by Lauren Layne
There’s no boom from the heavens in response. That’s okay. Like May said, I have to believe my parents would support this decision.
There’s no response from Sir either. That one stings a bit more.
I take out two tulip flutes—my favorite, and ones I deliberately hadn’t packed away yet. I don’t need both, but I figure it’s a little more respectable to drink alone if you at least pretend there’s another person in the room.
I stare at my phone, willing it to buzz with a notification from MysteryMate. Nothing.
My heart sinks a little, but I visualize throwing my heart a rope and tugging it back up again.
“Just one more thing in my life that’s not going quite according to the fairy tale,” I say quietly, reaching for the bottle and beginning to twist the wire cage. I remove it and the foil. I check my phone one last time for a message that isn’t there.
Fine. It’s fiiiiiine. I close the app and bring up another sort of male companionship. More reliable. Michael Bublé’s Call Me Irresponsible album is one of my favorites, and I play it now, the store so quiet in its emptiness that my little iPhone speaker seems to fill the space with Bublé’s baritone.
Bublé reassures me that the best is yet to come, and I believe him. Perhaps more important, I decide to take action. I open the MysteryMate app again, only this time it’s to scroll through new matches—something, I’m embarrassed to say, I haven’t done in months.
For all my talk about wanting to find The One, I sure haven’t been trying very hard.
I pick up the bottle of Krug and wrap my hands to twist off the cork the way I have thousands of times.
But the pop sounds wrong.
Because it isn’t a pop.
I frown as I realize it’s a knock at the door—a brisk, businesslike rap.
Lily. I’ve always wanted us to have that magical connection that twins have, at least in TV shows, and maybe I’m finally getting my wish. She must have sensed I didn’t want to be alone after all, and—
I’m halfway to the door when I see through the window, even in the dark, that it’s not Lily. It’s not a woman at all.
The sight of a male silhouette outside the door while I’m in here alone should cause my pulse to race, and it does.
But not with fear. With something else.
I know this silhouette.
I move slowly, not sure how I feel about his presence. By the time I get to the door, I still haven’t figured it out, but I unlock it anyway.
And open the door to Sebastian Andrews.
Eighteen
“What are you doing here?”
Sebastian rubs a hand over the back of his head and looks down at the ground. His other hand holds a cheap white plastic bag.
When he glances up, it’s with a slight frown. “I don’t know.”
I lean against the door jamb. “You don’t know what you’re doing outside an out-of-business wine shop at 10:30 p.m.?”
Without looking, I flick my fingernail at the champagne sign. “We’re closed. For good. Oh wait, you know that.”
Sebastian exhales. “I’m probably the last person you want to see. It’s inappropriate that I’m here given the circumstances. I just…”
He hands me the bag. “Lamb gyro. Just in case.”
“Just in case?” I ask, taking the bag, but not bothering to hide my confusion.
Sebastian frowns again. “I don’t know quite how to explain it. I just had the strangest sense…” His gaze finds mine. “That you needed something.”
My smile slips. Here I’d been willing Sir to magically sense I needed to talk. Or Lily to have some new surge of sibling connection. I’d been sending vibes out into the universe all right, and the person who’d felt them was… Sebastian Andrews?
“Anyway,” he clears his throat, looking embarrassed. “I’ll leave you to your…” He looks behind me, apparently noticing the empty store for the first time, and he looks regretful. And maybe a tiny bit guilty.
Again, those aqua eyes find mine, and again, I feel an annoying tug in my stomach.
“Are you okay?” he asks gently.
I make a rueful face and scratch my cheek. “My face is all blotchy, huh?”
“My mother would kill me if I answered that,” he says with a slight smile. He reaches toward my face. His hand pauses, and when I don’t move away, his thumb comes to rest against the center of my forehead in a gesture that’s both surprising and… tender.
He swipes with his thumb, and when he pulls it back and shows me the pad of his finger, it’s bright pink.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I mutter, rubbing at my forehead with the back of my hand. “May and her lipstick. I don’t suppose you’re old-fashioned and have a handkerchief tucked into your suit pocket there?”
“Normally, yes. But alas, I left it next to my pocket watch and top hat this morning.”
I can’t help the little sigh that slips out. “Don’t you ever wish we could go back to that time? When men were gentlemen and ladies were… well actually, I guess we couldn’t vote, huh?”
“Depends. Did men carry handkerchiefs and pocket watches after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified? I’d like to think yes.”
“Ugh, I’m not in the mood for you to be likable right now,” I say without heat.
He smiles, and I’m tempted to smile back, even as I’m irrationally angry. At him, for being so appealing when he’s hung up on some other woman. At me, for hating that other woman…
“Thanks for the food,” I say, giving the bag a little jiggle. “But I have more work I should get back to, and I’m sure you’ve got someone to get back to.”
