Toying with the phone as if it would make the decision for her was pointless. There was nothing useful about it. She turned it in circles against the table, spinning it around with her index finger. That didn’t help. Flipping it over and looking at the butterfly print on the back of the case didn’t do much either. Pressing the button and seeing the picture of Drake kissing her cheek flash onscreen had no notable effect.

None of this stopped Reese from staring at it as if it could give her the answer she needed. Maybe the phone call was a bad idea? Or maybe she was being a drama queen. It was only an enquiry, after all. It was a question. It wasn’t a plan of action; it wasn’t a commitment to doing anything. It was dialling a number and letting it ring, that was all.

Finally she seized the phone in her hand, unlocked it and pulled up the contact before she could change her mind for the fiftieth time. It didn’t ring for very long before a familiar voice came down the line.

“Hey Reese!”

“Hey Sarah!” It was nice to hear somebody using a ‘pleased to hear from you’ tone. Most of her phone calls lately were to wedding suppliers who sounded like she was straining their patience. “How are you sweetie?”

“I’m great, just got into the office so I’m making coffee while my e-mails load. How about you, what you up to?”

“I’m on my lunch break, waiting for a friend and going through some wedding stuff. In fact isn’t it pretty late for you to be just getting into work?” Even with the time difference that seemed late. “Normally you’re there so early.”

“Hannigan’s just had knee surgery so he’s working from home a lot. I had to go there to meet with him first thing.”

“Oh wow, what did he do?”

“He was doing a 10k and tore his anterior something or other.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I told him exercise is bad for you. So anyway, how’s the big day shaping up? Not long to go!”

“It’s on track. Wish you guys could make the bachelorette though, at this rate I think it’s going to be just me and Nadine and my sister in law.”

“Yeah, me too.” Reese couldn’t see her, but Sarah was pouting at the other end of the phone while she was punching buttons on the espresso machine. “None of us could get the days. Oh well, we have the whole reception to party! Can’t wait to see your dress.”

When the lunch talk about her job had gone down like watching paint dry, Reese had quickly shifted gears to the wedding plans. It was a brilliant conversation booster when chat was running dry, she would miss that after the knot was tied. You could get a good half an hour or so out of it before you ran out of details to pick over.

“I can’t wait to see you guys either. Though, that wasn’t actually why I was calling.”

“Ulterior motive! And there was me thinking you missed me,” Sarah laughed. “Sure thing honey, what do you need?”

“Okay, so first I need you to swear that you will not say anything to anyone.”

“Well now I’m intrigued.”

“Seriously, Sarah,” Reese said as her fingers tapped against the side of her glass. “I don’t want anybody else hearing this and getting prematurely excited.”

“Oh my God!” Sarah let out the exclamation a bit too loud and then had to check around herself to make sure she hadn’t attracted attention. She hadn’t but lowered her voice anyway. “Are you pregnant?”

“No! God no!” She rushed to put down that rumour before it began. “I just wanted to ask if you’d do a little digging around for me and find out if there are any job openings.”

It was probably a good thing Sarah had made the pregnancy mistake; otherwise she’d have probably had the same reaction on hearing that question. It was out of her system now. That was a good thing too because she could immediately see why Reese wanted this kept quiet. If she told any of the other girls they’d probably get keyed up and assume it meant an imminent return to the area. Even so, she couldn’t help a little excited jitter in her stomach. It had been Sarah who originally directed Reese to the place, as she was one of the marketing executives there. She missed having her as a work buddy.

“Openings here or in general?”

“There would be great, but I know I kind of left them in the lurch so I wouldn’t count on that. And I’m not picky at this stage anyway; I just want to get a feel for what’s around.”

“Are you thinking about coming back?” It was an effort not to sound too eager.

“Purely speculative right now. I’m thinking about trying to get back in and there’s not a lot of opportunity in Tennessee. I mean, even if I do it still might not be LA, but figured I should put some feelers out.”

“Well, there’s nothing here right this second, but the way Mendoza is going through them? I’d be generous if I gave the latest one another month before she quits or he fires her.”

That name wasn’t familiar to her, so she supposed he was new. “Is he that bad?”

“Doesn’t suffer fools but no worse than any of the others. I think we just need to change agencies again - we moved to this new place to try and reduce fees, but nobody they’ve sent us has been any good so far. Which…” Sarah trailed off in a tantalising pause, ready to drop some honeyed encouragement. “I actually think that would work in your favour if you applied, because a known entity would look pretty good to them after all this hassle. Think it would balance out any damage from you leaving so abruptly before, so if you were going to do it  then now would probably be the most opportune time.”

It was almost as if Reese could hear the cogs starting to turn in her own head. They sounded a little creaky but they were definitely firing up.  

