by Elle Thorpe
Are you a member of the Drama Llama Romance Family? Be sure to sign up for my mailing list at www.ellethorpe.com/newsletter so I can get to know you! Plus! There’s a super secret, newsletter only, novella freebie featuring one of the Only the Positive crew coming in early 2019. So make sure you’re signed up and ready for that one!
SNEAK PEEK! Only the Perfect (Only You, #2)
CHAPTER ONE
Jamison
The midnight blue Toyota Starlet pulled up at the curb with a screech of tyres, the body of the vehicle rocking backwards as if it hadn’t expected the abrupt halt. I ducked my head to peer through the window to the young guy behind the wheel. He waved me in. I hesitated for a moment, wondering what the odds were of escaping this drive without a case of whiplash, before I lifted the handle and slid into the seat next to him. The Uber driver’s dreadlocked hair brushed his shoulders as he held his fist out for me to bump. I obliged, with a smile. If he liked me enough, maybe he wouldn’t get me killed.
“Ridgemont Hotel, right? On Sussex Street?”
“Thanks, mate.”
He nodded and turned his attention to the road, while I turned mine to my phone. I returned it to my ear. “Hey, sorry. I’m back. What were you saying?”
“You were about to tell me why you’re going to this wedding again. Because I still don’t understand.” Disbelief tinted Low’s tone, despite the fact we’d already had this conversation once.
I cradled the phone between my chin and shoulder as I dragged my seatbelt across my suit jacket. “Because I was invited?”
“But why you agreed to go is still a mystery. Bree is a nasty piece of work for even inviting you. You know she just wants to shove her rich new husband in your face. You dodged a bullet with that one, Jam.”
The driver made a sharp turn onto a side street and my shoulder bumped against the window. I eyed him warily, hoping he knew where he was going. And that we’d make it there in one piece. The reception started in a few minutes.
“I know you never liked her, but she wasn’t all bad.”
Low scoffed.
“Okay. She was pretty bad. But we can’t all be as lucky as you. You already have the love of your life. Maybe mine is one of her bridesmaids.” I grinned as we pulled up outside the hotel.
“Bree will love that.”
I laughed. “I know, right?”
“You’re evil.”
“Just a starving student who’s looking forward to a meal that isn’t two-minute noodles.” I unclicked my seatbelt, mouthed thank you at my driver, and gave him a wave before getting out and closing the door. “Gotta go, Low. I’m here.”
“Well, have fun. Would it be wrong of me to hope the groom trips on Bree’s dress and falls on his cheating face?”
I shook my head, unable to wipe the grin from my face. Hanging up without bothering to say goodbye, because we never did, I tucked my phone into the pocket of my suit pants and took the steps to the entranceway two at a time. A sign announcing the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Christoperson pointed me in the direction of the ballroom, and I whistled as I strolled across the hotel foyer. I was oddly excited to be attending the wedding of my ex-girlfriend. I didn’t think she’d expected me to say yes. But why not? I liked weddings. Free food, free booze, a bit of dancing—what’s not to like?
I checked the sign by the ballroom door, finding my name under table number thirty-three. Thirty-three? Bloody hell. I knew Rick the Dick was rich, but that number of tables at a wedding seemed excessive. As if they had that many friends. I’d only met Rick once when they’d come into the bar where I worked, presumably so Bree could flaunt the man she’d cheated on me with. It had been one too many times. He’d snapped his fingers at me like I was his manservant and stuck his pointy nose in the air as he looked over the racecourse. Sure, it had been late in the afternoon, and a lot of the racegoers were getting sloppy drunk, but something told me Rick wouldn’t have approved anyway. He probably preferred polo or lacrosse or some other sport that made him feel superior to us commoners. Not much ruffled my feathers, but their overdone loved-up shit had gotten tiresome quickly. I’d been relieved when Bree had given up fawning all over him and gone home.
