Free Save the Date by Tamara Summers Page B

decided that all the rules would be different for her wedding.
    “What Wedding Curse?” Leo says alertly.
    “Jack thinks if she brings a guy to a wedding, it’ll automatically destroy the relationship,” Vicky scoffs. “And the wedding.”
    “Vicky, shut up ,” I say, seizing her foot right before she pokes me with it again. She yanks it away.
    “She’s decided not to date anyone until after all her sisters’ weddings are over, just in case.” Vicky rolls her eyes. “Where’s your sense of romance, Jack? Weddings are the most romantic things ever.”
    “Not for boys,” I say, “and not for me. Besides, I’m doing this for your own good, Vicky. You’re the one whose wedding will be crashed by a motorcycle gang if I bring a date. You should be thanking me.”
    “But the love , and the slow dancing, and the flowers everywhere,” Vicky says dreamily. I can see she’s not really paying attention to me anymore. She picks up a piece of origami paper and begins to fold it into a rose.
    I sneak a glance at Leo. He has an “aha”expression on his face that I don’t like.
    “Oh, Jack doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body,” Sydney says dismissively, taking the rose and attaching it to a chopstick. I beg your pardon . This from the girl who wrote her husband’s vows for him so that she could be sure they’d be short, snappy, easy to say, and acceptable to her. Listen, I am perfectly capable of romance with the right guy, but I have no interest in doomed relationships, which is what they would be if they happened during wedding fever season in my family.
    “Remember that cute guy Olaf at my wedding?” Sydney goes on. “The one I tried to get you to dance with?”
    “The one who looked, talked, drank, and danced like a Viking?” I say. “Yeah, I think my feet still have the bruises.”
    “He was cute ,” Sydney says. “You could have given him a chance!”
    “He was so drunk by the time Sydney brought him over to me, I could smell him coming from across the ballroom,” I say to Leo. I donot say that my own date, David, was also pretty drunk by then, a feat he managed without my noticing. “Not to mention he looked like he was about thirty years old.”
    “See what I mean?” Sydney says. She hands the rose to Mom. “Not one ounce of romance in her.” I roll my eyes at Leo, and he grins.
    “Not like my Leo,” says Carolina, lining up the vases. “He’s such a romantic, aren’t you, darling?” She pats her son’s head, and he looks adorably embarrassed. “I think I exposed him to too many weddings as a child.”
    How could two weddings have squashed my sense of romance, while a whole lifetime of them has turned him into a true believer?
    “So we’ll leave those two blank,” Leo says, picking up the spreadsheet of table assignments, “and you can figure it out later, right?” He puts a little star in pencil next to where Paris and “Paris’s Inevitable Last-Minute Surprise Guest” (that’s my dad’s sense of humor at work, in case you’re wondering) have been crossed off. “Now, what did youdecide about the Gallos?”
    “Tonya Gallo hates Donna Bransen,” Mom says. “You can’t put them together, Victoria.”
    “But MOOOOOOOM,” Victoria whines, “I can’t put the Gallos with the Petersons, because Wendy dated Victor in ninth grade and he, like, totally cheated on her and she, like, can barely even forgive me for letting him come to my wedding at all!”
    They launch back into that argument, and I give Leo a grateful smile. Did he rescue me from the wedding date/Jack’s-not-a-romantic conversation on purpose? I’m pretty sure he did. He smiles back, and my heart flips over a couple of times. Dreamy, observant, gallant… Jack, Jack, Jack, remember the vow!
    But it’s awfully hard to keep it in mind while Leo is leaning over me, watching me print out the place cards as neatly as I can, with his arm so close to my arm, and his face so close to my face….
    “I think