Chasing Serenity

by Ashley, Kristen

  “Yes,” I replied.

  He gave me a sweet smile and turned away again.

  “Judge,” I called.

  He turned back and lifted his brows.

  He wasn’t amused, impatient, or edging toward irritable.

  He was attentive and waiting for me to say what I had to say.

  This wasn’t a test.

  I just didn’t want him to go.

  But if it had been a test, he would have done what he’d always done.

  Passed with perfect scores and extra credit.

  “Can’t wait for Wednesday,” I whispered.

  He stood there a second, two, three.

  Then he was across the room, and I was up from the bed, in his arms, and he was kissing my morning-breath mouth.

  Not closed.

  I forgot I had morning breath and kissed him back.

  When he was done, he murmured, “I can’t either.”

  He then gently laid me back in his bed, slid away the hair that had fallen in one of my eyes, pulled the covers over me, and, after giving me the most beautiful smile in history, he walked out of the room.

  * * *

  It’s pretty.

  This was Judge’s text response to my sending him three pictures of white wisteria, one of purple, one of pink.

  We would be doing white, of course, but one must explore other options just to be certain one’s vision was as superlative as one thought.

  Just pretty? I replied.

  The muted noise that sounded when someone opened the door to Velvet beeped, and I looked up from where I stood at the checkout desk to see Mi-Young heading my way.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked my friend a very good question, since it was her day off.

  “Have you lost your mind?” she asked back.

  My phone binged.

  I looked down.

  It’s VERY pretty.

  Ugh.

  Men.

  Mi rapped the checkout desk with her knuckles to get my attention, something I gave her.

  “Are you texting him?” she demanded.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  “Happily? Flirtatious? Not finding inane reasons to push him away anymore?”

  I gave her a Death Stare.

  It dissipated upon impact.

  This was because Mi had a Death Stare vaporizer. I would never admit it, but this was probably one of the reasons she became my best friend.

  She took no shit, not even from me.

  “Happily,” I gritted.

  She gave me an approving nod then launched in.

  “So, you write me seven, and I’ll note that I counted them, very long texts that had me scrolling for half an hour. Texts that included details of Sasha behaving like a little bitch…” She waved her hand in my face. “I know, she’s not my sister, I can’t say that, but in this instance, I’m going to, because what she did is not okay. Judge was there. He heard. Your adored stepdad was there. He heard. Sasha herself knows you agonize about that to this day, even if it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know that married guy was such a magnificent asshole. Then you finally come to terms with your uncle’s death, face your feelings about your parents’ divorce, and pull your shit together about Judge, and you spent the night with him, and you’re asking me why I’m here?”

  “I had wondered why you hadn’t responded to my texts,” I remarked.

  She dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling.

  My phone binged.

  Why is this important? Judge asked.

  I had a ready response to that.

  (In other words, a lie.)

  No reason.

  “Chloe,” Mi called my name.

  I focused on her and stated, “Judge and I made dinner together.”

  “I feel with the way you said that, congratulations are in order, but I’ve no idea why,” she replied.

  “We did it attached. He had his arm around me, and he didn’t let me go. We shambled around the kitchen like we’d been tied together by an enchanted rope. It was utterly ridiculous and the most romantic thing a man has ever done in my life.”

  “Seriously?” Mi breathed.

  There it was.

  I was not in a Judge Daze.

  I was correct.

  That was romantic.

  “I mean, how sweet is that, especially after all you’d just been through,” she went on.

  I knew how sweet it felt.

  And the definition of that level of sweetness had not been invented yet.

  “He says he’s falling in love with me.”

  She gaped.

  “Yes,” I concurred with her response.

  “He laid that out already?”

  “I’m right now assessing his opinion about wisteria.”

  She gaped again and whispered wonderingly, “Your wedding flowers?”

  As you could see, she was totally my bestie. She knew everything, including the fact my wedding was already entirely planned.

  Down to the wall of wisteria.

  (Though, color options were not set in stone.)

  I nodded and shared, “He thinks they’re ‘very pretty,’ which is likely just a man’s response to flowers, or him knowing why I’m asking and he’s trying to get a rise out of me.”

  Mi leaned into the counter. “I’m so glad you got your head out of your ass about him.”

  “I’m so glad I have a friend who would come into her place of business on her day off to talk about him, even if she says things to me like I had my head in my ass.”

  Perfectly Mi, she didn’t back down. “Well, you did.”

  “Shall we move on?” I suggested sweetly.

  “Yes, let’s talk about what you’re going to do about Sasha. Because Matt’s damage isn’t new. This Sasha thing, so out of character.”

  That was it precisely.

  Completely out of character.

  “She’s called and texted, I’ve asked her to give me some space. She’s promised to try.”

  “Yeah, like right about now, she should endeavor to go to Mars.”

  Hmm.

  I looked down and twiddled with my phone.

  “Hey,” Mi called.

  I caught her eyes. “Bowie was standing right there, and Judge was walking up. She saw him.”

  “I know,” Mi said softly. “You told me.”

  “That’s mean girl, Mi. Sasha isn’t a mean girl.”

