Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot Page B

tail off for that guy. That place is doing twice as much business now because of you!”
    It’s a lot more than that, really, as Madame Henri herself said. But I don’t correct him. “Well,” I say instead. “Anyway. I’m sure it will all be fine. He’s just still adjusting to life as a recent bypass patient, you know.”
    “Well, he has some nerve,” Luke says. “Anyway, I’m calling with good news. Something that should cheer you up.”
    “Really?” I can’t think what he could be talking about. “I’m all ears!”
    “Today’s my last day of classes—”
    “That is good news,” I say. No more going off by himself to study! No more weekend trips to the library! Not, of course, that this had bothered me too much at the time (except for the whole Is-there-another-woman? thing) because the few weekends Luke wasn’t studying, I’d been busy working on bridal gowns. In fact, I’d been sort of glad he’d been so preoccupied with his schoolwork. What kind of guy wants to hear, Oh, I can’t, honey. I have to finish the neckline on this mermaid gown by Monday every time he asks his fiancée if she can go away for the weekend?
    Fortunately, this was never an issue with Luke and me. Because he never asked me to go away for the weekend. Because he was always busy too.
    “And I thought I’d take you out to dinner to celebrate,” he goes on. “Someplace downtown. We spend so much time eating takeout uptown, I don’t think I can handle it anymore.”
    “That sounds fun,” I say excitedly. “I can take the subway down and meet you.”
    “That’s what I was thinking,” Luke says. “We can meet at Chaz’s place.”
    My heart sinks immediately. This is so not what I’d had in mind.
    “Chaz?” I say. “Really? You invited Chaz along too?”
    I set my jaw. The truth is, I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect of seeing Chaz. Not, of course, that there’s ever been a repeat of anything like what happened in the back of that taxi on the way home from Jill Higgins’s wedding. Chaz hasn’t even made any more baited remarks like he did that night so long ago in the sports bar. No, he’s been a perfect gentleman. Gran, Tiffany, and Monique’s theory—that he’s in love with me—turns out to have been completely untrue. Because if Chaz were in love with me, well, he’s had plenty of opportunity to act on that impulse.
    And he never has. Not even once.
    But that doesn’t mean I want him tagging along on one of the last nights I have Luke to myself before he takes off for France for three months.
    But I don’t mention this. Because the last thing I’m going to do is try to wedge myself between my man and his best friend. As I know from every women’s magazine I’ve ever read, that’s a major no-no.
    “Well, it’s one of the last chances I’m going to have to see him,” Luke says, “before I leave for Paris for the summer. I didn’t think you’d mind. You don’t, do you? And I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to meet his new girlfriend.”
    My jaw drops. Quite literally. I sort of have to lever it back in place with my hand before I’m able to speak again.
    “His… his what?”
    “I know,” Luke says with a chuckle. “Can you believe it? And we all thought he’d never learn to love again after Shari.”
    I am totally positive I didn’t hear Luke right. I ask, sticking one finger in my ear, “When… when did this happen?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Apparently they’ve been seeing each other for quite a while, but they’ve been keeping it on the down low because she’s up for tenure in the philosophy department, and he’s just a teaching assistant, and technically a student—even if he’s a grad student—so it’s all sort of clandestine. And you know Chaz was never exactly one to kiss and tell. Her name is Valencia Something. I forget. But I guess she’s a real knockout. And a brainiac. Well, she’d have to be, for Chaz to like her.”
    I hate her. I do. I