“Thanks, sweetie, that’s good to know. Can you keep an ear out for me?”

“Course I will. Listen, I got to run because I have some meeting prep to do but if I don’t speak to you before I’ll see you at the church.”

“Thanks honey. You can’t miss me; I’m the one in the big white dress.”

“Ha ha! Love you, see you soon.”

“Love ya too, bye.”

Reese tossed her phone on the table and picked her pen back up, tapping it against her folder. Her trusty wedding organiser had been open in front of her for some time now and she’d been ignoring it. If she hadn’t been distracted by the phone she’d been distracted by people watching. Sitting outside was terrible for making her procrastinate – far more fun to observe people going by and dream up elaborate stories of what they were doing with their days. Picking up her tea to take a sip, it occurred to her that her food should have got there by now. How long did it take to toast some cheese and ladle out some soup?

She didn’t have much time to think about it, however, as she caught sight of Justin walking down the street. He was carrying bags and they were clinking suspiciously, so she guessed he’d been to the liquor store.

“Hey you,” he said as he stopped at the table. His handsome face was arranged in a genial smile, and he sounded cheerful.

“Hey yourself.” Reese still felt a little too anxious around him to match his smile, but nonetheless it was an improvement on previous occasions. The fear was more reflexive than anything at this point, an echo of previous unpleasantness. She didn’t expect him to be rude any more but her defensive instincts hadn’t quite caught up.

“I always wondered how a place selling hot drinks made any money in the South outside of winter.” He nodded towards the sign when he reached her. It designated the place as an English tea shop. “They just dump a bunch of ice in it instead, huh?” He gestured to her drink.

“Pretty much. Though I don’t even think the English drink iced tea, do they?”

“Nope, just hot. They look at you like you’re some kind of freak if you ask.” Justin spoke from experience. As he glanced down at her drink he saw the binder spread out before her. “Busy with the big day, huh?”

He inwardly applauded himself for that performance. The voice remained light, the demeanour relaxed and the face nonchalant. The other thing he was congratulating himself for was the way she had responded to his friendly overtures in kind. Apparently she meant it when she said they were okay now. The talk in the hut had felt like a death knell but he must have said something right, so he would allow himself some small measure of kudos. It was only a small one, however, in case he got too overconfident and scared her back off again. As personality traits went his innate cockiness worked great for his stage persona but was more of a flaw in delicate situations.

“I’m supposed to be.”

“Supposed to… procrastinating, huh?”

“Couple of other things on my mind. One of which I wanted to talk to you about, actually, did you hear back from your publicist?”

“Okay… if we need to chat do you mind if I sit down for a second? Bags are killing me.”

There was brief hesitation. Were there still cameras around, should she be worried about being seen with him? She shook it off. “Sure.”

Eagerly Justin sat down, very pleased to be able to set the bags aside. He’d bought some bottles of locally distilled bourbon as a thank you to take back to LA for some people. This would have been no issue if he hadn’t been forced to park so far from the store. Naively he’d presumed it would be fine. He worked out, he did weights - they couldn’t be that heavy right? It was flawed thinking and his arms were now burning as punishment. The bag handles had left indents in his fingers.

“So did you?” Reese asked, picking up her tea and taking a sip through the straw.

“Yes, and they haven’t heard anything,” Justin said. Reaching into one of the bags, he pulled out the soda he’d bought and guiltily checked for any nearby waiting staff before opening it.

“Huh.” She leaned back in her chair, lips curling to one side in contemplation. “I would have expected them to publish by now if they were going to. But then I can’t imagine if they sent somebody all the way out here that they’re not going to.”

“I ran over it with Johnny and his best guess is that it’s not a breaking headline, somebody’s just picked up on the wedding and they’re going to do some puff piece about me moping or whatever.” He shrugged. “Whatever it is nobody can see that it’s anything that’ll impact you. I asked if they thought someone might try to intrude at the wedding, but nobody thought so since clearly I’m not going to be there.”

Even though she knew what he meant by that and he wasn’t being at all accusing (as if he would ever expect an invitation), the sentence still hung for a second. He could be as neutral as they came but it was inevitably awkward.

“Okay, cool. Thanks for checking.”

“No problem, anything you need.” He took a breath for a moment, pondering whether to try and keep up some small talk or not. Thus far this encounter seemed healthy and cordial, so he didn’t want to push it, but then he didn’t want to waste it while it lasted either. “So what else was distracting you?”

“Well…” How much did she really want to say about it? “I was rethinking my career situation. No point doing anything until after the wedding but I’m ready for a job change.”

“Oh. Well that’s cool.” Justin was a little surprised. Last he’d heard she was ready to give work up and become a baby machine. “What you thinking of?”

