Speak Now Read Online Free Page B

on the mockery.
    I gave her a dirty look. “No. It wasn’t like that at all.” I glanced around the table, making sure I had their complete attention. “I’d caught him looking at me once or twice, but I had no idea who he was—nobody seemed to know. Anyway, the place was packed, and people kept cornering me and hitting me up for donations, so eventually I escaped to the ladies room.”
    “He followed you in!” Simon accused.
    “He didn’t!” Brenda protested.
    “He did not. I was in there a while, though, because my makeup was starting that transformation from fabulous to frightening and I needed to do some major repair work.” There were general nods of sympathy and quick under-eye wipes. “When I came back to the party the crowd was thinning out so I figured the bar had closed. I couldn’t find anybody I’d come with.”
    “Typical,” said Eileen. “Ditched by Brits.” She looked at Simon, who shrugged as if he wasn’t interested in the task of defending his countrymen.
    I continued. “I wandered around for a while and wound up in the kitchen, where I got yelled at by some French guy. So I was pretty flustered—”
    “Meaning drunk,” Simon whispered loudly.
    “—and pretty much standing in the middle of the room feeling…ditched by Brits,” I nodded to Eileen. “When I realized he was right next to me.”
    “Jack?”
    “Jack. Although I didn’t know his name. He looked me straight in the eye, smiled just a tiny bit, and leaned toward me. I thought he was going to kiss me—”
    “Fresh!” Simon said approvingly.
    “—but instead he whispered in my ear.”
    I paused. I hadn’t taken all those acting classes without learning something about timing.
    “What! What! What did he say?” They were staring, waiting for the words that had swept me off my feet.
    “He said,” I breathed, “‘Your ass.’”
    “Ugghh. He didn’t!” Brenda looked over at him now with deep disappointment.
    “He did. And right then my friend Tina came and threw her arms around me and dragged me away. All ‘darling, where have you been, you must meet Lady blah blah blah’ and she pulled me away from him.”
    “What did you do?” Eileen looked like she was trying not to laugh.
    “Well, you know, I just chalked it up to the fact that even a gorgeous guy can be a complete perv.”
    “Especially them,” Simon said knowingly.
    I shrugged. “But I was still a little shaken up by the whole thing when I realized what Tina was saying to me.”
    “She told you he was married—No! That he was on parole—No!” Brenda was getting out of control.
    “No.” I cut her off. “She told me I had white powder all over my butt.”
    They were silent for a moment, registering the facts. Then my closest friends in the entire world burst into laughter.
    “Fine, I’m glad you’re all so amused.”
    “So what did you do?” Simon finally asked, after choking on an olive.
    “I went back to the ladies, dusted myself off—it was flour, incidentally, from the kitchen—got my coat, and went outside to get a cab.”
    “That was it? That was your first meeting?” Brenda looked absolutely betrayed.
    “I really don’t see how you got from there to a shotgun wedding in—how long ago was this?” Eileen asked.
    “It was six weeks and almost three days ago, and it was not a shotgun wedding,” I said pointedly. “And that wasn’t all.”
    “What, what, what?”
    Ah ha! I know how to work an audience. “Well, there I was waiting for a cab, and the next thing I knew he was next to me again. I don’t know how he did it. He just sort of appeared.”
    “And?” Simon demanded.
    “And he said, ‘I was going to tell you your ass was covered in flour.’”
    There was a collective groan of sympathy, which I found very comforting. “I was absolutely mortified. And it didn’t help that he looked like he was going to start laughing any second. Then he leaned in again, to whisper in my ear, and he said,” wait for it…