Made of Honor Read Online Free PDF Page B

sudden left my body. It couldn’t be him, but it was. How could this be?
    I was going to put Tracey out of her skinny misery.
    The flower thing was negotiable, but Adrian’s absence from anywhere that I am is an unspoken, understood request. I’d have to put these things in writing in the future. “How are you?”
    “Fine.” He took my hand and pulled me up from the chair.
    A little too fine. He touched the corner of my eye. I drew back in pain.
    “Bouquet?”
    “You know it.” My head started to throb. How silly must I look with this scratch and my melted makeup and chewed off lipstick?
    He didn’t seem to notice as he pulled me close. Too close. His signature scent, a pineapple coconut blend cut with orange essential oil, overtook me. I melted in his arms like a Hershey bar on a car hood.
    Adrian pulled me back for another look at my face, by now negating all standards of beauty. “Man, it’s good to see you. I’d planned to slip in and out, but I saw Tracey jerking around over here and I knew she was about to go into her act—”
    As if on cue, laughter howled behind us.
    The plastic cup in my hand cracked, spurting red liquid down the seam between us. I jumped back. Adrian’s glasses hit the ground. I reached behind me, grabbed some napkins and wiped his chest, which was much more muscular than I remembered. “Sorry.”
    “It’s okay.” He rescued his tortoiseshell frames and shoved them on his face.
    Clark Kent, move over.
    He took off his suit jacket and shook it, smiling as rivers of red punch drained off it onto my feet. That same gorgeous smile, a little crooked from where I’d jumped over him at the skating rink in the fourth grade. Punch continued to rain from the edgesof his suit jacket, a perfect fit over his broad body just moments before. I dabbed at my own front with what remained of my napkin pile, wondering if I’d end up with “Tracey and Ryan, The Real Thing” imprinted on the front of me. It would be an improvement.
    Adrian tossed his jacket over a chair, knowing he’d be able to have what remained of the stain removed at the dry cleaners. He’d get rid of the shirt. That much I knew for sure and I hated that I knew it. He’d been so polite about my crazy appearance. Now I had him looking half as bad. I dropped my eyes to the ground.
    Ugh. Ugly shoes.
    He grabbed my chin in that mind-numbing way of his and lifted it. “Don’t worry about it. Seriously.” Then he kissed my forehead. Any remaining oxygen left my brain for good.
    I rocked over onto one heel. “Well, I’ll let you talk to Tracey now. That was nice of you to come all the way from Chicago.”
    He crossed his arms. “I came from across town. I’m back in Leverhill now. Didn’t Tracey tell you?”
    I pressed my lips tighter so the scream wouldn’t escape. “Tell me what?”
    Adrian squinted at me, despite his glasses, something he did when very nervous. More useless data I wish I didn’t know.
    Surprise plus embarrassment blurred Adrian’s features. “So you didn’t know anything? Not even that I’d be here today?”
    I looked over at my two friends, who’d long since stopped laughing. “They wouldn’t have told me about this wedding if they could’ve gotten away with it.” My voice trembled, trying to conceal the truth of the statement.
    Adrian didn’t speak. Instead, he gave me what I needed. Another hug. “It’ll be okay. I prom…” He let the word drift away, along with the pain that must have rimmed my eyes at his mention of promises. “It’ll work out.”
    I dared look up at him, dared feel his embrace around me, knowing all that had gone between us, all that had been broken.There was something still there, a shadow of a time when his face alone had been a promise. When his hugs had been a vow. How I’d missed those times.
    Missed him.
    I reached up to hug him back, only to hear that terrible sound of fabric going wrong again, this time not so softly.
    As a swatch of animal print emerged