Free Unexpectedly You by Mia Josephs, Riley Janes Page B

but I want one. It’s on my goals for the day. Even put it in my cute calendar. Get another Magic Nate Foot Rub by 6:00!
    I let out a major sigh, sliding down my chair and wincing a little bit. “I think I put on the wrong shoes.”
    Nate’s eyes don’t move from his screen. He just lets out this, “Hmmm…” and his brow wrinkles.
    It is our lunch hour, damn it. Why is he still working?
    I sigh again, taking off my left heel. I make a huge show of looking at the size I know has worn off from wherever it was. “I knew it,” I lie. “These are fives.”
    He doesn’t move. I’m clearly dropping hints here. I’ll brush his teeth or do his hair for him again if he wants. Hell, I’ll even give him my free hand job offer I got the other day. I actually snort because that’s so evil and silly, but I can totally picture his face losing all its color if I say that out loud.
    “You see,” I babble on, “I bought the fives because they didn’t have any five and a halves. And it was too good a deal to pass up. Plus, I needed heels for my first day of this one job that totally sucked, but it was a paycheck, you know? So I wore them there and it wasn’t a big deal. Like it didn’t hurt, but that was a little over a year ago and I haven’t worn them since. Now they’re killing me.”
    “Uh huh.”
    I want to shut his laptop on him. But he’ll probably react to that the way I do when someone swipes my phone.
    I blow another sigh.
    “Brooke.” He finally looks up from his screen, a slight smile on his face. “You’re not getting another foot massage.”
    I feign innocence, gawking at him like I would never do such a thing. “I wasn’t even thinking about th—”
    “Those are the same shoes you wore on your interview here.”
    My brows pull together and I examine the heel in my hand. Crap, I think he’s right.
    I growl and place it back on my left foot. “Well, damn it.”
    He laughs, sitting upright and slowly tilting his screen down. “We don’t have time anyway. We have a few phone calls to catch up on. Mom left the list in there.” He jabs his thumb over his shoulder to her office.
    But wait… “There’s more?”
    “Huh?”
    “I took care of those calls this morning.” I swear I did. I yank out my phone and pull out my cute checked off morning list.
    He presses the lid to his laptop all the way down, cocking an eyebrow at me. “The Albert wedding…”
    “Needed to change their cake from white with chocolate filling, to chocolate with raspberry filling. And the blue frosting roses are now yellow lilies.”
    “And Mr. Haverman…”
    “Needed his tux resized. I booked an appointment for him this afternoon and the tux will be ready by Thursday morning.”
    “The Fox wedding…” He looks amused now, and I sit up straight staring him dead on.
    “The MOH got her nipples pierced last weekend, and you can see it through the gown. I’ve scheduled an emergency padding.” And because I know he’s going to ask, I go through my checklist, feeling kickass as I read each one off. “Gunderson wedding wants another venue for nighttime stargazing. Rivera’s want a local band, so I ordered tickets for several in-city concerts for them to check out this week. They’ll get back to us next Tuesday. Our Timothy bride got cold feet, called crying her eyes out, but I calmed her down and scheduled a date night for her and her fiancé for tonight far away from wedding plans. And your mom asked me to make sure you ate your vegetables for lunch.” I gesture to his empty plate. “Good thing I challenged you on who could eat more asparagus without it coming back up. You kicked my ass.”
    He watches as I give him the most arrogant look I possess. I rocked it. Just tell me I rocked it, and maybe I can make that phone call to my mom about how I’m finally on top of things. After what happened at my first wedding, I really didn’t know if I’d ever get to make that call.
    “You look very proud of yourself,”