“So, what exactly happened between you and Judge Quimby?” Ubie asked me.
I snapped out of my pity party to answer him, but changed my mind. There were some things he was better off not knowing. “I’d rather not talk about that,” I said, diving in for another bite.
“She seems to like you,” he said.
I lifted a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “She did seem way more understanding of the fact that I’m alive and kicking than she normally is. I wonder what changed her mind about me.”
A knowing smile flashed across his face, but he hid it quickly.
Not quickly enough, however. I gaped at him. “What?” I asked.
“What?” he asked back.
“You know something.”
He cut into an enchilada, stuffed a bite into his mouth, then said, “No, I don’t.”
I leaned close to him. “Yes, you do, so let me put it this way: You can tell me and spare yourself the embarrassment of me reminiscing about the time I caught you stumbling around in our backyard in the middle of the night screaming, ‘Stella!’ or you can sit there and squirm while I recount the entire story in great detail, including a description of your attire that fateful evening.”
He straightened. “You wouldn’t.”
“Do you know me at all? I suffered. Seeing you in that particular style of underwear? I was traumatized for hours. Maybe days.”
“That’s blackmail.”
“Duh. Do you really know something about the judge I don’t?”
He caved. “I only know that you somehow helped her sister come to terms with her husband’s death.”
“Her sister?” I asked, thinking back.
“She’d been devastated and developed some kind of eating disorder.”
I gasped. “No way! That was her sister?”
“It was.”
That poor woman was so distraught over her husband’s death, she hadn’t eaten for weeks. I’d never seen anything like it. The husband had come to me and asked me to intervene. He knew she would take his passing hard, so he hadn’t crossed when he died. Together, we came up with a plan to help her cope. It basically involved me relaying his messages to her. The whole ordeal was heartbreaking, but with some professional therapy thrown in, she’d slowly come out of it. I had the most rewarding job ever.
“Who’s that?” Cookie asked, her voice sharp with concern.
I turned to see a woman speaking to Reyes near the entrance. She had thick black hair that fell like silk over her shoulders and startlingly blue eyes.
“Is that the newswoman from Channel 7?” Gemma asked.
“I don’t know,” Cookie said, and I felt her ire rise. “But she is getting just a little too friendly, don’t you think?”
Cook was right: The woman was leaning in to Reyes as she spoke to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder when he apparently said something funny. It was an intimate gesture that had me seeing a vivid, crystal scarlet. I was used to women fawning all over themselves to get closer to him, to touch him, but this was ridiculous.
“You have got to get a ring on that boy,” Gemma said. “Speaking of which, did you look at those links I sent you? Those are some prime venues, and you two need to decide on a date soon if you want to book any of them.”
“Oh,” Cookie said, combing through her bag, “and we need to decide on where to have the shower.”
“I showered this morning,” I said absently.
Gemma ignored me. “The shower, yes, but are we doing one shower for both the wedding and the baby, or one for each?”
“Heavens, that’s a good point. Charley, what do you think?”
“I like Reyes’s shower,” I said, not bothering to look at them. Instead, I watched as the newswoman, whom I now recognized from the six o’clock news, spoke softly to Reyes. She laughed at something he said, taking the opportunity to toss her hair over her shoulder flirtatiously.
Reyes glanced back, then realizing I was watching, angled himself between the newswoman and me. Completely affronted, I stiffened.
“Oh, I like that place, too,” Cookie said, responding to something Gemma had said. “It’s gorgeous in the summer.”
“True, but I think it will be too late to get it for this summer. It books fast.”
“Okay, well, what else do you have?”
As Cookie and Gemma planned my wedding, a job I did not envy in the least, I watched Reyes. I tried to single out his emotions, but there was so much blisteringly raw lust in the room, I couldn’t get past it all. Damn him and his sexual tractor beam.
A giggle floated toward me, and I saw the woman’s head tilt back again. Clearly, Reyes was slapping on the charm, but why? Was this about an interview? He’d been asked a dozen times for one and never gave any of the other reporters the time of day. Even 60 Minutes had wanted to do a story on him and got the door slammed in their face. But this woman came in, pinned him with a glittering smile, and he caved?
That was not like Reyes.
“I need a pretzel,” I said, ignoring my food.
Before any of them could say anything, I rose and walked to the bar, which put me a few precious feet closer to the happy couple. If he were ever to break up with me, I would so be that stalker ex-girlfriend who stole his underwear and hid in the hedges outside his bedroom window. But finally I had a clear path and could read Reyes’s emotions. Only I still couldn’t feel him.