by Lauren Layne
“What kind of artist are you?”
“I dabble,” I say vaguely, not in the mood to revisit the cutesy Tinker Bell comment when things are so amiable between us.
“Did you ever try? To go professional?”
“Did you ever try?”
“To become a horse jockey?”
I smile. “No. To be anything other than—what’s your title again? Vice president of city domination?”
He winces. “Development. Vice president of development.”
“Same thing,” I mutter, wiping some hot sauce from the back of my hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a frustrated look cross his face, and he exhales before taking another bite.
We chew in silence for several moments. Not quite tense, not quite comfortable. As though we both know we’re constantly straddling a line between tentative truce and opposing goals.
When he speaks again, he’s apparently chosen to lean into the truce, because he looks and sounds more relaxed than usual. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”
“The food? The park? The bench?” I ask curiously.
“All of it. The spontaneity, mostly.”
“You do seem to be rather… structured.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” he says, mostly to himself. “If you’d grown up hearing, even jokingly, that you were betrothed from the cradle? If there was a Princeton sweatshirt under the tree every Christmas, long before you’d even thought about college? If it was a foregone conclusion that you’d take over the family business?”
“So where did you go to college?”
“Princeton.”
I think about this as I finish my gyro. I crumple up the foil as I chew the last bite, knowing I did Omer proud with my eating, even if I disgraced Keva with my cooking.
“I know I only met them once,” I say cautiously. “But your parents seem pretty cool. Reasonable. You can’t undo the Princeton thing, but you could marry this other girl—the complicated one. Become a horse trainer because, sorry, you’ve got to give up the jockey thing. You’re way too big.”
He crumples up his own foil and then twists it idly in his fingers, lost in thought. “Perhaps.”
“You want to know what I think?” I turn toward him and pull my leg up beneath me, prop my elbow up on the back of the bench so I can look at this complicated man.
“Oddly, yes.”
I don’t mind the oddly part. I know what he means. We’re not friends. On a professional front, we’re downright adversaries. But we’re connected somehow, and that sense that I knew him even before I met him seems to grow stronger the more I’m with him. Might as well put my inexplicable connection to this man to good use.
“I think it’s easier to go along with what your parents want. Easy, in a comfortable sort of way. If you’re chasing what they want, and it doesn’t quite work out, the loss would be tempered somewhat. You won’t fight for it as hard, true, but it also won’t sting as much because you’ve got no skin in the game.”
He crumples the ball in his left fist, then leans back on the bench, his right elbow brushing mine lightly as he stretches out his legs. “No, I don’t believe that’s true.”
“You don’t?” I’m surprised. I’d sort of impressed myself with my insight.
He shakes his head and looks over at me. “No. If we were less motivated by other people’s plans for us, by other people’s dreams, you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to keep Bubbles & More open.”
My head snaps back, a little stung that he’d upset our truce by going there. “It’s not the same.”
“No?” He pivots toward me, leaning his head against his fist, mirroring my posture. “So, if Bubbles hadn’t been a family run store, you’d still refuse to even hear my offer? Still refuse to consider something that might be better for your employees. And for you?”
“Respectfully, you don’t know the first thing about what’s right for me, Mr. Andrews.”
He frowns a little, more to himself than at me, and lifts his head slightly. His finger beside mine on the bench moves closer. Just slightly enough that it could be an accident. But then the tip of his small finger brushes mine, a whisper of a touch.
“No,” he says quietly. “Perhaps not.”
Yearning.
It’s the first word that pops into my head, and it’s also one that makes me think of Sir. And the realization that I’m thinking of one man while sitting beside another, that for the first time in my life I feel it for two men, and can have neither, leaves me frustrated.
I stand abruptly. “It’s late. I should be heading home.”
Sebastian doesn’t argue. “Sure,” he replies, standing up as well.
We walk in silence toward the park exit. “Where do you live? I’ll walk you home.”
