The Accidental Dating Experiment Bonus Scene
by Lauren Blakely
Juliet
The lavender tickles my nose and calms my nerves. That’s its job, Ripley tells me as she hands me the bouquets she made for today.
One for me, one for my sister, and one for each bridesmaid—Elodie and Hazel. I’m at her farm with Rachel on a Saturday morning in June, picking up the bouquets for later today.
“Lavender is known for being calming. Not that you should be nervous,” Ripley adds, quickly correcting.
I set a hand on her arm. “Oh, don’t worry. I am definitely nervous. But these are good
nerves. Excited nerves,” I say.
“Excited is the way you should feel on your wedding day,” she says.
“I practically ran down the aisle at my wedding,” Rachel puts in.
“Can confirm,” I add.
“Then, run, run, run later today,” Ripley says, then nods toward the clock in the foyer of her cottage on-site here at the farm. “You need to go. Stop running all the wedding day errands
yourself. I would have brought these over to you,” she chides, such a bossy one too.
But I like doing party prep myself. It’s the planner in me, even though today’s celebration is the opposite of the parties I usually plan. This is a coming together.
“I like coming here,” I say. Her farm has become a favorite place of mine in this town.
I love it so much I almost planned to get married here. It was tempting especially since it’s June and it’s a lavender-gasm this time of year. But I found another venue.
“I’ll see you later,” I say, then take off since she has a busy morning of tours before my nuptials.
I have a busy morning too. A makeup artist I work with on my breakup parties is coming to do all the girls, and my friend Aubrey will do our hair.
As I leave with Rachel, she asks, “You ready?”
My heart speeds up. “So ready. I can’t wait.”
It’s still amazing to me that I can feel this certainty with someone, right alongside a wild passion. All because I let myself be vulnerable with him, and that opened my heart to our second
chance at love.
“Good. That’s how it should be,” she says.
That’s how it is.
* * *
A few hours later, I’m ready to be vulnerable in another way. As Pachelbel’s Canon begins, I walk out onto the back deck of the Darling Springs home, my sister and my friends
behind me.
Immediately, my gaze lands on the groom. Only the groom. He’s so handsome, with that suit on, and he looks so stupidly in love too. That smile. Those eyes. His heady, appreciative,
swoony stare from across the backyard full of guests.
His eyes travel up and down, then return to my face as he mouths, “wow.”
I remember his wow from that first date. I can still feel it today. All the wow of being in love and staying in love as I walk down the steps and across the lawn, passing our friends, as
well as new friends from Darling Springs, like Ripley and Agatha, like the guy who runs The Slippery Dipper, like Mister Fox, and Clementine. Then in the first row, I stop and hug his
father. I’m so glad they reconciled. I’m so glad he’s here for his son, like he has been for the last two years now. I say hi to Jada too, the woman he’s fallen in love with. And from the looks of it,
she adores him too.
Then, I reach the man I’m truly, madly, deeply in love with. And I don’t need anything to
calm my nerves. I hand the bouquet to my sister, and I say hi to the man I love.
“Hey, you,” he murmurs, with eyes only for me.
“Hey, you,” I whisper.
“Want to marry me today?”
“I do,” I say, fizzy and floaty, and I’m pretty sure that’s the best way to feel on your
wedding day.
He takes my hand. “Say that again in a few minutes.”
We turn to the officiant. Eleanor’s a justice of the peace and she marries us. It seemed fitting, after all, that she be the one as we say I do.
Thanks for reading Juliet and Monroe’s romance! If you enjoyed their romance, don’t forget to download Axel and Hazel’s standalone romance in MY SO-CALLED
SEX LIFE for free NOW in KU. You’ll devour that enemies-to-lovers standalone – a spicy, fun escape filled with dirty talk, banter, a feisty heroine, a grumpy hero, and only one bed in the room! If you’ve read it, then grab PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS for free in KU! You’ll love this spicy, he falls first, best friends-to-lovers, fake dating standalone romance filled with laugh-out-loud moments and sizzling heat too! And
don’t forget to snag THE ALMOST ROMANTIC, Elodie’s fake engagement turned marriage-of-convenience story.
