Free All Night Woman: A Contemporary Romance by Abbie Zanders Page B

me crazy.”
    Was that a look of disappointment Liz saw flash in her friend’s eyes?  “Do you want to be?”
    Holly shrugged and averted her eyes.  “I’m thirty.  Adam’s thirty-two.  Do the math.”
    “You’ve got time, Holly,” Liz assured her.  After all, Holly still had a couple of years before she saw the gothic sign post. 
    “What if it takes a while?” 
    “The way you two go at it?  I’ll bet you’re preggers within a month if you want to be.”
    Holly smirked, but there was genuine hope in her eyes.
    “Besides,” Liz continued, “I know it seems kind of old-fashioned, but you really should be married first before you start bringing kids into the mix.”
    “Which is going to take forever ,” Holly said, her face darkening again.  “My mom insists on a June wedding.  Would you believe that every church and reception hall within fifty miles is already booked?”
    “It’s March, Holly.  You can’t expect to find a place in three months.”
    “Not this year, Liz.  Next year.”
    “Oh.”  Liz held the triple-decker club quarter with both hands, turning it at various angles while trying to figure out exactly how to take a bite without unhinging her jaw.  She finally gave up and just peeled off the top layer.  She was going to have to put in an extra hour or two at the gym for the next couple of days, but what the hell.  She’d been in kind of a funk lately herself, and could use a little carb-laden comfort.
    “What’s the big deal about a June wedding anyway?”
    Holly removed the toothpick on her own sandwich quarter, then pressed her palm down hard to condense it into a more manageable size.  “I don’t know.  My mother insists.”
    Liz frowned.  Holly typically scoffed at her mother’s preconceived notions and ideals; the fact that she was being so resigned now was both uncharacteristic and worrisome.  “Since when do you listen to your mother?”
    The look on Holly’s face was one of pure misery.  “What do I know about planning a wedding?  My mother loves them.  She handled both of my sisters’, and played a major role in my brothers’.  And they were beautiful .”
    “So?”
    “So, I only plan on doing this once, Liz.  I want to do it right, you know?”  Holly exhaled heavily.  “Can we just please talk about something else?  That’s why I wanted to come all the way out here.  I need to get away from all this wedding crap for a little while.”
    Liz nodded, taking a bite of her sandwich to keep from saying what she really wanted to.  That Holly’s wedding should be just that – Holly’s wedding, not her mother’s.  Under normal circumstances, she would have, but Holly looked like she really did need a break.  At the first opportune moment, though, she was going to say something, because there was no way in hell she was going to wear one of those fairy-like pink and green bridesmaid’s gowns Holly’s mom and sisters had been squealing over.
    “And what about Adam’s mom?  Are you getting pressure from her, too?”
    “Not at all,” Holly said on an exhale.  “I swear, Adam’s mom is the most down-to-earth, supportive woman I’ve ever met.  Next to you, that is,” Holly amended quickly.  “She is even beta reading my stuff now.”
    Liz paused, mouth open.  “Seriously?  You’re letting her read your books?”
    “Yeah.  Turns out she wrote romance for a little while, too.  She’s catching things I never would have thought of.  And she taught English for years, so that’s been a tremendous help.  Ironic, isn’t it, how that was always my worst subject?  My high-school English teacher would probably bust a gut laughing if she knew what I do for a living.”
    “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”
    “I suppose.  If we were smart we would just elope, you know?  Forget all this fancy stuff.”
    Holly’s words immediately sent Liz into a fantasy that had them impulsively flying off to Las Vegas to do just that.  She