Pulling open the ballroom door, I paused as the noise cut out and a roomful of eyes turned in my direction. Shit. I guess being on time didn’t cut it at this wedding. The MC glanced over at me, before choosing to ignore my presence, and continued on with his announcements. My eyes met Bree’s across the room and she glared. I winked, just to piss her off, and made my way through the sea of tables to the back of the room where I eventually found table thirty-three.
Back of the room was an understatement. Table thirty-three was so far away from the bridal table it was almost in another fancily dressed postcode. Suited me just fine. Except, as I looked for a gap, all the seats were taken. I frowned, wondering if I’d read the seating chart wrong.
“Sorry, is this your seat?” a woman on the other side of the table called, pulling a little boy from the chair next to her and settling him on her lap. “He has a chair at another table,” she explained, then dropped a kiss on the top of his blond head.
He stuck his bottom lip out and looked up at her with puppy-dog eyes. “But I want to stay with you, Mummy!”
I sidestepped between chairs and made my way to my spot, sitting down on the white covered seat with its garish pink bow tied to the back. So ugly. But Bree always had loved pink.
“Nathan, you can’t,” the woman said to the little boy. She pointed across the room. “Your dad wants you to sit over there by him tonight. This is a special day for him, remember? And you have a special spot right up at the front.”
I glanced over curiously, not wanting to eavesdrop but intrigued none the less. Had she pointed at the bridal table?
“But I don’t want to! He’s sitting with Bree and I hate Bree. She’s mean.”
“Nathan!” his mother scolded. “We don’t hate anyone!” But the tiniest of smiles pulled at the corner of her lips, and I could see her fighting back her laugh. Her green eyes held a hint of mischief as she struggled to keep a serious face.
I leaned closer to her and whispered, only just loud enough for her to hear, “I kind of hate her too, for the record. He’s not wrong about her being mean.”
She chuckled, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. But not before I’d caught a glimpse of her smile—wide and full of shining white teeth. Her nose was small and turned up slightly at the end like a pixie. And her light brown hair swept her shoulders in gentle waves. She was pretty. Gentle-looking, in her lacy, kinda sexy dress that showed off just enough creamy-looking skin to captivate my attention.
She put her hands over Nathan’s ears. “I’m not a member of her fan club either, but don’t encourage him. She’s his new stepmother so he will have to learn to like her.”
“You’re Rick the Dick’s ex?” I asked, making sure her hands were still over Nathan’s ears.
She choked on a laugh. “That’s not what I called him when we were married. Well, not to his face anyway.” Nathan wriggled free from his makeshift earmuffs and slid off her lap to chase an older boy out onto the dance floor. From across the room, I watched Bree wrinkle her nose at the children playing and fought back the urge to roll my eyes.
“I’m Elodie Christopers—sorry, Elodie Chalmers. I’ve gone back to my maiden name, but it’s only been a few weeks so I keep forgetting. Old habits die hard.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake.
“Jamison. So, they stuck us exes together, huh?”
Her eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
“I’m Bree’s ex.”
Understanding dawned on her face. “Seriously? It doesn’t sound like you think much of the happy couple. Why did you come?”
I wondered if she even realised she’d pulled a face when she’d said the words happy couple. Her nose had wrinkled adorably.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? For the free food, obviously.” I picked up a bread rol
l from the centre of the table and took a bite to accentuate my point.
She laughed, the sound musical, and a sharp contrast to the MC’s droning voice. “So, you’re on better terms with them then?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Uh, no. I guess not. Rick only told me he was leaving two months ago, and now he’s married.”
I whistled long and low. “Bloody hell, are you two even legally divorced?”
She nodded. “He must have paid someone off, because it went through about two weeks ago.”
“Wow.”
Her gaze darkened as she looked around the room. “I wonder how long they were planning this before he even bothered to break up with me.”
I took in the room full of tables, cream and pink flowers on every available surface, fairy lights hanging from the ceiling, and the wedding dress that fit Bree’s food-starved body to perfection.
She squinted at the five-tier wedding cake. “It doesn’t look like they threw this together last minute, does it?”
