Free The Groom Wanted Seconds: A Novella by Shirley Jump

pretty girl with a bike and a flat tire on the side of the bridge, and the first thing that came out of his mouth had been a fact. He had kicked himself afterwards for the terrible opening. Pick up lines had never been his forte—clearly. “It was because you made me nervous. I wanted to impress you, and instead I ended up lecturing you.”
    “Ten minutes of information about tire pressure,” she said with a laugh. “I learned a lot, though.”
    “Sorry.”
    “But what changed my mind was how you talked to me, while you changed my tire and checked out my bike. You had this way of explaining everything so it made sense, yet didn’t make me feel stupid. And even though you didn’t know me at all, you took care of me. Made those adjustments to the cables, tweaked the handlebars. It was…nice.”
    “Yeah, that’s me. The nice guy. Or I used to be anyway.” He turned to the water. Why had he come here? To revisit a history that was over? Every time he saw her, it was torture. He needed to forget Rebecca once and for all.
    She reached out and covered his hand with one of her own. “Don’t say that. That was what I liked about you and also what drove me crazy about you. You were so nice. Too nice.”
    He shrugged. “Apparently, that’s not a good thing.” What was the saying? Nice guys finish last? Someone should have added and alone to that. 
    “Sometimes, being nice is a good thing,” she said softly, and that bubble of hope bobbed to the surface again. She exhaled, her gaze on the water below. Behind them, cars rushed along the pavement, a constant whoosh-whoosh of tires against road. “When you asked me to marry you, it was all so…”
    “Clinical? Cold? Analytical?” He shook his head. “I meant to do this big romantic thing, but I’m not exactly Casanova here. I can figure out how to design a water system, can tell you useless facts, like why they chose to install six longitudinal girders instead of four when they did a structural improvement to this bridge, how the cantilever fixed span system works, and even exactly how long a Smoot measurement is supposed to be—”
    “Five feet, seven inches, plus or minus an ear,” she said, smiling. “Named for the shortest pledge at Harvard that year.”
    He nodded. Yet another bit of data he’d shared with her. Jeremy Hamilton, Mr. Romantic. If he could go back and get a do-over, he’d definitely try for more Hallmark moments. “My brain is filled with all this data and facts, but when it comes to poetry and love songs and romance, I’m about as flowery as a juniper bush.”
    She laughed. “That’s okay. It’s who you are. And who else knows the Smoot thing?”
    “A lot of people in Boston. It’s not like it’s a big secret.”
    “Maybe. But you knew it, and that impressed me.”
    “Oh, I have a whole lot of useless trivia if you want more.” He grinned. They stood there like that for a while, in the kind of comfortable silence that came after knowing someone for a long time. Jeremy could have let himself believe they were back to old times, but in his heart, he knew better. There was something standing between them, something more than what she was telling him. There was a wall here, brought about by more than just his own failings. “Why are you here, Rebecca?”
    “Because I missed those sunsets.” She waved toward the setting sun, and the beautiful golden wash it dropped over the Charles River and all of Boston.
    “I meant with me. You called me the other night, but then you retreat. You do the same thing you accused me of doing. You get behind this wall, and then I can’t reach you. Why?”
    Her face crumpled a little. “Because I’m afraid of making another mistake.”
    Fear. He knew that feeling well. But why? What had made Rebecca so afraid? And why didn’t she trust him?
    He pulled away from her, and turned back to the bridge. A boat passed beneath them, a couple in a rowboat, taking their time getting down the river. It was