Free Unexpectedly You by Mia Josephs, Riley Janes Page A

to get laid before we eat.” I wink but with the way she doesn’t flinch, I can tell she’s going to ignore my joke.
    “Will you be needing me to call you with an ‘emer gency photo session?’”
    “Well, that’s your point of date one, right? Something easy and light so I don’t need to be rescued?”
    “Exactly.” There’s still enough tease in her voice that I know she gets how scheduled she is and that it’s not normal. Not that I think she has any idea of changing that about herself .
    She takes a bite that’s half the size of her burrito, and I figure it gives me license to also make a pig out of myself and I shove in another loaded chip.
    “How are you skinny?” I point to her mound of Taco Bell.
    “Woo.. out,” she tries to say through a mouthful of food.
    “What?”
    She chomps a few more times, swallows, and sucks down half her soda. “I work out. Last week was Jillian Michaels, this week is P90X and next week will be that Insanity workout. After that I found this really cool schedule on runner training, but I also have two Pinterest boards of workouts, and I thought it might be fun to try some of those for a week. I just need to get some kind of rating system figured so I know which ones to use later and which ones can be erased.”
    “You plan this?” I ask, though I really shouldn’t be surprised.
    “Of course , don’t you?”
    “I plan as little as possible, but I do a little Tae Kwon Do on the weekends, like since I was a kid. Aside from that an occasional run or bike ride followed by push-ups and sit-ups, usually in front of the TV…whenever I feel like it.”
    “ Whenever…right.” She takes another impossible big bite. “Sorry. I’ve been staring at food all day but never had time to eat. I’m starving.”
    I have no idea why she’s apologizing for eating, but whatever.
    I’m still tweaking the photo because the couple always wants to see a handful of the pictures right away, and I never send them out untouched.
    “Oh…” Brooke’s hands go to her chest.
    “What?”
    “That gorgeous moment in time!” Her finger presses against my computer screen. “So, so perfect.”
    I push it away. “That is not a perfect moment in time.”
    “But look at how he’s looking at her…” Brooke pleads still staring at the photo. “With their foreheads together and smiling shyly with her beautiful hair and dress and…just…wow…”
    “They’re both tired and over-stressed. The groom was sweating so hard that all I’ve been doing since pulling this picture up is erasing the beads of moisture from his forehead. He’s in a suit he probably didn’t pick and she tugged on her dress for half the shoot. She’s wearing shoes that are a size too small for reasons I didn’t understand, and I told them how to pose. I have about sixty pictures of variations on this pose, and the only reason they look happy is because I directed them to it. This is smokescreens and bullshit.”
    She chokes. “You are so completely unromantic that you can’t see this for the great moment of after-ceremony bliss this is.”
    “Bliss is waking up next to a gorgeous girl who didn’t bother to get dressed after sex and fell asleep next to you because she trusts you that much. It’s the moment where you can watch her, and the moment when her eyes open and she smiles because she’s thinking her version of your thoughts. The thought that simply waking up next to someone you love is a small miracle in itself.”
    Brooke’s eyes are wide, and I swear she dabs at the edges of her eyes like she’s crying. “Okay.” She sniffs. “You are romantic. Fine. Now eat something because if all this food disappears and all you’ve eaten are a few chips, I might die.”
    “Fair enough.”
    Funny that I didn’t expect my best friend in Las Vegas to be a girl, but after the past couple weeks, that’s exactly what’s happened.

Chapter Nine
    Brooke
     
    I want another foot rub.
    I don’t actually need one,