“Not really.” I didn’t mention I’d received my invite at least six weeks earlier. And that I’d walked in on Rick and Bree having sex in her apartment well before that.
Elodie sat tall in her seat with her shoulders pulled back. That tiny smile at the corners of her mouth remained, and it fascinated me. I don’t think I’d have been half as calm and poised as she was. Bree and I had only been together for six months, and I’d spent a good few weeks moping after I’d caught her cheating before realising that she’d done us both a favour. The pretty woman in the next chair had been married to this guy. Committed. Whether she knew or not that he’d cheated—because he had, the timescales didn’t lie—she must be hating this.
“Does all this not bother you?”
Her shoulders slumped as a long sigh escaped her. When she spoke again, her voice sounded more wistful than sad. “Honestly? One ex to another? It bothers me when I think about when we first got together. We were high-school sweethearts. But I don’t see that boy in Rick anymore.” She looked down and fidgeted with the edge of the tablecloth. “And I’m sad for Nathan. He doesn’t understand that Rick moving out has nothing to do with him. I didn’t want this for him. I thought I’d done such a good job of finding someone committed and reliable and…”
She looked up and shook her head. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”
The fear she had for her little boy and his well-being proved to me again that this woman was Bree’s polar opposite. Bree didn’t give a toss about anyone but herself. Elodie seemed selfless, and I wouldn’t hesitate to bet she’d lay her life on the line for that kid. I could see the weight of hers and Rick’s decisions weighed heavily on her, so I gave her a grin, trying to lighten the mood. “Hey, I’m just happy to have someone to talk to. We rejects over here at table thirty-three have to stick together, right?”
The creases between her eyebrows smoothed out as she straightened her shoulders. “Right.”
The rest of the table all seemed to be over eighty or under seventeen. Plus one middle-aged man that had so far spent the entire time I’d been sitting here buttering a bread roll, wiping the butter off, then buttering it again. “Do you know any of these people?” I asked under my breath. “Bree doesn’t have any family, none that I ever met anyway. I don’t know anyone here.”
“Nope, not one. I was thinking about pulling my Kindle out of my bag before you came along.”
I stifled a grin. “No Kindle necessary. We might be at the leftovers table, but we have free booze and a free meal and later on, we’ll do some free dancing. Deal?”
She glanced over at the bridal party table where Bree had her tongue unashamedly shoved down Rick’s throat, the MC cheering them on now that the speeches were done. I gagged a little and Elodie scrunched her nose again. “There’s only so much of that I can watch sober. You have a deal.”
CHAPTER TWO
Elodie
I didn’t want to go home.
I hadn’t exactly been dreading the wedding, but I was annoyed that Rick had railroaded me into going. We had no mutual friends I could talk to, despite being together for eight years. Which should have been a warning sign something was wrong between us. My friends had never liked Rick. And Rick had no friends. Just acquaintances. People he used to move his way up the corporate ladder. His lack of real friendships had never seemed to bother him, if he’d even noticed. His family had always been nice enough when we’d been together, but ever since he’d left me, his family had given me the cold shoulder. As if being married to their son for the past seven years, not to mention the mother of his child, meant nothing. Which was incredibly disappointing. I was doing everything in my power to make this separation amicable, because Nathan deserved parents that could speak civilly to each other. He deserved to have birthday parties with both his parents present. He deserved to get school awards without worrying about whether his parents would run into each other and make a scene in front of his friends. I was managing to put aside my feelings over Rick’s unfaithfulness. The fact his family couldn’t look at me made me wonder what he’d told them.
I may not have wanted to be there, but I’d had Nathan to look after, so I’d come here with a purpose. But Nathan had ditched me in favour of following his older cousin around all night, leaving me with nothing to do.
Nothing to do but talk to the hottest guy I’d laid eyes on in years.