“Something like my last one? I don’t know, I haven’t got any further than ‘God I want a new job’ in the whole thing.”

That was even more of a surprise. A hopeful little voice in the back of his mind wanted to believe this had something to do with the things he’d said to her, but asking her was a no go.

“You might struggle if you’re going to be based in Shelby.” Little did he know that he was in agreement with his enemy by saying so.

“I know. Like I said, I barely started thinking about it let alone planning.”

Even if he had felt it a ripe time to ask why she was even thinking about it, that thought was quickly curtailed. Behind Reese he saw a familiar flash of red hair and knew that the amiable atmosphere was about to come to an abrupt end. She had seen him too, and was already marching over.

“Excuse you, jackass, you’re in my chair.”

“Hi Nadine,” he said wearily. “How are you?”

“I’ll be better when you push off and stop harassing my friend.”

“He’s not harassing me Nade. I invited him to sit down.” Reese’s elbow propped on the table and she rested her chin in her hand with a resigned huff. Her shoulders were tensed, her whole body anticipating the diatribe that was about to hit.

“In God’s name why? Did you hit your head or something?”

Justin eyeballed Reese, who was looking twitchy yet defiant, and a smirk played at the edge of his lips. It would have provoked Nadine further so he fought it back. More than once she’d told him how much she hated his ‘smug face’ so looking too much like he was gloating was not a good idea. Normally he wouldn’t care if he aggravated her, since she was always equally belligerent towards him, but she was much higher up Reese’s list than him right now. There was no point picking a losing fight.

“I take it you didn’t tell her,” he said. It was not a question.

“Tell me what?”

Now Nadine’s stern glare had fixed on her not him. Reese squeezed her eyes shut. Then she could pretend that if she couldn’t see her best pal she wasn’t there and wouldn’t get pissed off by what she was about to say.

“Justin and I…”

She didn’t get any further. “Justin and you? Like there is any Justin and you?”

“Nadine!” Reese exclaimed.

“Well there’s not, is there, since he went and…”

“I didn’t forget, thank you!” She was shrill and Justin cringed in response. He’d prefer it if she would forget. “We got talking over the trip and we agreed that the arguing was dumb, so we’re making an effort to get along. Which means NOT picking a fight with him in the street if you wouldn’t mind.”

“What, because he’s been so restrained about picking fights?”

“I know. I’m working on it,” he tried to assure her.

“And what, you want a cookie? For the rest of us it’s basic expected behaviour.”

“Nade, you need to can it,” Reese said.

Something about the exchange awoke her stubborn streak. Nadine had no say in who she spoke to. The enmity between her and Justin was long standing and the tally of immature behaviour even on both sides, but on this occasion it was solely her being combative.

“He was extremely generous to me when he didn’t have to be and he’s been perfectly pleasant since. It’s none of your business whether or not I choose to be civil with him but it’s a lot easier for me, so please just save it. I’m not asking you to be friends with him.”

“But you’re friends with him? After all that crap he said?”

“It’s complicated. Whatever, hostilities have ceased and I don’t need you reopening them.”

“It’s alright, I need to get going.” Justin thought he should leave while Reese was still on his side. Nadine was unlikely to let this drop and there would only be so long he could take it before things got ugly. It would be hard to convince Reese that he wasn’t some petty asshole while trading shots. “Rest assured I’m leaving Sunday anyway so you won’t have to worry about me stealing your seat any more.”

“You are?” Reese asked.

“Yeah. Was supposed to be here longer but stuff’s popping back up in LA and there’s no point in me coming back and forth like this.”

That was true, but apart from anything else he had come to a decision. Although he’d thought long and hard about what Steve had said to him, ultimately Justin felt he had to be guided by Reese on this one. She was getting married. Said marriage was already a million times closer to happening than theirs ever got. The last thing he wanted was to jeopardise whatever he could get back for something that he couldn’t. She had taken any romantic reconciliation off the table when she put that little gold ring on her finger. He hadn’t shown that choice much respect up until now and it hadn’t deterred her, so it seemed to Justin like he was better off giving up the ghost and trying to rebuild their friendship. Maybe now there was at least some prospect of that, it would help him get over her romantically.

“Oh dear. What a shame.”

“I’ll miss you too, Red.” He rolled his eyes, scraping back the chair and standing up. “Reese, I’ll let you know if I hear anything else from the publicist.”

“Thank you Justin.” Reese pointedly glared at Nadine after she said it. As Justin walked away with his bags she slid into the vacated seat, folded her arms and glared straight back. She remained unrepentant.

“You’re out of your mind.”

“You’re out of line.”

“I was the one who had to mop up the mess.”

“No, I was the one who had to get through all of it - and as that person I’m fine with it. So if you don’t have anything nice to say about the fact that he’s finally trying to be an adult, then zip it.”

