Chapter 8
"You're looking awfully pleased with yourself this morning," Jason muttered, sliding onto a stool beside her at the counter inside Kelly's.
"What is that supposed to imply, Morgan?" she asked, tipping her head in his direction as she sipped her fresh cup of coffee.
"I still don't know what you're up to," he replied, shaking his head at her as he slipped his arm over the back of her stool.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," she murmured, taking a bite of her French toast and grinning at him with a full mouth.
She knew he couldn't possibly be addressing all the time she'd spent with Lulu in the last week. The hours were long and hard, but something told her in the end that the pay off would be worth it.
"I haven't seen you in four days," he said, nodding a thank you to Georgie as she filled his cup. "I practically had to twist your arm to get you to meet me this morning."
"I'm planning a wedding," she reminded him, shoving another bite of French toast into her mouth, mostly to try and focus on something else than the need to upchuck, which usually followed the words, 'I'm planning a wedding.'
She was.
Planning a wedding that is, only it wasn't her's. She was picking out flowers and place holders and fonts, all things that Lulu couldn't seem to care less about. She was too busy being caught up in the idea that she was going to marry the love-of-her-life – correction, the love of Elizabeth Webber's life – to really give a damn about the preparations.
Instead the blonde would get to enjoy the orchids, the cream-colored place holders and invitations with the ministry script font, all the while being completely oblivious because she was too caught up in the depth of Johnny O'Brien's gorgeous, brown eyes.
God, Elizabeth hated her more and more with every passing day.
"What's wrong?" Jason asked, leaning over to jab at a piece of her French toast with his fork.
"Nothing," she replied, smoothing her napkin over her lap. "I'm planning my best friend's wedding. It's what he wanted."
"I don't think that's what he meant when he asked you to be friends with her," he pointed out, taking another bite and attempting to go for a third, but she glared at him and he backed off.
"Well, she asked for help, so I'm giving it," she said, balling her napkin up and tossing it down on her plate. "What else am I supposed to do?"
He clenched his jaw in annoyance, and she knew it was because she'd stopped him from eating her food, and then decided she didn't want it either. It was just a habit that he should have known by now.
"I'm not trying to upset you," he muttered, shifting to pull a money clip from the pocket of his jeans. He tossed a twenty down on the counter and shifted his eyes to her's. "I just think you need to stop before you get ahead of yourself. The only person you're going to hurt is yourself."
She cleared her throat and looked down at her half-empty cup of coffee, not really sure how to reply. She couldn't exactly tell Jason that she was working on a plan that would ensure the happy couple never made it down the aisle. He would have looked down on her for such a thing and tried to put a stop to her lovesick madness, but little did he know that she was already hard at work.
Four days ago, Elizabeth had sat in this very diner with Lulu and a stack of bridal magazines that she'd dug out from under a pile of clothes in her living room. The blonde had giggled at the thought of Elizabeth having a subscription to nearly every bridal publication that existed, and she briefly contemplated beating her over the head with the stack of magazines.
"I just can't thank you enough for being such a good friend," Lulu cooed over and over constantly, as she flipped through the magazines.
"Friend," she croaked in response, the word fumbling around awkwardly on her tongue. She couldn't remember the last time she'd talked to a girl that wasn't some tramp one of the boys had lugged home, let alone actually befriend a person with the same anatomy as her.
"My best friend, Sam, would have loved to be here for this, but she's so busy," she clucked happily, as if enjoying the fact that her supposed best friend wouldn't be there for one of the most important days of her life. "Besides, I have you, so what else do I need?"
Face it, when the blonde wanted to lay it on, it was no other way but thick and heavy, so much that it practically drowned Elizabeth in the chair where she sat.
"You could hire a wedding planner," she offered, telling herself to keep as much distance from the actual planning as possible. It was bad enough to befriend Lulu, and she refused to be a total masochist.
"But you know so much," she replied, motioning around at the stack of magazines that Elizabeth now had the strong desire to burn. "And honestly, I don't want to think about all the little things. I just want to marry John. All of this means nothing next to him."
"You didn't dream about your wedding as a little girl?" she couldn't help but ask, recalling several instances where the boys teased her when she would talk about how her wedding would rival Cinderella's.