I smile. “I appreciate that, but I’ve walked myself home hundreds of times.”
His stubborn expression doesn’t change, and I roll my eyes but smile. “Hell’s Kitchen. Fifty-Fourth, between Ninth and Tenth. I doubt you’re going my way.”
“I’m not. But I’ll walk you home. But first…” He points at one of the food stands. “Ice cream.”
“You know, I think you made all that up about your parental pressures,” I joke. “I don’t think there’s ever been anything you wanted that you didn’t get.”
“You’d be surprised,” he says quietly, then points at the menu. “What are you having? My treat.”
Not saying no to that. I survey the menu. No pistachio gelato, but I could easily make do with something chocolatey. Or maybe just a basic vanilla dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with some peanuts. Or…
My gaze locks on a menu item in the bottom right corner. It’s a whole subcategory of frozen treats I’ve never bothered with before because there’s no chocolate, no nuts, no flavor…
You haven’t lived until you’ve tried a lemon sorbet on a hot summer day in the city…
It’s not a hot summer day in the city, but…
I point. “I’ll have one of those.”
The look he gives me is so long, and so piercing, I think I’ve offended his very soul. A sentiment I can agree with, because I’ve sort of just offended myself as well. Lemon sorbet? Really?
Sebastian turns toward the impatient woman waiting to take our order. “Two lemon sorbet cups, please.”
The order bothers me. Lemon sorbet is my thing with Sir, and I don’t like thinking about Sebastian Andrews and Sir in the same thought.
I like even less that when he notices me shiver and drops his coat over my shoulders, I stop thinking about Sir altogether.
Fourteen
It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in a proper girls’ night. And when you need one? You need one.
I’ve invited all the usual suspects: Lily, Rachel, and Keva, but I’ve also made a surprising addition:
Robyn.
The prickly sommelier’s been bothering me less lately. The intensity that used to drive me, well, nuts, has actually been a pretty big asset around the store lately. I’m realizing that perhaps I’ve been seeing her all wrong: Robyn’s not a condescending know-it-all as much as she is a woman who’s lucky enough to have found her passion (sparkling wine) and a job that allows her to live that passion.
In the past couple of weeks, it’s been Robyn who stays late to help me brainstorm new ideas on increasing revenue; Robyn who takes it upon herself to try to get vendor sponsorships every Friday; Robyn who’s taken over inventory management.
And I don’t know if it’s the successful shopping trip with Keva that resulted in her new lipstick or what, but her customer service skills have done an about-face. Instead of spouting off her knowledge as though wanting a gold star for her efforts, she comes across as committed to making sure people take home a wine they love.
She’s even been friendlier with the Bubbles team and had nearly broken my heart last week when she’d shyly confessed that she’d never been good at making friends and had asked for tips. Remembering the look of pleased shock
on her face when I’d invited her to tonight’s get-together is making it a little easier to tolerate the fact that she’s currently in my living room rattling on about the flavor profile of vodka.
Lily catches my eye from the kitchen, where she’s adding baby carrots and ranch dip to her plate, and makes a face as Robyn utters the word grain alcohol for the tenth time, but she’s smiling.
“Oh gawd,” Keva interrupts Robyn, reaching out and emptying the remains of the cocktail shaker into Robyn’s glass. “Woman, I love talking about my craft too, but at some point, food is just food, and a drink is just a drink.” She points. “So drink it and shut up.”
Robyn, cross-legged on my living room floor, blinks. Then she shrugs and sips her cocktail. “Okay.”
“I’m so glad I pumped my afternoon away so I could drink,” Rachel says, pulling her curly hair into a messy knot atop her head. “I had no idea how great cosmos were. I thought they were just a Sex and the City set piece.”
“Take it from someone who came of age during their heyday, there’s such a thing as too many,” Lily says, returning to the living room with a glass of white wine.
The other women all happily sip the cosmopolitans I suggested. Paintings with pink cocktails are continually my best sellers, and every now and then I get a craving.