The warmth in his eyes fades. I try to tell myself his expression is irritation or wounded pride. But it looks a lot like hurt.
Sebastian gives a single nod and takes a step backward. “Ah. Never let it be said I can’t take my cue. Good night, Ms. Cooper.”
He turns away, and the second he does, I know this is all wrong.
“Wait.” I reach out and grab his sleeve. He’s not wearing a coat over his suit jacket, and the crisp texture of the suit sleeve reminds me of the night he’d walked me home and lent me his jacket.
His teal eyes glance down at my hand, then back to my face. Questioning. Hoping?
I shift to the side and tilt my head. Come in.
He steps into the empty Bubbles, though it feels a lot less empty with him in it.
By now Bublé’s moved on to singing about him and Mrs. Jones as I set the white bag on the counter.
Sebastian looks around the near-empty room, his expression betraying nothing, at least until he notes the champagne. The two glasses. “You were expecting company.”
“Sort of. It’s complicated,” I say with a little smile.
“Ah.” His voice is a touch sharp. “Your suitor.”
“Suitor. I like that word.” I pick up the champagne bottle and give it a twist, the sharp crack of the cork creating a pleasant sort of harmony with the old-school music. “I think I undersold that last time. Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover the situation with my suitor.”
“No?” he asks, coming to stand across from me at the counter. I pour the wine and glance up, expecting to see him taking note of the bottle’s label, but instead he’s watching me.
I let his question hang in the air. I don’t want to think about Sir’s rejection just now. In fact, I realize, it’s strange how little I seem to be able to think about Sir in Sebastian’s presence, or Sebastian while messaging with Sir. It’s as though my brain’s put up some sort of buffer that prevents me from comparing the two men.
Perhaps because my heart knows it would have to choose.
I finish pouring the glasses and hand one to Sebastian.
He hesitates. “You really want to be drinking champagne? With me? Tonight?”
“This is a strange little twist of fate, to be sure,” I say, looking around at the empty store. Empty because of him. But because of me as well. “But fittin
g, wouldn’t you say?” I lift my glass. “To Bubbles.”
He lifts his as well. “To Bubbles. To new beginnings.”
I nod, about to sip, but he adds one more. “To the unexpected.”
Sebastian catches my eyes as he says it, our gazes holding as we click our glasses and sip. The wine is outstanding. And has nothing to do with the butterflies in my stomach. The dryness in my mouth. The slight fuzziness where logic should be.
“This is incredible,” he says, finally seeming to register his beverage. He reaches for the bottle and blinks. “And very expensive.”
I shrug. “For all my preaching to my customers—former customers—about treating every day like a special occasion, I guess I’m old school. I’ve been saving this particular bottle for an extraspecial occasion, bittersweet as it may be.”
“And here you are, sharing it with a man you hate.”
I quickly shake my head. “I don’t hate anybody.”
“Extreme dislike?” he asks with a grim smile.
I exhale. “Closing Bubbles was likely inevitable,” I say softly. “But I won’t claim that the constancy of your letters and your sheer persistence didn’t shove me along. Perhaps before I was ready. Or perhaps I should be thanking you. I’m not quite sure, to be honest.”
His gaze flickers with regret. “Ms. Cooper—”
I quickly shake my head. “I don’t want to talk business, Mr. Andrews. Not tonight. That part is done. I had my attorney handle everything for a reason.”
“What reason?”
“So I don’t come to hate you,” I say, giving him a quick grin.
He looks off-balance for a moment, then lets out a quiet chuckle. “You did warn me during our first meeting that you share your every thought.”
Not my every thought.
I pull a stool over and hop onto it. I point at the other stool, but he shakes his head. I shrug and reach for the lamb gyro, smiling a little as I realize I’m about to combine cheap New York street meat, extraordinarily expensive champagne, and Sebastian Andrews.
A strange blend that is surprisingly… perfect.
“Want to split this?” I ask, unwrapping it.
“I don’t believe there’s a knife.”
I shrug and take a bite, then hand it to him. Sebastian hesitates only a second, looking vaguely nonplussed, as though sharing food is a novelty. Then he takes a bite—a large one that makes me think he skipped dinner or had a salad—and hands it back.
It’s about as intimate a meal as I’ve had in recent memory, yet nothing about it feels weird.
“So,” I say, taking a bite and wiping my chin. “How’ve you been?”
He takes the gyro and stares at it, though he’s not really seeing it. “Fine.”
I lift my eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”
He still hasn’t touched the gyro, so I take it back and take another bite.
“You could try it my way,” I say with a grin. “A little more babble, a little less stoicism.”
“All right,” he says slowly. “You asked how I’ve been. I’ve been conflicted.”
“Oh man,” I say, lifting my champagne flute in a toast. “I hear that.”
Sebastian apparently changes his mind about sitting, because he moves around the counter and pulls out the second stool after all. He drags it across the hardwood floor until it’s across from me. He sits. Takes the gyro out of my hand.