Any further comment her friend had been about to make was mercifully derailed by the late arrival of her tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwich.

**

Drake wished he’d never stopped to watch that stupid show.

He hadn’t intended to. There was no normal circumstance under which he would. He’d got home from his shift and Reese wasn’t back from work yet, so he had cleaned up and dropped onto the couch. The next move had been channel surfing, looking for something he could stare at and shut his brain off for. He had been flipping aimlessly through when he’d heard his fiancée’s name. Wouldn’t anyone stop to watch if they heard their wife-to-be mentioned on primetime television? It was his big mistake.

There was nobody to blame but himself, because he’d gone in with his eyes wide open. He knew that her most recent ex was an A-list celebrity. Logic dictated that any time she was mentioned on an entertainment network it was something to do with the ex. Common sense similarly dictated that no good could ever come out of knowing too much about your partner’s former love life. He knew that they had been engaged and he knew they’d known each other since they were kids, knew it had been serious, but that was as much as he did know or wanted to know. Reese had said and he’d agreed that it was better not to dwell on each other’s pasts. He should have stuck to that, because now there was a deeply annoying gnawing sensation in his chest.

People had asked him before how he coped with knowing she’d dated a millionaire previously. He’d meant it when he shrugged and said it made no difference. Everybody had an ex somewhere. He didn’t care if anybody had more money than him. Why should he? He was secure in his life; it’d never make him rich, but it would make him happy. Who cared what some former guy had? She was with him now. By all accounts they were much further en route to the altar than she and the ex had ever got anyway.

That was easy to say when it was purely academic. Now, confronted with the past, he had to put his money where his mouth was.

It had been a short spiel about a forthcoming magazine story. The feature was going to be about Timberlake and how cut up he supposedly was over the upcoming nuptials. That didn’t bother Drake. Reese had warned him how little of the gossip turned out to be factual, and even if the guy was pining it didn’t affect the outlook for the soon to be Mr and Mrs Turner. A bit of press attention was easy to ignore.

What bothered him was watching footage of them. He’d never been tempted before; clearly that had been wise, because this was crazy inducing. There was his Reese, all dressed up to the nines at various award shows and looking lovingly at some other guy.

Of course they cherry picked the happy footage. He understood that. They were playing up the fairytale aspect of childhood sweethearts to go with the story. He knew that in real life people didn’t wear glossy smiles and stare adoringly at each other all the time. Knowing that didn’t stop the image being effective. She looked so glamorous and elegant she was almost like a stranger. Worse, she looked infatuated with the man next to her. Drake could only hope that was how footage of him and her would look if anybody bothered to take any.

Watching some other guy’s eyes all over his woman similarly stirred up antipathy, even though he knew begrudging it was illogical. There was also candid footage of them kissing, talking, holding hands. It all drew together as one irritating portrait of love and happiness. It was probably bugging him so much because it didn’t fit his previous ideas; even when avoiding the topic he had still managed to form an impression of what happened. It had been subconscious, but he now realised the acrimonious break up allowed him to form a picture of an unhappy couple - one which wasn’t going to work and left the way conveniently free and clear for him. Clearly that hadn’t been the reality. 

Hearing the comments was worse.

“For me I’m with somebody who’s been my best friend since we were knee high, so that’s a good foundation. Knowing each other that well is a powerful thing to have.”

“Well, I mean, it’s not like I specifically sit down and think ‘oh I’m going to write a song about her’… but then I guess by the same token when you write you’re drawing from what you know, and she is what I know. So in that respect I guess you could argue that any love song I write ultimately ties back at least a little, even when I’m putting on a character and telling a totally different story. I guess it’s just that point of reference, you know, and then as a writer you find some place else to take it.”

“Honestly, I’ve felt married to her for an age anyway. At this stage it’s just filing paperwork!”

From the dates on some of the footage whatever happened had been fast moving and sudden, not the result of a gradual breakdown. That bothered Drake. The speed at which he and Reese went from meeting to engagement had never been cause for concern for him – when it felt right it felt right. The idea that it was so soon after she’d looked at some other guy like that was harder to stomach.

It wasn’t her fault. He was being paranoid and he knew it. She’d chosen him and the life they had planned (which comfortingly was a far cry from the one on the TV screen). Clearly it all had little to do with the present day Reese and what she wanted. What she wanted was him, there was a ring on her finger to prove it, and he should put her ex back out of his mind. This overanalysing only went to prove exactly why they’d been right to take the attitude they did to each other’s pasts. Nothing but irrational jealousy would follow and that wasn’t worth it.

Knowing that did not help shut up the reel of Justin Timberlake quotes currently playing in his head.