Lily dunks a potato chip in the ranch meant for her untouched carrots, and after popping it into her mouth, wipes the salt off her fingers and makes grabby hands in Rachel’s direction. “Okay. Show me all the baby pictures.”
“Oh gosh,” Rachel says, picking up the phone sitting near her hip on the couch. “I don’t know if I have… less than five million.”
I’m on Rachel’s family album, so I’ve seen all the highlights already, but Robyn and Keva crowd around Lily as she flips through the photos, the three of them gushing about dimples and chunky baby thighs. Rachel looks over at me and rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
Lily’s smile is bright and genuine, but there’s a wistfulness in her eyes. It must be bittersweet—Rachel has three, Lily doesn’t even have one.
Robyn heaves out a sigh. “Ugh. I want one.”
“Me too,” Keva says. “In, like, thirty years. When either science will have evolved so that old ladies can have them when they’re good and ready, or, ooh, maybe robots can carry our children.”
I wince. Keva doesn’t know about Lily’s fertility struggles, and thus doesn’t mean to be insensitive, but my heart aches for my sister anyway. I reach a foot out under the coffee table and rub my fuzzy sock against Lily’s. My sister smiles at me and wiggles her toes back in reassurance. It’s okay. A leftover gesture from childhood movie nights when one of us sensed the other was sad about Mom.
“Keva, if you find a childbearing robot, hook me up,” Lily says.
Keva salutes in acknowledgment, and Robyn turns toward me.
“What about you, Gracie?” she asks. “Babies in your future?”
“Are you kidding?” Lily interjects. “She’d better. I happen to know for a fact that Gracie’s had her ideal family planned out since before she got boobs.”
I laugh and steal one of my sister’s carrots. “It’s totally true. A boy, Griffin, my mom’s maiden name. And a little girl, Ella.”
“After…”
“Cinderella,” Rachel answers for me. “Be grateful I talked her out of Snow, as in White.”
“Fairy-tale buff?” Robyn asks curiously.
“Just a romantic,” I say, ignoring the twin snorts from Rachel and Lily, who’ve known me long enough to know it’s an understatement.
“So what about Griffin and Ella’s dad?” Robyn asks curiously. “Wait, no, I know this one. Tall, dark, and handsome, may or may not own a white horse? Ooh, or blond, like Thor?”
Keva, Rachel, and Lily answer for me at the same time. “Medium-height musician, long hair, warm brown eyes, crooked smile, and a dad bod.”
I take a sip of my cosmopolitan and play along good-naturedly. “I refuse to be shamed for having specific standards. He’s out there.”
“Wait,” Robyn says. “He doesn’t even exist?”
I think of Sir. “He does.”
I’m pretty sure.
“Hmm” Keva says thoughtfully. “But are you sure about Mr. Right’s eye color?”
I glare at her in warning.
She grins back, unrepentant. “I’m just saying, are you sure they’re brown? Or are they a rather unique shade of Tiffany blue?”
“Oooh what am I missing?” Rachel says, leaning forward eagerly.
Robyn fans herself. “Sebastian Andrews. This hot businessman who’s got a thing for Gracie. He’s shown up to two events, and both times, he couldn’t keep those sexy blue eyes off her.”
Lily and I exchange a look—I haven’t told anyone besides my siblings and May that Sebastian’s primary interest in Bubbles & More is to see it shut down.
As to his secondary interest…
I don’t let my mind go that way. I’ve been trying really hard not to think of the way Sebastian’s coat had felt around my shoulders. The way the warmth and smell had made me feel safe.
Or the fact that he may have broken things off with Genevieve, but there’s still some other mystery woman in the picture.
Whom I hate.
“What about your MysteryMate guy?” Rachel asks.
“Wait, what?” Robyn and my sister say at the same time.
I give Rachel an exasperated look, and she gives me a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Too many cosmos, not enough lunch.”
