so sad. “Josh, you’re what I have always wanted.”
She went to him and wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m sorry, Elle,” he said, folding her into his embrace. “I’ll try harder. Things are going to be okay. We got this.”
Then he gave her a sweet kiss that promised her he meant what he said, and for those seconds, Ellery believed everything would work out exactly as they had planned.
Josh broke the kiss. “I don’t want to fight anymore. Why don’t we watch a movie?”
“You don’t have to study tonight?” Ellery asked, almost afraid that he was joking. He’d complained about the time he’d had to spend away at the vineyard. A big quiz and something else that needed his absolute focus. So how did he suddenly have time for a movie?
“I do. Since I slept so much last night, I figured I could study after you went to sleep.” Josh slapped her bottom and dropped his arms.
“What about Drew and your group?”
A twist of Josh’s lips told her all she needed to know. He was peeved about something. “They can fend for themselves.”
“Uh-oh,” Ellery said, rising and running a hand through Josh’s pretty hair. “What happened?”
“Nothing you have to worry about. I’m just tired of caring about things more than Drew does. And the others, too. They don’t seem to be as serious as I am.”
Ellery smiled. “They don’t know how determined you are to reach your goal.”
He caught her hand and brushed her knuckles with his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to sit on the couch with my girl and watch something totally stupid and inane.”
She set aside the knowledge that Josh only wanted to hang with her because he was upset with Drew and the study group and embraced the happiness that he was going to spend several uninterrupted hours with her . . . on the couch . . . snuggling and eating gummy bears. Because that’s how they rolled. “I can make that happen.”
Josh reached over and grabbed the bag of gummy bears from the snack basket beside the pantry door. “Let’s get to it, and then maybe you can find that bustier and stockings. I’m feeling less stressed tonight.”
So far her plan was working better than she could have ever expected . . . and all she’d done was put flowers on the table rather than her expectations.
Yeah, this patience thing totally worked.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Daphne smoothed the shirt she’d finally settled on over her jeans one last time and then fluffed her hair. Her stomach knocked against her spine in a vicious nervousness that she’d only felt a few other times. She was going on a date tonight.
Her first real date.
She and Rex had never really dated. They had sat next to each other in geometry, a happenstance that Rex had taken full advantage of by looking at her papers, but they had never gone on a first date. Mostly because kids in school didn’t really date. They hung out and hooked up, but a real ring-the-doorbell date never happened for Daphne.
Until now.
“You don’t look like you’re forty,” she said to herself in the mirror. Of course, she wasn’t forty yet. She had a few more weeks in her thirties. Still, she needed to bolster her ego because she felt more like fifty after the last week of sleeplessness and angst.
Daphne had changed her clothes a dozen times. At first she’d pulled on her favorite black dress and added a cardigan, but that had looked stodgy. She’d shucked that for a fire-engine-red shirt with a plunging neckline and paired it with a short black suede skirt. Knee boots in a matching suede had looked perfect, but then she wondered if it looked like she was trying too hard. Not to mention she didn’t want to exude a vibe that she “put out” on the first date . . . though she had, in fact, weeks ago put out on the first date. If cooking “family” dinner, drinking too much wine, and having sex 2.5 times could be called a date. So she took that off and tossed it atop the growing pile of discarded choices.
Finally, she’d settled on a pair of tight, distressed-denim jeans rolled to show off cute camel leather booties. She’d added a faded-rose tunic and a fun crushed-velvet scarf that was soft gold. Ellery had helped her pick it out on their last shopping trip. Back when they were speaking to each other.
Daphne’s heart sank when she thought about