Home > Fiancé by Friday (The Weekday Brides #3)(17)

Fiancé by Friday (The Weekday Brides #3)(17)
Author: Catherine Bybee

“Algebra!” Juan said from the math table.

“Just think pizza party, Juan. Makes solving for x easier,” Karen called from the back of the room.

Several kids laughed.

“Pizza party?” Michael asked.

“Miss Jones bribes us with pizza if we do good on our tests.”

“Do well on your tests, Steve,” Karen corrected him.

“If I had a tutor as stunning as Miss Jones when I was in high school, I would have had straight A’s.” Michael kept eye contact with her throughout his exchange. “No bribes needed.”

The kids around them hooted and whistled.

“It’s been a long time since you were in high school, Mr. Wolfe. Things have changed.” She was teasing him, making him work a little harder.

From the playful expression on his face, he enjoyed the banter.

The kids were laughing and at least one had a cell phone out as he took pictures.

“I tell you what, guys…if someone here can convince Miss Jones to go out with me, I’ll do better than pizza.”

The kids were eating this up.

“Oh, my God, Miss Jones, Michael Wolfe just asked you out!”

“You’ve got to go, Miss Jones.”

Michael chimed in. “Yeah, Miss Jones.”

“Does it always take a room full of kids to make women go out with you, Mr. Wolfe?”

Michael cocked his head to the side. “No. But it helps.”

There were no less than four cell phones out. She was going up on YouTube before she managed to get home. She just knew it.

“C’mon, Miss Jones.”

“I tell you what. Why don’t I give you my number and we can talk without an audience?”

“I can live with that.”

She looked around the gawking eyes in the room. “Can I borrow someone’s pen?”

Someone shoved one in her face. She walked up to her future husband, grasped his hand, and did what she was sure no one had ever done to him before. She wrote her number on his palm. When she finished he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it.

His eyes were laughing.

Something told her that the next year of her life was going to be a boatload of fun.

And if the kids could get more than pizza out of the deal…she was all in.

“This was exactly what I needed,” Karen said from across their table.

Gwen smiled and lifted her drink into the air. “Might be the closest thing you get to a bachelorette party if Michael moves as fast as I think he will.”

Karen and Gwen sat across from each other at the Hard Rock Café on Sunset. Gwen had decided to take Eliza up on her suggestion. Put yourself out there. Date. Meet someone.

If she wanted to meet someone other than a boring, responsible man who could be counted on to show up on time but never make her feel excited about his presence. She’d had predictable and utterly dull men in her life before, she needed to look outside of the ballrooms where she conducted her business.

The bar was packed. The patrons were all drinking, laughing, and forgetting about their problems.

“He’s really a nice guy. The kids loved him.”

Gwen glanced around the room, but didn’t notice anyone watching them. “I’m sure his celebrity status will make the kids look up to you even more.”

“An added bonus.”

“To a successful relationship,” Gwen said, clicking her cocktail to Karen’s.

“I can drink to that.” They sipped their drinks. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”

“Wait until you see his house.”

Karen smiled as she peered beyond Gwen. “Over here,” she said as she waved.

Eliza joined them, tossing her clutch on the table. “I wasn’t sure I’d find you in this zoo. Could they pack more people in here?”

“Probably.”

“It’s good to see you,” Eliza told Karen. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Not yet…but it is starting to look that way.”

Eliza flagged down a waitress and ordered a martini. “I see not a lot has changed,” she said after the waitress left.

“What do you mean?” Gwen asked.

“We’re sitting in a bar and your giant shadow is lurking in the back of the building.” Eliza tossed a peanut in her mouth.

“My shadow?”

Eliza looked to the right of the bar. “Yeah. The man who acts like you’re a job but can’t seem to leave you alone. If it was anyone other than Neil I’d be afraid he was a stalker.”

Gwen twisted around in her chair. Sure enough, perched at the edge of a seat on the far side of the bar, sat Neil.

“What’s he doing here?”

His eyes found hers for a brief moment before she looked away.

“I think that’s obvious.”

Her back teeth started to grind. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“I don’t know, Gwen. The last time we sat in a bar I remember a certain someone getting drunk and a couple other someones getting into a fight.”

She’d never live that down. Gwen and Eliza went to blow off steam in a Texas bar. The cowboys were full of “yes, ma’am” and “howdy, darlin’.” They danced and carried on…and yes, she drank a little too much. When one of the cowboys mistakenly took her smile as an invitation for intimacy, Neil erupted from the bar to teach the cowboy the meaning of the word no.

   
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