. You’re not dealing with flower emergencies on your wedding day. We’ve got this.”

“You guys go ahead,” Jessica says. “I’ll stay with the bride.”

Michelle and I head down the hall to the family room to find Hazel’s middle brother, Lucas, standing there, fully dressed in his groomsman tux except for one missing cufflink, staring at what appears to be the aftermath of a floral explosion.

Rose petals cover every surface, Ellen sits in the middle of the mess appearing simultaneously guilty and proud, and Scout wags his tail beside a basket that’s definitely seen better days.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Ellen wanted to practice her flower girl walk,” Lucas explains. “Scout wanted to help. The basket disagreed with their collaboration.”

“I was being very careful,” Ellen protests. “But Scout got excited and jumped and the handle wasn’t strong enough for jumping dogs.”

“The handle wasn’t designed for jumping dogs,” Lucas points out gently.

“Well, it should have been.”

“I can fix this,” I tell Lucas. “Do you know where Hazel keeps ribbon?” I ask Michelle.

“Aubrey, the wedding planner who partners with Hazel to run the Hensley house as a wedding venue part time, keeps crafting supplies in the upstairs hall closet for wedding emergencies,” Michelle says.

Ten minutes later, I’ve MacGyvered the basket back together with ribbon and wire from a flower arrangement, while Ellen supervises with the intensity of a tiny project manager and Scout provides moral support by lying on my feet.

“There,” I announce, testing the handle. “Emergency engineering at its finest.”

“Will it hold up for the ceremony?” Lucas asks, running a hand through his dark wavy hair.

“It’ll hold up for anything short of another Scout attack.”

“I wasn’t attacking,” Ellen says seriously. “I was being enthusiastic.”

“Enthusiastic,” Lucas agrees. “That’s exactly what you were being.”

Just then, Aubrey Wheaton appears in the doorway with the slightly frazzled but determinedly cheerful expression of someone managing multiple weddings in peak season.

Her red hair is pulled back in a perfect ballerina bun, and her crisp white shirt and black pencil skirt somehow remain wrinkle-free despite the morning’s chaos.

“Everything okay up here? I heard crashing and thought we might have a venue emergency, but don’t worry, I have seventeen different backup plans! ”

“Crisis averted,” Lucas says. “Amber saved the day with superior basket engineering.”

Jace follows behind Aubrey, still in his soccer warm-up gear since he’d driven straight from practice in Maple Creek, his expression suggesting he’d rather be anywhere else. “Did someone say emergency? Because I’m pretty sure that’s not on today’s schedule.”

“Your niece decided to test the structural integrity of flower baskets,” Aubrey explains brightly, and I notice the way her professional smile becomes more genuine when she turns to face Jace’s grumpy scowl.

The front door opens and Brett walks in, looking unfairly handsome in his dark gray suit. His tie hangs loose around his neck, and his hair is slightly messed up like he’s been running his hands through it.

“Everything okay? I heard shouting about flower emergencies and canine consumption.”

“Crisis averted,” Aubrey says with bright efficiency, though she steals a glance at Jace. “Amber saved the day with superior basket engineering. ”

Brett’s gaze finds mine, and there’s warmth in his expression that makes my stomach flutter. But then he catches himself and shifts his gaze away quickly.

See? Weird.

“You clean up nice, Walker,” I say, testing the waters.

“Thanks. You look...” He pauses, his gaze traveling over my aqua maid of honor dress, then seems to catch himself again. “Nice. You look nice.”

Nice. Six months ago, Brett told me I looked beautiful while I was covered in construction dust. Now I’m wearing actual makeup and a dress that cost more than my monthly grocery budget, and I get ‘nice.’

Definitely weird.

“Brett,” Ellen announces, “I need you to test my flower throwing technique.”

“Test it how?”

“Throw petals and tell me if I’m doing it right.”

“Ellen,” Lucas starts, “maybe we should save the petals for the actual ceremony?—”

But Ellen’s already grabbed a handful from the repaired basket and launched them at Brett with the enthusiasm of someone lobbing grenades. Rose petals explode across his chest, and he instinctively steps backward to avoid the floral assault.

Unfortunately, Scout chooses that exact moment to investigate the basket situation.

Brett’s foot connects with thirty pounds of enthusiastic golden retriever, and suddenly he’s waving his arms, trying to regain balance while covered in rose petals and tripping over a dog who considers this the best game ever invented.

He goes down hard, taking the family room coffee table with him. The sound of splintering wood fills the room as Brett, Scout, and what appears to be Jack’s entire magazine collection crash to the floor in a spectacular display of wedding day coordination.

For a moment, nobody moves.

Then Ellen claps her hands with delight. “That was amazing! Do it again!”

“Ellen,” Lucas says weakly, “maybe we don’t ask people to recreate accidents.”

“Okay, Uncle Lucas.”

Brett sits up slowly, rose petals in his hair and what appears to be a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition stuck to his jacket. Scout, completely unperturbed by the mayhem he’s caused, licks Brett’s face with obvious affection.

“You okay?” I ask, trying not to laugh.

“My dignity’s seen better days, but everything else is functional.” He attempts to stand, realizes his leg is tangled in the coffee table wreckage, and sits back down with resignation. “This is not how I pictured making an entrance.”

“I don’t know,” I say, moving to help untangle him from the furniture debris. “It’s very you. Dramatic entrance, accidental destruction, expression of wounded pride.”

“I don’t have wounded pride.”

“You’re sitting in a pile of home décor rubble covered in flower petals. It’s the definition of wounded pride.”

“I’m maintaining my dignity under difficult circumstances.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

Our gazes meet as I help him to his feet, and for a moment, the weird, careful distance disappears. This is the Brett I know—grumpy, slightly disaster-prone, and absolutely refusing to admit when life gets the better of him.

“There you are,” I say quietly.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just... there you are.”

He studies my face as though he’s trying to figure out what I mean, but before either of us can say anything else, Hazel appears in her wedding dress.

“What was that crash? It sounded as though someone demolished the family room.”

We all survey the scene: overturned coffee table, magazines scattered everywhere, rose petals coating every surface, and Brett appearing as though he lost a fight with a craft store.

“Minor incident,” Lucas says diplomatically. “Nothing we can’t clean up. ”

“Define minor,” Hazel says, entering the room with the careful grace of someone wearing a very expensive dress. Her eyebrows climb toward her hairline. “Brett, you appear as though you wrestled a florist.”

“The florist won,” he admits, picking rose petals out of his hair.

“Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride.”

“Good. Because if you’re injured, I’m not explaining to the wedding photographer why my best man appears to have survived a floral explosion.”