Queen of Babble Gets Hitched

• Chapter 1 •

“Chaz,” I say, poking the man in the tuxedo who lay sprawled across my bed. “You have to get out of here.”

Chaz brushes my hand away as if it’s annoying him. “Mom,” he says. “Stop it. I told you, I already took out the trash.”

“Chaz.” I poke him some more. “I mean it. Wake up. You have to go.”

Chaz wakes up with a start. “Wha—Where am I?” He looks blearily around the room until his unfocused gaze finally comes to rest on me. “Oh. Lizzie. What time is it?”

“Time for you to go,” I say, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling on it. “Come on. Get up.”

But I might as well be pulling on an elephant. He won’t budge.

“What’s going on?” Chaz wants to know. I have to admit, it’s not easy, being so mean to him. He looks downright adorable in his tuxedo shirt, all stubbly faced and confused, with his dark hair sticking up in tufts all over his head. He squints at me. “Is it morning already? Hey—why do you still have your clothes on?”

“Because nothing happened between us,” I say, relieved that it’s true. I mean, stuff happened. But my Spanx are still on, so not that much stuff. Thank God. “Come on, get up. You have to go.”

“What do you mean, nothing happened between us?” Chaz looks offended. “How can you say that? That’s my beard burn you’re wearing.”

I lift a hand guiltily to my face. “What? Oh my God. You’re kidding, right?”

“No, I’m not kidding. You’re completely chafed.” A look of self-satisfaction spreads across his face as he stretches his arms. “Now come over here and let’s continue where we left off before you so rudely fell asleep, which I’m going to try not to hold against you, although I will admit it’s going to be difficult, and will probably necessitate punishment in the form of a spanking if I can figure out how to get those things off you. What did you call them again? Oh, yeah. Spanx.” Chaz brightens. “Hey, how appropriate.”

But I’ve already dived for the bathroom and am examining my face in the mirror over the sink.

He’s totally right. The entire lower half of my face is bright pink from where Chaz’s stubble rubbed it as we made out like a couple of teenagers in the back of the taxi on our way home from the wedding last night.

“Oh God!” I cry, staggering back into the bedroom. “Do you think he noticed?”

“Do I think who noticed what?” Chaz has seized me by the wrist, pulled me over, and is fumbling with the tiny buttons to my gown.

“Luke!” I cry. “Do you think he noticed I’ve got beard burn all over my face?”

“How would Luke notice that?” Chaz asks. “He’s in France. How do you get this thing off, anyway?”

“He’s not in France!” I cry, swatting at Chaz’s hands. “He was just downstairs. That was him, at the door!”

“The door?” Chaz pauses in his attempt to disrobe me, looking more adorably confused than ever. Not that I have any business noticing how adorable Chaz is. “Luke’s at the door?”

“No, not anymore,” I say, swatting his hands away once more. “But he’s coming back in half an hour. And that’s why you have to leave now. He doesn’t know you’re here. And I want to keep it that way.” I wrestle his tuxedo jacket from beneath the knee he’s resting on it and hold it out for him. “So if you wouldn’t mind putting this on and kindly vacating the premises—”

“Wait a minute.” Chaz raises a dark eyebrow. “Wait just a minute here. Are you honestly trying to tell me that you and Mr. Romance are getting back together?”

“Of course we’re getting back together,” I say, throwing an urgent glance at the clock. Twenty-five minutes! Luke will be back in twenty-five minutes! He only went in search of a Starbucks to grab us coffees and a couple of Danish… or whatever it is Starbucks has available on New Year’s Day. Which, for all I care, could be rancid pig fat in plastic containers. What does it matter? “Why else do you think I’ve been standing here asking you to please get up? I don’t want him to know you spent the night—or that you gave me beard burn.”

“Lizzie.” Chaz is shaking his head. But he’s putting his tuxedo jacket on. Thank God. “He’s not a little boy. You can’t protect him forever. He’s going to have to find out about us sometime.”

Icy tentacles grip my heart. “Us? What us? Chaz… there is no us.”

“What do you mean, there is no us?” He looks up from the inside coat pocket he’d been investigating, evidently in search of his wallet. “Did we, or did we not, just spend the night together?”

“Yes,” I say, with another exasperated glance at the clock. Twenty-four minutes! And I have to wash my hair. I’m sure there’s confetti in it from the wedding. Not to mention, I probably have raccoon rings of mascara around my eyes. “But I already told you. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing?” Chaz looks wounded. “I distinctly remember holding you tenderly in my arms and kissing you beneath a sky full of falling stars. You call that nothing?”

“Those were balloons,” I remind him. “Not stars.”

“Whatever. I thought we said we were going to work on the physical part of our relationship.”

“No. You said that. I said we’d both just come out of painful breakups and needed time to heal.”

