Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection by Violet Duke Page B

and Nick, slipped into her car and sped away.
    “Hey, my sporting man,” Nick said. “Glad you’re finally here. Over two hours with the Gretch and I’m sick to death of hearing about reality TV shows and couples falling in love on islands in the Carrib—”
    Gretchen gave him a powerful slug in the arm.
    “Ow.” Nick glared at her. “I totally hate it when you do that.”
    “And I ‘totally hate it’ when you shoot your big mouth off without so much as a thought passing through that sports-festering brain,” she said, thrusting her ice cream scoop into a water bucket and wiping her fingers with a paper towel. Then she kissed Nick on the cheek. “Good thing I love you anyway,” she told the young man as she reached for her handbag. “Where’s Elizabeth? Did she leave already?”
    “Yeah, I think so,” Rob said.
    “Were you nice to her?” she asked, giving him a threatening look.
    He swallowed. “I tried to be.”
    Gretchen grinned. “Okay, then.” She turned toward Nick. “In that case, you can talk about sports with Rob.”
    “Like I need your permission ,” Nick said, but he blew her an air kiss.
    She waved goodbye to Nick and surprised Rob by winking in his direction on her way out. This was one weird crowd Elizabeth hung with. But, he had to admit, they were growing on him.
     
    * * * * *
     
    “THE GUY’S DEMENTED!” Gretchen shrieked on the phone when Elizabeth explained what had transpired over the past two and a half hours. “And you’re going along with this? Someone ought to knock some sense into that—”
    “Listen, Gretch, this was, without a doubt, one of Rob’s least stellar ideas, but what could I do? His mother is this warm, jovial Italian lady who hums Madonna’s ‘Lucky Star’ while she’s buttering her garlic bread. I just couldn’t make a scene in her home tonight. Not after she’d been so welcoming to me.”
    Gretchen harrumphed on the line. “But you can’t possibly continue with this charade for four weeks, can you?”
    Elizabeth sighed. “I doubt it. Actually, I doubt Rob will want me to. I’m betting he’ll find someone to date for real within the week, and then this whole agreement will be history. Plus, I think his brother’s on to us. But, for now, I might as well make the most of the extra writing time he’s giving me.”
    “You’re really okay?” her friend asked.
    “Yeah. I’m okay,” she said, collapsing into a chair and marveling at how quickly she’d grown accustomed to lying.
     
    * * * * *
     
    THE NEXT DAY at eleven a.m., after four straight hours of morning typing—preceded by six hours of restless sleep spent dreaming about Rob and typing, and four hours of late-night typing the day before—Elizabeth decided it was high time she took a break and peeked in on the happenings at Tutti-Frutti. Just long enough to make sure everything was running smoothly, she told herself.
    But, of course, with Rob in charge, nothing was running according to her version of “smoothly.”
    Loud music greeted her ears as she pulled into a nearby parking space.
    People jammed their bodies against the windows, gawking at something inside the shop and pausing to laugh.
    A line snaked its way through the doorway, passed the hedges, across the sidewalk and close to the street.
    Elizabeth held her breath and plunged into the mayhem. What she saw stopped her in her sneakers.
    For the first time in the shop’s forty-year history, there were jugglers—that’s right, more than one —making spectacles of themselves by spinning, twirling, throwing and catching colorful beanbag ice cream cones, all to the amazement and delight of the gathering Wilmington Bay crowd. It was all she could do to push her way passed the horde and begin hunting for the Gabinarri responsible for this mess.
    “Th-This is crazy. What are all these people doing ins-s-side?” she hissed in Rob’s ear as he put a swirl of whipped cream on a chocolate malt.
    “Having fun is not crazy.