“It’s not really your style,” Brooke says. Then her gaze slides past me to the street beyond. I can pinpoint the exact moment she sees Will by the twitch of her mouth—upward, in amusement. “Oh,” she says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I declare. “I really just thought this hat might suit me.”
“No, I don’t think it quite works. Maybe this one?” She hands me one with a slightly smaller brim but a huge tuft of purple feathers protruding from its band. Her twitch of a smile has grown into a grin.
I glower at her. Then I take a quick glance behind me. There’s Will’s back, moving farther down the street, past us now. Potential disaster averted. I whip off the hat.
“Actually,” I say, “you’re right. I hate them all. That store down there looks like it has some nice blue stuff.”
Brooke shakes her head, but she comes with me, putting more distance between us and Will, wherever he’s gone off to now. Does he come into town every day, or is it just my bad luck?
“I’m sorry,” Brooke says. “This was supposed to help you get some space from him.”
“What?” I say innocently. “Who?” She shoots me a look, and I grimace. “I’m fine,” I add. “Really. It’s no biggie.”
I keep my eyes peeled as we browse onward. There’s no more sign of Will.
After several minutes, I start to relax. We come across the churros I smelled and buy a couple of the heavenly foodstuffs. We’re just heading up to one of the white benches set along the sidewalks when I glance over at Brooke and spot a blue T-shirt amid the crowd behind her. I swallow a yelp and duck down behind the bench.
“Ruby,” Brooke says, propping herself against the back of the bench beside me, “what are you doing now?”
“I’m, uh, tying my shoelaces,” I say. Then I look at my feet. Oh, right, I put on my gladiator sandals for this outing. They’ve got about a million buckles, but no laces to be seen.
Brooke sounds like she’s smothering a laugh. “What’s the worst that could happen if he saw you?”
“Death. Destruction. The end of the universe as we know it.” Or worse, I might let him kiss me again. I have no idea how my body is going to respond if I have to look him in the eyes. Those striking, panty-melting eyes.
Shut up, shut up, shut up, brain.
“Well, unfortunately I think he’s seen me,” Brooke says. “And it looks like he’s coming over to say hello. So unless you can come up with a better excuse for being down there, you might want to—”
With all my senses blaring red alert, I glimpse my salvation. Just a few feet down the street from my soon-to-be-nullified hiding spot is a whitewashed church front, the wooden door standing open to admit visitors.
I scuttle from my bench to the neighboring one and then bolt for the church, hoping Will is too focused on Brooke to notice my brief appearance as I dart across the sidewalk and already mentally composing an extensive apology to my bestie.
Inside, the cooler air inside the dome-ceilinged room washes over me. I breathe in the smell of old wood and candle wax. A few people are sitting in the pews, heads bowed in prayer.
It’s impossible not to be affected by the aura of serenity that fills the space.
I inhale deeply and exhale my jitters, resting my hands on the back of the last pew. Suddenly my mad dash in here seems pretty silly.
Then Will’s voice carries through the doorway behind me. “I know it’s not your and Trevor’s thing, but we’ve had other couples hold their ceremony in here before heading back to the resort for the reception. It’s really very lovely.”
So much for serenity.
I leap for the nearest shelter, which happens to be an ornately carved wooden booth against the side wall, with one of its doors slightly ajar. I drop onto the cushioned seat inside and yank the door closed after me, wincing at its creak.
Footsteps rasp against the floor outside as Will and Brooke come in. I peek at them through the tiny gapes in the woodwork. It looks like he’s just pointing out the architecture to her.
A shutter in the wall across from me rattles, and a rasping voice asks a question in Spanish.
I flinch in my seat, and then it clicks. I’ve snuck into the confessional.
The priest on the other side of the screen between us clears his throat. “Um, si,” I say, not sure what he asked. Where’s a Babel fish when you need one? Maybe if I’d paid a little more attention in high school Spanish . . .
He says something else, and I catch a few words I recognize. Presumably he’s asking what I want to confess. I think about last night, and my face burns.
Dear Father, it’s been forever since my last confession. Last night I nearly had sex up against a tree with a man I’m not even dating, who never wanted to date me, and Lord help me, part of me wishes I could cross out that “nearly.”
Even if I had the language, I suspect my issues are above his pay grade.
“Perdóname,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Siento.” Then I say a little silent prayer of my own, that he doesn’t come over and drag me out of this box for misusing it.
I peek through the gaps again. Will and Brooke are just turning to leave. Then her sandals tap back inside. “Ruby?” she says under her breath. “The coast is clear.”
I spill out of the confessional with another hasty apology to the priest. “I panicked,” I say to Brooke. “I’m an idiot. It’s not like he even matters.”
Even if she wasn’t my oldest friend, she would still see through that whopper of a lie.
“Oh, hon,” Brooke says, grabbing my hand, “of course he does. But that’s okay. Now come on. He said he’s heading back to the resort, so let’s have that me-and-you time I promised.”
Chapter Eleven
Back at the resort later, I settle in by the pool for some lounging.
If, by lounging, you mean work. What can I say? The Ruby Walters PR empire isn’t going to run itself.
Lulu drapes herself over the back of my lounger to peer over my shoulder. “What’re you doing?”
I guess that’s a reasonable question to ask when you see someone sprawled out on the pool deck working on their laptop rather than their tan. “Checking back into reality,” I say. “I like to keep an eye on the latest internet gossip in case I can head off any impending catastrophes for my clients.”
“Oooh,” Lulu says. “Anything juicy going down?”
“Not really,” I say, “but that’s a good thing. My life is easier if we skip the catastrophes altogether.”
“So basically this is depressing work.”
I laugh. “Well, I’ve also found some of my best clients this way too. Seeing who’s starting to get buzz, the new cool kids in town who might need someone handling PR on their behalf. That part is fun.”
“Ah,” Lulu says, her voice dipping suggestively. “You’re on the prowl.”