Amy Vastine - The Best Laid Plans

The closer she got, the warmer he felt. He practiced greeting her in his head, trying to sound cool. Then she smiled and he lost the ability to speak.

“Hey, Charlie. What’s up, Diane?”

The sound of his name coming from her lips was magic. He wanted to sweep her up in his arms and hear her say it again, breathlessly this time.

“Why didn’t you tell me your sister is getting married?”

Emma glanced at Charlie, who could only grin like an idiot. She spoke to Diane. “I don’t think I’ve had a minute to talk about it with you. But I see it’s already ER gossip.”

“He wasn’t gossiping,” Diane said in his defense. “Charlie was just telling me how he’s the best man.”

Those eyes that were this mesmerizing mix of brown and green fell back on him. “Max asked you to be the best man?”

This was when Charlie wanted words to come out of his mouth, but all he could do was nod. She had this way of turning him into a mute.

“Huh.” She smiled and said, “Well, you better start writing a fabulous best man’s speech because the maid-of-honor one is going to be pretty awesome.”

No doubt she would knock it out of the park. She exuded a confidence that had to come from being successful at a thing or two.

“I’ll do that,” he said, knowing full well he’d wing it when the time came.

“Good. I’ll see you around.”

She started to go and Charlie panicked. “Nightingale, hold up.”

She stopped and her eyebrows arched while she waited for him to continue.

He didn’t have anything else to say. His mind went blank, then filled with things he couldn’t possibly do. He wanted to take her by the hand and pull her out of this busy hospital. He wanted to walk the city’s streets and find out what she loved about it. He wanted to know what she put on her hot dog and who she thought had the best pizza.

“Did you want something or are you planning on just smiling at me like that? Because it’s borderline creepy and I really need to get back to work.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

Charlie felt himself smile bigger. “Do you want to meet up sometime?”

“What?” Emma and Diane said at the same time.

“I mean, I heard you were planning the wedding, and I thought, since I’m the best man and you’re the maid of honor, maybe we could get together and talk about what would make Kendall and Max happy.”

Emma’s chin dropped. “You want to help plan my sister’s wedding?”

She made that idea sound weird. He didn’t want to seem weird. So he shifted the blame. “Max asked me to talk to you. I think he wants to make sure he has some say in all of this.”

“He thinks I’m not going to include him? I plan on checking with both of them before I do anything,” she said defensively, stepping back in his direction. “It’s their wedding. Of course he’ll have a say.”

Charlie wanted to kick himself for offending her. He tried again to backpedal. “No, of course he thinks you’ll involve him. I think he thought...I think we both thought it would be nice of me to help you out so you didn’t have to do it all on your own.”

Emma smiled, hopefully because she thought he was endearing and not a moron. “That’s really sweet, but I have it all under control.” Again, she started to leave.

“I have a few ideas, though.” He had no ideas, but desperation took over. Who knew getting her to agree to one meeting would be so tough. He watched as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Was he annoying her? That was the last thing he wanted.

“I’m off tomorrow.”

Relief flooded his body. “Me, too,” he said, barely believing his luck.

“I’ll be in touch, then.”

“Perfect.”

“Fletcher,” Serena said as she came back into the ER. “We have to go.”

He acknowledged her with a nod before smiling at a retreating Emma. “See you tomorrow, Nightingale.”

CHAPTER THREE

EMMA WENT STRAIGHT to Kendall’s house after work, hoping her sister would have an explanation for her fiancé’s distrust. Did Max really think she wasn’t going to plan a wedding with both him and Kendall in mind? He really thought he needed to send his best man to watch over her?

She knocked but walked in before anyone could answer. “Anybody home?” she shouted from the foyer. Kendall’s house was Emma’s home away from home. It was a cozy little two-story that, thanks to Kendall, was always warm and inviting.

Simon came running from the family room. “Aunt Emma, guess what?” His sock feet caused him to slide across the wooden floor when he tried to stop.

She put her hands out to catch him before he ran into her. “What?”

He smiled and she could see that one of his front teeth was growing in and one had just fallen out. The kid had a constant gap. “At school today, I got to say the Pledge of Allegiance over the intercom.”

“You did?”

Simon nodded proudly. “The principal said I did such a good job, I can do it every Monday if I want.”

“That is so cool.” It was more than cool, but it was a rule not to freak out too much when Simon spoke in public. He suffered from an anxiety disorder called selective mutism, which made it difficult for him to speak to or in front of other people. He went to a therapeutic school that had been helping him immensely. Every day Kendall said she saw improvements.

“Want to see what I drew at school? Mom said we can frame it.”

“Of course I do.” Emma took his hand and was dragged back to the kitchen where Kendall was cleaning up dinner.

“Hey, there,” Kendall said, drying the dishes. “If I knew you were coming over, I would have saved you a plate. You want me to heat something up?”

Emma waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. I ate on my break. I heard someone got to say the Pledge at school today.”

Pride shone in Kendall’s eyes. “I heard that, too.”

“Look at my picture,” Simon said, recapturing her attention and handing her his drawing. In colored pencil, he had sketched a heartwarming picture of his soon-to-be family. There were Max and Kendall, holding hands with each other and with their respective sons. Simon had paid careful attention to the details, even giving Max the five-o’clock shadow the man was so fond of. Her nephew was extremely talented for his young age and so much like his mother. Kendall had always been the most creative member of the family, painting masterpieces at Simon’s age. Emma’s artistic ability was limited to being able to stay within the lines of her coloring books.

“This is a beautiful picture of your family, buddy. No wonder Mom wants to frame it.”

Simon took the paper back. “I’m gonna take a picture with the iPad and send it to Max so he can see it now.”

“Remember he’s at work,” Kendall called after him as he raced out of the room. “If he doesn’t text back, it’s because he’s busy. Don’t send a million texts!” She finished putting the last dish away and turned to her sister. “One night, he texted Max something like a hundred times. Most were just Max’s name over and over. Max got back to his office and saw all these texts from our house. He didn’t read back far enough to see it was just Simon, so he called here in a panic because he was worried something was wrong. I was putting Simon to bed and didn’t answer the phone. Max assumed the worst, left work, came here and scared the crap out of me by busting into the house screaming for me and Simon.”

Emma laughed. “Whoops.”

“Yeah.” Kendall chuckled, too. “At least I know he really cares, right?”

“Speaking of Max caring, what’s up with him sending his best man to spy on my wedding planning?”

“What?” Kendall seemed genuinely surprised.