Chaz reaches up and runs a hand through his hair, causing it to stand even more comically on end. Plus, confetti falls out of it and onto my bedspread. “Then what was all that kissing in the cab about?”

He has a valid point. I’m not sure what all that kissing in the cab was about.

Or why I enjoyed it so much, either.

But I do know one thing. And that’s that I’m not going to stand here and talk about it. Not right now.

“We had too much to drink,” I explain, with another frantic glance at the clock. Twenty-two minutes! And I have to blow-dry too! “We were at a wedding. We got carried away.”

“Carried away?” Chaz’s blue eyes look unnaturally bright in the winter sunlight filtering through my new lace curtains. “That’s what you call my hand down your bra? Carried away?”

I rush forward to place a hand over his mouth.

“We must never speak of this again,” I say, my heart booming—yes, booming—in my chest.

“Don’t even tell me,” Chaz says from behind my hand, “that you’re giving him another chance. Yes, he made the big romantic gesture, flying back from France on New Year’s Day, or whatever. But, Lizzie… the guy is a complete commitment-phobe. He’s never followed through with anything in his life.”

“That isn’t true,” I cry, wrenching my hand away from Chaz’s mouth and flipping it around for him to see. “Look!”

Chaz stares at the third finger on my left hand.

“Oh God,” he says after a minute. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“That’s a nice thing to say,” I point out hotly, “to the girl your best friend’s just proposed to.”

Although the truth is, I feel a little sick myself. But that’s from all the champagne last night. It has to be.

“Lizzie.” Chaz flops back across my bed and stares up at the cracks in my ceiling. “Do I have to remind you that less than twenty-four hours ago you two were broken up? That you moved out of the apartment the two of you were sharing precisely because he said he couldn’t see you in his future? That you spent most of last night with your tongue down my throat because the two of you were supposed to be through?”

“Well,” I say, looking down at the emerald-cut three-carat diamond sitting in its platinum band. It seems to catch the light just so. Luke told me the certificate authenticating the gem is blood-free is on its way. “He changed his mind.”

“Because your moving out like that scared him shitless,” Chaz cries, sitting up again. “Is that what you want? A guy who comes running back to you and proposes just because he’s so scared of being alone, he’d rather be with a girl he knows isn’t right for him than be by himself?”

I glare at him. “Oh,” I say. “And I suppose you think we’d make such a better couple.”

“Yeah,” Chaz says. “Now that you mention it, I do. But the truth is, a monkey with a paper bag over its head would make a better boyfriend for you than Luke. Because you two are totally wrong for each other.”

“You—” I suck in my breath. I can’t even believe I’m having this conversation. “What… How can—I thought Luke was supposed to be your best friend!”

“He is my best friend,” Chaz says. “I’ve known him since he was fourteen years old. I probably know him better than he knows himself. That’s what makes me unequivocally qualified to say that he’s got no business asking anybody to marry him right now, let alone you.”

“What do you mean, let alone me?” I can feel tears brimming along the edges of my eyelashes. “What’s so wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you, Lizzie,” Chaz says in a gentler voice. “It’s just that you know what you want, and Luke doesn’t. You’re a star. And Luke’s not the kind of guy who’s going to hitch his wagon to a star. He still thinks he’s the star. And you can’t have two stars in one relationship. Somebody has to be willing to be the wagon… at least some of the time.”

“That’s not true,” I say, wiping my eyes with the back of one of my wrists. “Luke’s a star. He’s going to be a doctor. He’s going to save children’s lives one day.”

Chaz raises his gaze to the ceiling.

“The day Luke de Villiers ever actually becomes a doctor,” he says solemnly, “is the day I switch to light beer. For good.”

I glare at him. “Get out,” I say, pointing at the door. “I mean it. Just get out.”

Chaz stands up—then instantly looks as if he regrets it. Nevertheless, when he regains his balance, he says, with as much dignity as he can seem to muster, “You know what? Gladly.” He stalks out of the bedroom and into the living room, finding his coat on the floor where he’d dropped it the night before. He scoops it up—holding his head a bit woozily—then heads for the door.

“You’re making a big mistake, Lizzie,” he turns to say when he gets there… looking a little surprised when he finds me right behind him.

“No,” I shoot back, pressing my index finger against his sternum. “You are. Your best friend is getting married. You should be happy for him. And for me. Just because things didn’t work out for you and Shari—”

“Shari?” Chaz shakes his head in bewilderment. “This has nothing to do with Shari. It has to do with you and me.”

“You and me?” I let out a stunned bark of laughter. “There is no you and me.”

“That’s what you think,” Chaz says, tugging on his coat. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to wait around until you figure out that isn’t true.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’m not asking you to, am I?”

“No.” Chaz is smiling… but not like he’s happy. “But you would if you had the slightest idea what was good for you.”

And with that, he yanks open the door and storms through it, slamming it closed behind him with enough force to cause the windowpanes to rattle.

And then he’s gone.