control and let someone else slide into the driver’s seat.
But now Kit seemed content to let her pass without a second thought.
“Are you going to bed?” he called after her.
“I just said I was tired,” she said.
He padded out of the closet in his underwear, looking not middle-aged at all, damn him. “How about that cake-astrophe, huh? What a shit show.”
The same words Tennyson had used.
“It would have been avoided if Tennyson had not brought her dog. How much attention does one person need? She only totes that dog around so people will look at her.”
“People would look at her anyway,” Kit said, pulling his toothbrush out of the holder and running water over it.
“What does that mean?” Melanie asked, pausing at the door, stomach still sucked in, arms still wrapped around her breasts.
“You know,” Kit said, catching her gaze in the mirror, looking slightly caught.
“You mean Tennyson’s still pretty.”
“I mean, yeah. She’s always been attractive and, you know, had a good body. Plus she displays it.”
Something about his words hurt. They always did when it came to Tennyson. Mostly because Kit had chosen Tennyson first. Back when they were in high school, Kit had shown up their sophomore year, an athletic, tanned sixteen-year-old with thick, blond hair, an alarmingly sexual smile, and eyes that made every girl sigh. By that time, she and Tennyson were back in school together, Tennyson having gotten a scholarship to the private college-prep school Melanie attended. Kit’s first day had sent the female population on drool alert and the male population on butt-hurt alert. Tennyson had taken one look at Kit and actually uttered mine.
And he had been . . . for a while.
Melanie had always taken a back seat to Tennyson, but it hadn’t bothered her because she was nothing like the temperamental, high-strung, creative beauty who was her best friend. On the contrary, Melanie was steadfast, reliable, and unremarkably pretty with a clear complexion, rich brown hair, and high cheekbones. Her pleasing countenance, compact figure, and unassuming manner was the kind that grew on a person rather than bowling them over. Melanie had no desire to be like Tennyson because she was comfy in her own skin. And in the end the tortoise had won the race, hadn’t she?
Kit trailed her into the bedroom with a leonine grace she’d always admired. He moved with fluid movement that drew the eye as he lifted a magazine from the bedside table and tossed back the covers. In the process, he upended the decorative pillows onto the floor. Melanie bit her tongue instead of pointing out the bench at the end of the bed that had been placed there for such a purpose. Instead she pulled a nightgown from her chest of drawers and jerked it over her head, unfastening the bra beneath. She saw Kit watching her do this and knew he wondered why she was hiding herself. Melanie really didn’t have an answer. All she knew was she didn’t want to be naked in front of him. Perhaps it was because of his words about Tennyson. Or maybe it was the image of Charlotte looking at him with something just short of possession in her eyes. Or maybe it was because she felt old and flabby.
“She’s always been stunning. I haven’t forgotten that,” Melanie said, picking up her laptop and heading toward the bedroom door.
“I thought you were tired?”
“I remembered that I promised Emma I would look at the wedding software she wants to buy. I don’t want to disturb you with the tapping.”
He took off his shirt and tossed it on the floor. She tried to ignore that, too. Then he slid on his reading glasses, looking quite delicious as he opened his magazine. “You can work here. I’m going to read for a bit.”
So neither one of them were really that tired.
And still . . .
Kit looked up and lowered his glasses. “Why software?”
Melanie shrugged. “Supposedly you need software. It’s what the wedding planner will use to keep tabs on everything.”
“Then shouldn’t the planner buy the software?”
“Kit, I don’t really know.”
“Just how much is this going to cost us?” he asked.
Melanie felt her stomach tilt south. She’d been dreading this conversation. Not because she wanted to blow their retirement on Emma’s wedding, but because the preliminary research she’d done on weddings over the last few weeks had essentially inferred that no wedding was done on a budget under twenty-five thousand. Kit was very good about giving his children the things they