A little voice in my head cautioned that maybe I was only finding Jamison so attractive because I’d had two glasses of wine and he was the first man to pay any attention to me since high school. Since I’d been married to Rick, I’d changed. Stopped being interesting to people. Even to myself. So, being the centre of someone’s attention tonight had been different and exciting.
But it was nine o’clock, and I was about to turn into a pumpkin. I sighed as I noticed my mother wave from the doorway of the ballroom and then make her way over to where I was sitting. I waved back, and Jamison gave a low whistle. “Who’s the silver fox?”
I elbowed him in the ribs while I laughed. “Stop. That’s my mother.” Her hair was magnificent under the low ballroom lighting. She’d stopped dying it years ago and it was now a complete silvery grey I had always thought suited her better than the dark brown she’d once sported. She’d permed it recently and the curls bounced around her cheerful face.
“She’s late. She missed dinner.”
I snorted, then covered my mouth with my hand, my eyes widening as he chuckled. He’d been making me laugh all night, making fun of Rick and Bree, telling me bad jokes and stories about the bar where he worked. “She’s not a guest. She’s here to pick me up.”
His smile fell. “What? You aren’t leaving?”
I nodded. “It’s late for Nathan. I need to get him home and into bed.”
Truthfully, I’d asked Mum to come pick us up so I would have an excuse to leave. I knew by nine Rick would have had enough of Nathan’s presence, and I’d have had more than enough of Rick and Bree. But now, after sitting with Jamison all evening, I regretted asking her to come at all. It shocked me to realise I’d actually been having fun.
Jamison clutched my hand, pulling it to his chest. “You can’t leave me alone at table thirty-three!”
Not for the first time, my skin buzzed when he touched me and feelings I hadn’t felt in a long time stirred within me. Pleasant, warm sensations that made me crave more. Earlier in the night, he’d passed me a tray of butter and when our fingers had brushed, I’d felt it like a jolt of electricity. We’d inched closer together as we’d talked, since we’d mostly been making fun of the couple and didn’t want people to overhear, and every so often, his leg touched mine beneath the table. I’d been surprised at how much I’d focussed on it happening again. And by how many times I’d been the one to make it happen.
I tilted my head and smiled apologetically. I didn’t move my hand though, liking the way it felt enclosed between his. “Sorry.”
There was a l
ull in the eighties tune playing and Mum cleared her throat behind me. When I glanced over my shoulder, she smiled.
“Jamison, this is my mother, Barbara. Mum, this is Jamison. He’s Bree’s ex.”
Why did I add that? Mum raised her eyebrow, taking in my hand still clutched within Jamison’s. I pulled it back slowly.
“You don’t have to come home yet if you’re having a good time, sweetheart. I can take Nathan with me.”
I paused. Wasn’t that idea appealing. Appealing, but not possible. Ugh. Regretfully, I shook my head. “I should be there to tuck him in.”
“Pfft.” Mum waved away my concerns. “It’s after nine p.m. and he’s been running around all day. He’ll be asleep before I even pull out of the hotel driveway. All I’ll be doing is carrying him to his bed.” She gave me an intentional look, her eyes shifting to Jamison. “Stay, have a good time. You deserve a night off.”
I felt a blush heat my cheeks. Just like my friends, Mum had never liked Rick. She’d barely been able to contain her excitement when we’d split. But she could go easy on the apparent matchmaking she was trying to pull here.
Still, I did want to stay. One night off from my life. One night off from trying to be perfect all the time.
I hesitated, but as I took in Jamison’s pleading face, I felt my resolve disintegrate. “Don’t leave me, El. I can’t very well dance with Nanna June over there, can I?” He tilted his head to the old woman who’d drifted off to sleep about half an hour earlier.
El? I’d always hated people shortening my name, but for some reason, it didn’t bother me now. I kind of liked the way it sounded on his lips. My eyes dropped to said lips and my tongue ran over my own. I lifted my eyes to Jamison’s, just in time to see something in his gaze change. It was so subtle I wasn’t sure I actually saw it. But a warmth curled through me anyway.