  For a moment, Mi’s face was soft with sadness and understanding, then it got hard, and she said, “Oh no you don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Feel sorry for her when she lashed out at you like that. Feel sorry which means letting her off the hook and then giving her your time and patience and wisdom and anything else you have to give to help her pull herself together. Coco, seriously. All this stuff going on with your family didn’t happen when she was six so it’s understandable when she throws a tantrum. She’s a big girl. She needs to grow up and start acting it.”

  I felt my lips thin because she was correct.

  And this was a one-two punch, because I had a feeling Judge would be disappointed if I gave in this soon to my sister, who, I could tell by her texts and voicemails, really was suffering for what she’d done.

  “You’re wavering,” Mi accused with narrowed eyes on my face.

  “I’m going to forgive her, we both know that.”

  She shook her head. “Somehow, this world is careening toward being a place where there are no consequences. You throw some comment out on social media to some person you don’t know and will never meet, shady or critical or downright cruel, and you just go on with your life. Not realizing there are real people out there who suffer because you couldn’t just scroll on by, you had to lay out the nasty. There are absolutely no consequences to millions of people every day spreading a layer of negativity, or even hyper-negativity over something a vast majority of us use. That festers and breeds and it’s filtering into real life. Where we think people in ou
r spheres don’t have feelings. That the world revolves around us and our opinions. But it does not.”

  “My sister is hardly treating me like some influencer who she’s not fond of their look.”

  “No, she isn’t. But first, if you don’t like an influencer’s look, pass it by. There is absolutely no need to make a mean comment about it. And second, you’re a real person in her life, someone who matters, someone she loves, so what she did is far, far worse, Coco, and somehow, she has to learn she can’t do it again. She doesn’t just get to say something and think she can scroll on to whatever’s next. Her words caused harm. She needs to account for that.”

  “So it’s on me to teach her that lesson when it hurts me to do it?” I asked.

  She did a one-shoulder shrug. “Only my opinion. But, yes.”

  Marvelous.

  “Sadly, Judge agrees with you,” I sniffed.

  “I knew I liked him.”

  Speaking of that particular devil, my phone binged.

  I looked at it.

  Bullshit. It’s either wedding or you’re angling for me to plant some at your house. Give it up.

  I rent, I replied. Then, before he could read anything in that (like the truth), I whooshed off, As you know, it’s far too soon for wedding talk.

  His reply was almost immediate, and even just getting the words, I knew they were dripping with disbelief.

  Are you angling to garden at my house?

  As if.

  Me?

  Garden?

  “Are you still talking wisteria?” Mi asked.

  “No,” I lied.

  “You are so full of it,” she muttered, but at least she didn’t sound angry at Sasha anymore.

  Mi thinks I shouldn’t give in too early to Sasha’s apologies, I told Judge.

  Again, almost immediate, Mi’s right.

  Bluh.

  Then he sent, I knew I liked her.

  Ugh.

  “I decided in the heat of it yesterday to hold my grudge for a month with Sasha,” I told Mi.

  “I vote two,” she retorted.

  Well then, I wouldn’t share that now I was thinking only a day.

  My phone binged again, a text from a number I didn’t know.

  It said, We’re not doing some stupid-ass mutual bachelor/bachelorette party horseshit.

  Who is this? I demanded.

  Who else? Rix. And no mixed shower. I’m getting my boy drunk off his ass the night before and buying one gift. That’s it. And I speak for all his male friends on this.

  My back straightened.

  Because one thing that was non-negotiable about my wedding (actually, it all was, but this was ironclad).

  My groom was not going to be hungover on the big day.

  “What’s going on?” Mi asked.

  “Judge’s friend Rix is staking claim to a non-mixed bachelor party and refuses to come to the shower.”

  “Oh my God,” Mi said, both horrified and miffed.

  Oh dear.

  We haven’t even had a date! I snapped to Rix.

  And before I could turn my attention to my friend, Mi pulled my phone out of my hand.

  I blinked at her then watched as she took two steps back and started double-fisted maneuvers, my phone in one hand, hers in the other, her thumbs moving over the screens of both.

  “What are you doing?” I inquired, but only because I didn’t want to face my suspicions as to her actions.

  “I’m negotiating since we’re going to a strip club for your bachelorette party too, so might as well all go together,” she said, absently handing back my phone even as hers whooshed with a text.

  Yes, this confirmed my suspicions.

  “Mi—”

  Not looking at me, still looking at her phone, she raised a hand my way and waggled a finger at me, shushing, “Shh.”

  And there was another whoosh from her cell.

  “It is not good at this juncture for you two to put this pressure on me and Judge,” I stated firmly.

  Her phone binged, she read it and then looked at me. “He wants to know if we can arrange crash pads down here in Phoenix for about twenty of Judge’s buds. I think we can handle that. You have a guest bedroom. I have a guest bedroom. And your mom has at least three.”

  “Mi!” I snapped.

  “You brought up the wisteria,” she returned.

  My phone sounded.

  I looked down at it.