"I sort of grew up around fashion," Lulu said nonchalantly, frowning at an overdressed bride on one of the pages. "I never really cared about dressing up or dressing down. I mean, I dress well, or I like to think I do, but that's only at my mother's doing. She always said a lady should be presentable." She closed the magazine and pulled another from the stack. "Though I'd much rather walk around in jeans and a dirty t-shirt like you."
Elizabeth knew she hadn't meant the comment to be mean, but she refused to take in another way. "Well, we can't all afford to dress in clothing straight off the runways."
"Believe me," she muttered under her breath, "it's not all that it's cracked up to be."
Three days ago, after heavy contemplation, Elizabeth decided to throw all caution to the wind and get her hands dirty. She'd gone as far as to do research on the young woman's life, and she'd even typed in tips for breaking up a couple into Google, which she blamed that long lost computer geek for. He was always telling her that the web had everything, and surprisingly it did, making her more determined than ever to see if the break up tips actually worked.
God, she was growing more and more pathetic by the day, especially considering she'd rather have Jason think she was Googling desk chair sex, than How To Get A Guy To Break Up With His Girlfriend And Go Out With You. She didn't necessarily want Johnny to go out with her, since he seemed to believe that ship had long ago sailed. She just wanted him away from her.
"Good morning," Lulu called out, breezing into the diner, looking like she stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine in her pressed sundress and manicured hands.
"Morning," she replied, suddenly feeling underdressed in her yoga pants and tank top.
"So, what's our plan for today? We haven't decided on much and-"
"I want to know about you," Elizabeth interrupted, the words coming out slow and somewhat distorted. It was a difficult admission at best.
"Me?" she asked, placing her hand on her chest and giving her a bemused smile.
"Yes, I mean, you are marrying my best friend," she cooed happily, her stomach churning all the while. "And I just want to know the…good stuff."
"Good stuff," she echoed, clearly unsure about what the brunette actually meant. "Like sex?"
Elizabeth nearly spit out her coffee, which would have been amusing to see splattered across the front of the blonde's white dress. "Um, not exactly," she coughed, smacking her hand against her chest, not sure if she would ever recover from this moment.
"Does that make you uncomfortable?" she laughed, handing Elizabeth a napkin. "I know he's your best friend and all that, but my best friend growing up was a boy, and well….Oh, never mind."
"You had a best friend that was guy?" Elizabeth asked teasingly, knowing that some kind of past with a boy could be beneficial.
"In high school," she replied, casting her eyes down to her lap. "I really did like him, but of course, he never saw me that way."
"Oh, I doubt that," she said, almost following with a compliment, but she just couldn't muster one up on an empty stomach.
"He was a really nice boy," Lulu sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear as her face filled with nostalgia.
"How did you meet him?" Elizabeth asked, finding it hard not to be genuinely interested when it seemed to stir something inside the young woman.
"Primary school," she replied, a faint smile on her face. "It's funny, isn't it?" She shifted her eyes to Elizabeth's. "We spend so much of our life with one person, and then suddenly they're just…gone."
"What happened?" she asked, twirling one of her chocolate curls mindlessly around her finger.
"We just grew up and grew apart, like people do. Lucky for you, your boys seemed to stay close," Lulu answered, shrugging as she reached across the table for Elizabeth's in progress list. Her eyes scanned over the page. "I think orchids would be best, and I do like the ministry font." She grinned, dropping the pad of paper to the table. "You're really good at all of this."
Two days ago, Elizabeth realized that her attempt to dig into Lulu's past had failed miserably. While a past flame, some hot and tawdry affair would have been a great discovery, she found herself incapable of prying, thus leaving only one option.
"So, aside from this perfectly crafted story about meeting at the Eifel Tower, how did you really meet Johnny?" Elizabeth asked, as they sat on the terrace outside the diner, amidst yet another stack of magazines.
Lulu glanced up at her with surprise, and she couldn't decide if the blonde was shocked that Elizabeth wanted to know or if there was something more to the story. She stiffened in her chair and swallowed hard, cementing the fact that there was definitely something more.
"Well, he met with a friend of my father's regarding business," she murmured, choosing her words carefully as she continued to browse through the magazine. "My father went golfing one day and met John. He invited the two of them over for dinner the same day, he and I met and it was a disaster."
"How so?" she inquired, trying not to enjoy that the happy Paris façade was fading.
