J.C. screwed up his face in annoyance. “Est-ce que tu me le reproche?”
“English, s’il-vous-pla?t,” said Kate, heading for the door and leaning forward to peck her husband on the lips. “Don’t drip on everything. I’ll grab some towels.”
Libitz smiled at the men, holding up her wine in cheers. “Well done!”
“Why don’t you try it?” asked étienne, putting his hands on his hips and looking pissy.
“No, thanks,” she said, taking a sip and trying not to notice the way the Rousseau brothers looked with droplets in their dark hair and their shirts molded to their cut chests like second skins. “I’m a city girl.”
“The fucking thing is slippery, and there are no goddamn instructions!” said étienne. “What if the water comes shooting out like that at Caroline on Sunday? She could lose an eye!”
“How ’bout pouring two more glasses of wine, Elsa?” asked J.C., still standing behind étienne on the kitchen mat, looking wet and delicious.
“Qui est Elsa?” asked étienne over his shoulder.
Libitz grinned at J.C., placing her wine on the table and fetching two more glasses from the chrome rack hanging from the cabinets near the sink.
“Ne t’en fait pas.” Don’t worry about it.
“So, Lib,” said étienne as she approached them with the wine glasses. “How’s Ned?”
Why she flicked a guilty glance to J.C. was a mystery for the ages, but she did, and his eyes narrowed, searching hers, as he raised the glass to his lips.
“Who’s Ned?” asked J.C. after a sip, his tone chilly.
She cleared her throat, swapping J.C.’s intense gaze for étienne’s more cordial one. “Do you mean Neil?”
“Yeah! Neil,” said étienne, nodding. “Kate says he’s great.”
“Kate says who’s great?” asked Kate, returning with two towels, which she handed to her husband and brother-in-law, taking their wine glasses and setting them on the table.
“Neil,” said J.C., the way someone else might say “dog shit.”
Libitz sat back down at the table, wondering about the clenching feeling in her gut, the way her heart clamored as though in denial of something she’d never admitted. She gulped anxiously, finishing her glass of wine.
“From what you’ve told me, he sounds super, Lib,” said Kate, sitting across from her friend. “What’s it been now? A couple of months?”
Careful not to look up at J.C., Libitz nodded. “Yeah. About, um, five weeks.”
“Five weeks?” asked J.C. “Did you start dating him the day after Kate and Ten’s wedding?”
Libitz raised her chin, looking straight into his eyes. “Yes.”
J.C. nodded, his expression frosty as he took the glass back from Kate and sat down in the chair beside Libitz, though there were six others to choose from. “Interesting.”
“Kate says he runs a bakery,” said étienne, grabbing a piece of cheese as he took a seat beside his wife.
“A bakery,” said J.C., his voice thick with sarcasm. “How glamorous.”
“It is,” insisted Kate. “It’s the largest kosher bakery on the East Coast.”
Libitz gave J.C. a sidelong glance, raising her eyebrows in challenge.
Game on. He grinned at her. “Does he do a great shortbread?”
“Nope. He’s known for his long baguettes,” Libitz shot back.
“Kosher bakery, right?” asked J.C., sipping his wine as he stared at Libitz over the rim.
She nodded, unable to keep her lips from trembling, because, truth told, at some point she had started to look forward to his quick retorts and whip-fast wit.
“So no pork in the pie, huh?”
Without being able to help herself, she snorted with laughter, grateful that she hadn’t risked a sip of wine before his comment, because J.C. and his brother would have had a second shower.
He was quick. Goddamn, but he was quick. And fuck, but she enjoyed it.
Staring up at him, she watched the last of his iciness thaw to warmth as his shoulders shook with laughter. “Good one, huh?”
She nodded through giggles. “Good one.”
Finally able to take a deep breath, she turned away from J.C. to look at Kate, only to find her best friend staring at her with wide, worried eyes and parted lips.
“KK?” prompted Lib.
“What is going on here?”
Libitz sobered. “Huh? What do you—”
“Mean? You just giggled, Lib. Giggled. You do not giggle. You occasionally chuckle like it hurts. What the—what the hell is going on between you two?”
“Chaton—”
“No, étienne! I need to say this!” Kate looked back and forth between Libitz and J.C., and Lib had known Kate long enough to know that her friend was truly upset. “You two are not allowed to have a fling! Do you hear me? You can’t! Because it won’t work out, and you’ll end up hating each other, and then Noelle won’t have—I mean…sh-she won’t…” She stood up from the table, knocking the chair down behind her as she rushed from the kitchen.
Libitz bolted up to chase after Kate, but étienne blocked her way. “Let me go.”