When my sister kicks my foot under the table, it’s less gentle this time. “What’s she talking about?”
“Just this guy I met on a dating app,” I say as casually as I can.
“Haven’t met,” Keva clarifies. “But that she’s halfway in love with.”
“Wait,” Lily holds up a hand. “Are you telling me that my baby sister’s top romantic prospects are a guy who’s bullying her to close the family business and someone she hasn’t even met?”
I sigh, and giving into the inevitable, bring everybody up to speed on both the Sebastian/Bubbles situation and the Sir situation.
“Good God, Gracie,” Robyn sounds horrified. “First, that Sebastian has been lurking around like some vulture waiting to pounce as soon as you fail. And that you’re being catfished.”
“Seriously,” Lily chimes in. “He could be a nineteen-year-old who lives with his mother. Or a forty-eight-year-old.”
“Or not a him at all,” Rachel says. “What if this is a teenage mean girl messing with you?”
“Is nobody on my side here?” I ask.
“I am,” Keva says immediately. “I’ve never seen you as happy as when you found this pen pal guy.” She pauses. “Though, now that I think about it, you did have a distinct glow at that cooking thing with Sebastian.”
“So who are we rooting for?” Robyn asks, looking around the room.
“Neither,” I say. “Sebastian and I are just…” Rivals? Friends? Might have been but will never be?
“He’s seeing someone,” I say, since I honestly don’t know how to explain the complexity of my feelings for the man, or my increasing resentment that he’s pretty flirty for someone who’s hung up on another woman.
On the other hand, am I one to talk? I have feelings for two men, neither of whom are even available.
Except Sir might be.
This, I realize, is what girls’ nights are meant for.
I wait until Keva’s refilled everyone’s drink before bringing the group up to speed on Sir’s single status.
“Well, obviously, you have to meet him,” Keva says.
“You do,” Lily says, surprising me.
“Seriously?” Rachel says to my sister. “That is not what I thought you were going to say.”
Lily shrugs. “I mean, Gracie, if he tells you to go out to his place in Long Island City at 11 p.m. and to bring large garbage bags with you, then yeah, abort mission. But if you’re smart about it and mee
t him in a bright, public place with plenty of people around, and don’t start the conversation by rattling off your social security number…” She shrugs.
“That’s true,” Robyn chimes in. “It’s really no different than any other dating app in that way.”
“Except she doesn’t know what he looks like,” the ever-skeptical Rachel points out.
“Which is not unlike a blind date,” Keva says.
“I dunno,” Rachel says, picking up one of Keva’s mushroom crostini and nibbling it thoughtfully. “I’m still kind of rooting for the other guy. He sounds hot.”
“But maybe Sir is hot too. She’ll never know unless she meets him,” Keva argues.
“Okay, I’m shutting this down,” I say, making an X motion with my arms. “Neither of them is my guy. Sebastian is unavailable, and even if he weren’t, he’ll lose interest in Bubbles the second he learns we’re not going to move out and let him build his skyscraper. And Sir’s never made the slightest indication that he wants to take our relationship to the next level.”
“Have you ever given him any indication that you might?” Lily asks gently. “I’ve seen how you are around guys, Gracie. You become everybody’s insta best friend, but you don’t realize you give off the vibe that you only want to be friends.”
“That’s not true!” I protest. “Nobody wants a relationship as much as me, you guys know that.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Robyn suggests. “You’ve built it up so much in your head that you’re afraid the reality won’t measure up, so you keep everyone at arm’s length. It’s also probably why you’re so attracted to a guy you’ve never met. It lets you preserve that dream.”
“That’s…”
Of all the women in the room, I know Robyn the least. Which is why it’s all the more jarring that she’s just managed to sum up my entire romantic life in one simple, spot-on assessment.
I’ve been priding myself so long on my high standards…
But what if the reality is much less commendable?
What if I’m simply scared to death of being disappointed?