"He was drunk and crude, tried to cop a feel on me halfway through the cheese plate," she replied, shaking her head in disgust. "I'd never been so upset with someone before, and once we were out of everyone else's earshot, I told him exactly what I thought about him."
She grunted, completely amused. "Something tells me he didn't like that." He surely wouldn't appreciate a woman telling him like it is.
"Of course not," Lulu snorted. "He called me an uptight ice queen and said that I should be honored that Johnny O'Brien wanted to take me for a ride."
"What did you do?' Elizabeth asked, not surprised by Johnny's antics. He'd said a hell of a lot worse to women in the past.
"I smacked him," she replied seriously, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment at the confession, "which is something I never do. I'm not violent or mean like that, but it was just awful. Who says something like that to someone?"
She nodded, finding it impossible to fight her on that remark, even if it was a blatant jab at Johnny. Elizabeth never knew what to say when he would act like that. It was so different from the Johnny that she knew, and he would break a guy's hand if they ever said such a thing to her.
"Anyway, I was appalled, but I didn't tell anyone. I was too embarrassed," she continued, shaking her head sadly. "A couple of weeks later, I ran into him at the Eifel Tower. He was really drunk and in need of a friend, so I turned the other cheek. I have no idea why, but I just felt…Like he needed me."
"Needed you?"
"He was drunk and homesick and complaining about his friends and how things had changed," she replied, looking at Elizabeth as if she still didn't know what any of it meant. "I just listened. And then when he sobered up, I took him back to his hotel room and cleaned him up. Again, I have no idea why, but something about him…"
She laughed, combing a hand through her straight blonde hair. "You know when you asked about him and me….Well, it's like he's so scattered and confused, and I'm so together and focused…Even though he really tipped the scale at our initial meeting, it was like we found balance that day. Ever since then, I've tried to just keep him together, which means little booze and keeping that wandering eye under control."
She nibbled her lip and gave Elizabeth a serious look. "Please don't ever tell him I told you this. He would be so embarrassed…I should have never said anything. I just-"
"It's okay," Elizabeth replied, holding up her hand to shush her. "I won't." And something told her as much as she disliked Lulu, it was a secret she would keep.
Frowning, she leaned across the counter to grab a pot of coffee to refill her cup. The diner was fairly busy, and the last thing she wanted to do was nag Georgie for coffee refills. Jason had left nearly a half hour ago, leaving one last scolding glare behind him.
She knew he was only trying to look out for her, to keep her from hurting herself any more than she already was, but it only frustrated her more. Jason had always protected her. Before the accident and even after, when he was still unsure of her presence in his life, but sometimes she felt caged, like he didn't thinks he capable of doing things on her own. Granted, nine times out of ten, when he warned her, she usually fucked up miserably and he was there in a heartbeat to clean it up.
Sighing, she pushed her untouched coffee away and leaned against the back of her stool.
More than anything, she guessed she just wanted to prove him wrong. She wasn't an idiot, and she'd seen the way Jason looked at her during the last year. She knew he noticed how she broke a little more each time Johnny extended his overseas trip, and how pathetic he surely believed she was for holding onto one night of groping like teenagers in a dirty, dusty, old art studio. She had various suitors all over town but no one was Johnny O'Brien, and she just didn't want to settle for less.
"You're going to be late for work," Jason murmured, coming up behind her. He grabbed her stool and spun it around so that she was facing him. "You're gonna be okay, Webber."
She almost believed him when he said it. "I hope you didn't come all the way back here to build up my ego," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Why in the hell would I do that?" he asked, leaning around her to grab something from the counter. He waved his cell phone at her, giving her a long look.
"Jason, don't do this," she sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. "I don't want to hear about how I'm going to make a mess, and I need to let it go."
"I wasn't going to," he said, turning her stool to face the counter as he sat down beside her. "I made it to the warehouse before I realized I didn't have my phone."
"Yeah?"
"I ran into Johnny outside my office," he continued, shaking his head at her while a grin tugged at his lips. "I hear you and Lulu were doing laundry together last night."
"You're such an asshole," she groaned, smacking him on the arm. "She was whining about doing laundry at the hotel."
"I'm an asshole?" he asked, placing a hand on his chest. "You're the one that tossed three pairs of red socks in with her whites."