She forced her mouth to form as much of a smile as she could manage at the moment and shook her head.
Of course, that didn’t stop the chanting and catcalls from the rowdy guests. And here she’d thought planning a wedding of a Waterbury cop to a nurse at St. Vincent’s would be a low-key, everything-according-to-procedure type of event. Wow had she been wrong.
“Kiss! Kiss!” the crowd continued.
A guy in the back yelled, “Give her a smooch, Hartigan.”
“We’re celebrating love, you gotta kiss,” the bride called out as she lifted another tiny glass filled to the brim into the air as if she was giving a toast instead of making a drunken demand.
Yeah. There was a reason why Gina planned weddings for a living. One, she hated—no, loathed—being the center of attention, which a bride always was. Two, she got off on color-coded spreadsheets, checking things off to-do lists, and organizing like nobody’s business. Three, she was really good at it. Love, however, didn’t have a single thing to do with her career choice.
“Kiss!” the bride’s grandmother yelled out.
Again, Gina shook her head. Her voice seemed to be disappearing along with her last shred of dignity the more time that damn videographer kept his camera in a tight shot on her face. Taking the if-you-ignore-it-long-enough-it-will-go-away philosophy that sometimes worked when her washing machine started making that clunking noise that always eventually stopped, she dropped her attention to the very pointed toes of her tan kitten heels.
A whir of sensation tickled her ear and made her pulse pick up half a second before the man stuck in the Kiss Cam spotlight with her leaned in close.
“Let’s just get it over with,” Ford whispered, the low timbre of his voice edged with tension.
Her gaze snapped up to his too-handsome face, with its perfect square jaw, dark green eyes, and high cheekbones, and her flush of humiliation deepened. He’d probably never been teased a day in his life about anything and had no idea what being laughed at by a group of people was like. Meanwhile, she’d spent her formative years getting called rabbit because of her buckteeth. She’d thought that after the braces came off, all of that would be behind her, but that’s when she’d gotten a new nickname that was even worse: Butterface. Why? Because her body was okay, “but her face?” Not so much. Annoyance at the unfairness of it all made her prickle. Just get it over with indeed.
“Aren’t those the words that every woman is just dying to hear,” she shot back, keeping her voice quiet enough that only he could hear and not letting her fake smile slip a millimeter. “I’m not kissing you.”
Unlike her, while the wedding guests continued to call for a kiss, he didn’t bother to hide his scowl. Of course, that just made him look even sexier. “Why not?”
Reasons! She clamped her mouth shut before that inanity escaped and called it a victory. Knowing the right thing to say at the right time had never been one of her gifts, so the fact that she managed to keep her trap shut was a total win. When he raised one dark eyebrow in question, she scrambled to come up with something besides because you’re too hot.
“I’m working,” she said.
Ford cocked his head and gave her some premium cop face, that blank suspicious stare that all but screamed you’re full of shit. “You don’t think our fine groom, Porter, was on shift when he met Meg at the emergency room after a guy he was arresting took a swing at him with a two-by-four? It’s just a kiss, and then they’ll move on to the next victim.”
She turned her attention back to the big screen display of this horribly awkward moment rather than meeting Ford’s unwavering gaze.
“Do not disrespect the Kiss Cam, Hartigan!” someone bellowed out as the chanting crowd grew more restless. And louder.
“One quick kiss,” he said, his tone grim with a thread of something more vulnerable underneath. “Then, they’ll leave us alone.”
That’s when Gina’s gaze moved from her own face, blotchy with embarrassment on the screen, over to him. The tips of his ears were scarlet, and he was tapping the tips of his middle finger and thumb together like he was keeping rhythm for a ska band.