“Nah, it’s nothing,” she said, putting her phone away with a little pang.
But it didn’t feel like nothing.
It felt like… something.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Oh, that one,” Maggie exclaimed. “That’s the one!”
Elena gave her sister-in-law an indulgent look over her glass of champagne. “You’ve said that about the last five.”
Maggie sighed and leaned back on the pink sofa of the bridal shop, and rubbed her ever-growing belly. “Don’t judge me. You have champagne while I only get this stupid sparkling cider. Also, it’s the hormones. They’re killing me. Yesterday I cried when I saw a pigeon eating a French fry.”
Jill was barely listening as she pivoted in slow circles in front of the enormous mirrors. “I don’t know—I don’t think I’m liking that big bow in back.”
“It dwarfs you,” Ava said in her bossiest voice. “You need something that enhances your small frame, not overwhelms it.”
“But I kind of like the poofy princess dress,” Jill said, her voice just shy of petulant.
Elena tilted her head and gave Jill a look. “Really? Because two dresses ago you insisted on no poof.”
Jill scowled at Elena in the reflection of the mirror. “I changed my mind.”
She saw the look Ava and Elena exchanged. Not that they were trying very hard to hide it.
Jill whipped around, her finger pointing at them. “What was that? What was that look?”
Elena didn’t miss a beat as she smoothly stood up and swooped Jill’s champagne flute from the side table and came to stand beside her. “You’re edgy, darling. Talk to us.”
Jill accepted the flute and stared at her best friend.
Elena looked perfectly together and gorgeous as always. She was wearing one of those pencil skirts that she seemed to own a million of, in every color, and a simple white blouse. Her black hair was pulled back in a neat chignon, her makeup flawless, her manicure un-chipped.
She made Jill feel small and frumpy.
Which wasn’t fair. At all.
It wasn’t Elena’s fault that she was gorgeous.
Nor was it Elena’s fault that Jill had been in the mother-of-all funks for the past week.
It wasn’t Elena’s fault that Tom had been busy and hardly remembered to call. Or that when he did call, Jill was always working on the time-consuming Lenora Birch case.
Or that said case had yet to turn up so much as a potential clue, much less an actual suspect.
Jill pressed a thumb between her eyebrows. “Ladies, what say you we abandon the dress shopping for the day?”
“Done,” Ava said, not bothering to hide her relief.
“We can go back to my place,” Elena said. “Eat junk food and bash boys?”
Jill gave her friend a look. “You’re having guy trouble?”
“It’s not for me, honey,” Elena said soothingly, petting Jill’s head. “Is everything okay with you and Tom?”
“Yes,” she said automatically. “Everything’s great.”
Elena narrowed her eyes.
“Really,” Jill said. “He’s such a good guy. You all liked him.”
“Well yeah, but it doesn’t matter that we liked him,” Ava said.
“I like him too. Obviously. I love him,” Jill said.
And she did. It was just…
Every time they’d talked on the phone lately, it had felt… well, almost sibling-like.
He asked about her day, she about his. They laughed, and there were no awkward silences. She cared about what he had to say.
But something wasn’t right. She smiled whenever she saw his name on the caller ID, but there were no tummy flips. No slightly dry-of-mouth excitement to talk to him.
And there should be. Their relationship was young. They should absolutely still be in the tummy-flip stage.
And yet…
Had Jill and Tom ever really been in the tummy-flip stage?
Jill threw back the rest of her champagne.
The four women strolled out of the bridal shop empty-handed and headed toward Fifth where they’d have better luck hailing a cab.
Elena and Ava walked ahead, but Jill held back with Maggie, who was entering the waddling stage of her pregnancy and moving a bit slower.
Maggie linked her arm with Jill as they walked side-by-side in companionable silence.
All four women were good friends—Jill had known Elena the longest, of course. And then Ava had started dating Luc, and fit in marvelously.
And then came Maggie, who was welcomed to the group enthusiastically when she’d captured Anth’s heart.
But of all of them, Maggie was perhaps the kindest.
A kindness that Jill was occasionally jealous of.
Maggie was so damn sure of who she was, and who she was was just good. Maggie had once been the waitress at the diner the Morettis treated like their second home, but she’d recently made a career shift over to publishing.
A pretty perfect fit considering Mags was an author in her own right; she’d recently landed a book deal for a teen love story.
Add in the fact that she was married to the love of her life and pregnant with the first Moretti grandchild…
The bitter truth was, Maggie had everything Jill wanted.