Cadence sat on the sofa in her apartment looking over the seating arrangement her mother had been working on while she was in Las Vegas. The wedding was only a little more than a week away now, and while everything looked fine, initially, she and Aaron had planned for Aurora and Elliott to be seated at the same table—and now that needed to change. Since they were both in the wedding party, they were supposed to be sitting at the round table in front of where she and Aaron and her family would be seated. But now that things had changed, she was trying to figure out a way to place them further away from each other.
“Maybe Elliott should sit at the head table with us...” she muttered, checking to see if there was room. “He is the best man....”
A knock on the door interrupted her train of thought, but she moved his pin up next to Aaron before she stood to answer it, thinking that would remind her that she needed to make sure the arrangement would work.
“Speak of the devil,” she said, pulling the door open so that Elliott could come in. “I didn’t realize you were able to manifest whenever someone moved your wedding reception pin.”
“Well, I am supernaturally gifted,” he replied, stepping through the doorway and giving her a hug. He hadn’t come straight back to headquarters after he left Vegas, and this was the first time she’d seen him since he stormed out of their hotel room. “What are you up to?”
Once he let her go, Cadence led him back across the room, dropping down on to the sofa and surveying the mess on the coffee table. He sat down a few inches away from her. “I am trying to figure out how to keep you and Roar from messing up my wedding,” she explained.
“Don’t you mean your fake wedding?”
She turned and looked at him, and he had a goofy grin on his face. “You’re the only one who knows that so keep your mouth shut.”
“Mums the word,” Elliott assured her, zipping his lips, locking them and pretending to throw away the key.
“Like that would last more than five seconds.”
“Mmmm mmm mmmm,” he replied, making her roll her eyes. Cadence reached over and “unlocked” his mouth. “Thanks. You’re right. It wouldn’t have lasted at all.”
She shook her head at him and decided she’d had enough of looking at the reception seating for a while. “What’s up? What brings you by?”
“Can’t I stop in and see how my best gal is doing?” he asked, looking slightly offended.
“Sure. I’m glad to see you. I just thought... you looked a little more serious than normal.” There was an air about him she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something was going on with him, and now that she’d put the wedding planning aside, she was tuned into it more than she had been before.
He let out a loud sigh, another indication he had something on his mind. “Well, first of all, I just wanted to thank you for standing up for me. I hear you were quite the arbitrator.”
Cadence scooted around to look at him. “Oh, yeah? Who told you that?”
“More than one person. Aaron said you pissed off Ashley when you told her she couldn’t talk bad about me. And Jamie said if he has to hear one more word about what a right bastard I am, he’s gonna have to consider taking his spare key back.”
While she was glad to hear Jamie was on Elliott’s side, it didn’t make her as happy as she would’ve thought to know that Jamie and Ashley were having trouble. “I really didn’t do that much. I basically just told her I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.”
“Well, I appreciate it. And the heads up about my credit card.”
That made Cadence snicker. She felt a little sorry for Aurora, though. That evening over dinner, she’d told Cadence about how she’d gone to the counter in a high-end department store, her arms loaded with lots of expensive clothing, only to find out Elliott had turned his credit card off. Cadence had pretended to be shocked, but of course, she’d been the one to remind him that Aurora still had it. “I think it would’ve cost you a small fortune if you hadn’t turned it off so fast.”
“Yep. That woman likes to shop.” He sighed again, and Cadence knew there was something heavier on his mind. “Is it all right if I grab a drink?”
“Sure, help yourself,” she replied as he pulled himself up and disappeared into the kitchen.
“You want anything?” he shouted from the other room.
Checking her bottle of Dr. Pepper, she saw that it was almost full. “I’m good, thanks.”
He was back a few moments later with a bottle of water. She wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d come back with a beer, even though it was early afternoon. Before he sat down, Elliott asked, “So did you enjoy the Thunder from Down Under?” Still holding the water bottle in one hand, he placed both of his hands behind his head and did some sort of pelvic thrusting motion a few times, and Cadence felt her stomach roll over.
“For the love of all things holy, please don’t ever do that again,” she said as he laughed hysterically and sat back down next to her. “Seriously, I will never be able to unsee that.”
“Hey, at least I wasn’t wearing a Speedo.”
The image that popped into her head had her rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m gonna go ahead and see if Cass can erase the picture that just formed in my mind.”
Once again, he laughed like a hyena, and Cadence was left shaking her head at him. “Was there something else you wanted to talk about, something specific, or did you just come to torture me?”
“You didn’t answer my question.” He took a swig of his water before replacing the cap and setting it on the floor next to his large, black boot. “How was the show?”
“It was... not my thing.” It was the truth. While she’d sat through it, she’d spent most of the time talking to Aaron and Cassidy through her IAC. She might’ve liked something like that a few years ago, if she’d gone with her friends from high school, but with the tension between the three of them and the reminder that she’d just gotten married burning in her mind, Cadence would’ve rather been just about anywhere else.
“I find it more than a little ironic that she decided to go to a strip show because she was mad at me for going to see a strip show,” Elliott pointed out.