  From Judge, I have high standards, baby. Maybe we should take the bachelor-bachelorette thing to Vegas?

  I refused to feel the relief I actually felt that Judge had high standards about the gentlemen’s clubs he’d accept (as, naturally, I did too).

  I also refused to feel the relief that it was clear he thought this was fun and wasn’t terrified about such discussions before we’d even officially been on a date.

  Instead, I put together a group text that included the current offenders, upon which I declared, I’ve ceased talking to all of you for at least a day.

  Mi giggled.

  Rix texted, creating two chimes in my ears, No worries. You shouldn’t be in on the planning anyway.

  Mi giggled again.

  On our personal string, Judge cajoled, I hope that doesn’t include me.

  It especially includes you. You gave my number to Rix.

  Mi had her own whooshes and chiming, and she declared, “Rix is coming to the next Cooking Club.”

  Dear Lord.

  At this point, I did the only thing I could do.

  I programmed Rix into my phone.

  And said to Judge, Go back to work.

  Finally, I gave my attention to Mi and drawled, “Impressed with the outfit you threw together to come in for unscheduled girl time.”

  She swished her hips and her short zebra print skirt floated, beautifully paired with a mustard turtleneck I knew had no sleeves, with a baby blue cargo jacket over the top.

  “This old thing?” she replied.

  It wasn’t old, she bought it last week.

  Call you tonight, baby, Judge texted.

  I sent a gif of Marie from the Aristocats tucking herself into bed.

  “Jocelyn will be here in fifteen minutes,” Mi announced. “When she gets here, let’s hit Joyride for lunch.”

  My stomach decided I needed some Mexican street corn.

  My heart decided I needed some unadulterated girl time with my bestie.

  “Yes, let’s,” I agreed.

  My phone signaled one more time.

  From Judge.

  God, you’re cute.

  I wasn’t.

  But he was for thinking that.

  * * *

  “It’s not my decision, it’s not Mi’s, it’s yours.”

  It was late that evening.

  I was wearing a pair of pink silk pajamas with red piping on my body and a hydrating mask on my face.

  And Judge was in my ear.

  “Do I think she should squirm a lot longer, yes,” he said, referring to Sasha, who we were discussing since I told him what Mi had said earlier. “But she’s not my sister and what she did, she didn’t do to me. It’s your call. It’s always been your call.”

  “So if I made a date with her for brunch on Thursday before I came back down to Phoenix, you wouldn’t be upset?” I asked.

  “Chloe, honey, you have to do what makes you feel right. If it’s gonna upset you to draw it out, or add stress, then sit down and talk to her.”

  Interesting.

  “You made it sound like you’d be disappointed if I did that. Let her off the hook too easily,” I noted.

  “Babe, there is you and there is me. I met her at the New Year’s Eve party, and she seemed bubbly and nice. And I saw her yesterday, when she was neither. I don’t know her. And right now, I don’t care about her. I’m sorry, but not even a little. I care about you. So if confronted with her, am I gonna be a dick to her? No. Am I gonna be pissed at you that you do what you feel you need to do for you, her, your family?
No. Am I gonna be wary around her and protective of you when it comes to her? Yes. Absolutely.”

  I sat with that a second.

  And then I said quietly, “I really like you, Judge Oakley.”

  “I’m so fucking glad you do, Chloe Pierce, I could howl at the moon,” he said quietly back.

  We each let the other have that.

  And then Judge said, “Speaking of Thursday, if you’re thinking of staying longer, can you arrange for someone else to open up on Friday and spend the night then too?”

  My heart fluttered at this opportunity and I didn’t even consider the possibility of telling it to behave.

  More time with Judge.

  Another night with him in his bed.

  And hopefully, a lot more than a peck on the lips.

  “It’s just that I spoke with both Duncan and Tom about our progress,” he continued. “They’re down to go over what we propose for the project, and if we do it, it’s gotta be ASAP. Your dad’s heading to Australia for the Open very soon.”

  Damn.

  He did color commentary for all the majors.

  He’d mentioned that at dinner.

  How had I forgotten?

  “If you want to get it out of the way,” Judge carried on, “Thursday is a good time. But if you want me to try to get them up early, say, right after lunch so you can have brunch with your sister, then you can get home without having to drive at night, I can arrange that too.”

  “Mi opens on Friday, so I’ll stay Thursday too, and we’ll do the meeting.”

  “Awesome,” he said, his voice low and warm, that tone having nothing to do with the meeting with Dad and Bowie (I was definitely going to get more than a peck on the lips). “I’ll send you the finals of everything so you can approve it.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be perfect.”

  “Nothing’s perfect, baby, but we can give it the best we got.”

  That was so true, I was ordering a coffee mug for him the next day with that on it.

  Once that was out of the way, we talked about everything under the sun (or right then, the moon) and then we talked more.

  Too late, both of us sleepy and barely holding to consciousness (something I deemed only slightly less romantic than making dinner attached), we had no choice but to bid adieu.

  Judge’s phone call was what woke me the next day.

  It was so much better than my alarm (which was classical music, so that’s saying something) it was not funny.