“What are you conflicted about?” he asks.
“Nope. You started it. You go first.”
He takes his time chewing and swallowing, his expression guarded when he meets my eyes again. “It’s about a woman.”
My stomach tightens in unmistakable jealously, which I remind myself is unfair.
I smile and shrug. “Mine is about a man. Maybe we can help each other.”
His eyes flash for a minute before he exhales and nods. “I care about her. I think about her more than I should. In fact, I find I’m thinking about her almost always. And yet, recently when I’ve thought about taking the next step, moving forward, something stops me. As though the moment isn’t right. Does that make sense?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I say ruefully, thinking of Sir’s most recent message. “But you want my thoughts on the right moments in life?”
“You’ve got kind of an Amazonian warrior gleam in your eye, so I’m not really sure,” he admits skeptically.
“Here’s what I think,” I proceed anyway, balling up my napkin and tossing it into the plastic bag. “I think relationships are a lot like champagne. This bottle here”—I lift it and pour us each a little more—“it’s crazy expensive. My dad got all of us Cooper kids a vintage from the year we were born for our twenty-first birthdays and told us to save it for the right time. We always interpreted that as save it for a special occasion. Engagements. Weddings. Celebrations. Baseball, if you’re my brother.” I hold the neck of the bottle, study the label. “But my dad didn’t say save it for a special occasion. He said save it for the right time. It’s a crucial difference, I’m realizing.”
“And this is your right time? Here? With me?” he asks, his voice rough.
“Apparently. And that’s sort of my point.” I set the bottle down and look at him. “I don’t think you can plan for the right time. Or the right woman. As far as timing’s concerned, maybe sometimes you’ve got to make it the right time and simply trust that it’s the right woman.”
He sets the gyro aside—it’s a mangled mess now, and neither of us reaches for it again. “What if pursuing one path costs you another?”
“That, my dear sir, is what you call life.”
I stiffen a little in shock at what I’ve just said. My dear sir.
I feel both instant remorse, as though I’ve betrayed everything that is most dear to me, and something else I can’t explain—a fleeting sense that I’ve just uncovered everything that is most dear to me.
The sentiment disappears before I have a chance to fully decipher it, but most puzzling of all is the look on Sebastian’s face, a near exact mirror of my own shock and discomfort, which makes no sense. He can’t possibly know what that phrase means to me, unless…
My stunned brain runs through everything I know of Sir, everything I know of Sebastian. Both men in Manhattan, which means nothing—there are millions of those. But there are other things. The fact that both were in relationships when we first met, but no longer are. That he’d ordered lemon sorbet that night in the park, the quick wit, the unexpected kindness. Most telling of all, my own reaction to both men…
My fleeting sense of wondrous hope evaporates almost immediately as I recall one crucial detail: I’ve met Sebastian Andrews’s parents—Sir’s father passed away.
Not the same man then. The disappointment at the realization is severe. It would have explained so much. How I could feel pulled to both of these men in the same urgent, inexplicable way. How I always feel guilty thinking about one while talking to the other. But most especially, it would have solved the biggest problem of all:
Choosing one would mean losing the other—a thought that feels nearly unbearable.
To cover my disappointment that they can’t possibly be the same man, I force a smile and resume conversation as though nothing’s happened.
“Anyway,” I say lightly. “I could be wrong. But I’ve got to wonder if relationships, especially the complicated ones, the ones worth getting right… I wonder if they’re not like fine wine. Maybe you’re just supposed to drink the damn thing.”
Sebastian smiles—a real smile that softens his hard features. “An interesting approach for a wine expert.”
“Former wine expert. I’m out of that game, thanks to you.” But there’s no heat to it, and I bat my eyelashes a bit.
“Out of the game?” he says in surprise. “I assumed you’d stay in the business in some way.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so. It was always my dad’s dream. Not mine.”
“So what’s next?”
“Well,
I’ve got a few months to figure it out, also thanks to you. Which is a good thing, because I don’t have a clue,” I admit.
He studies me over the flute. “What about those dreams of being an artist.”
I smile. “I think that ship has sailed in the same direction as your jockey ambitions.”
“I disagree,” he says. “I haven’t so much as been near a horse in close to ten years. You’re actively creating excellent art pieces.”
I blink in surprise. “You knew?”
“That the paintings in the shop are yours? I had a hunch.”
“How’d you figure it out?”
“Well, not because of your signature. What is it, a shoe?”
I smile a little and take another sip of champagne. “Yes. Cinderella’s glass slipper. It was one of the first things I learned to draw. I was big into all things fairy tales. I started using it as my signature, which, when I was nine, felt extremely sneaky and clever. It sort of stuck.”
I tilt my head curiously. “But really, how’d you know they were mine? I don’t tell many people.”
He shrugs. “I’m not sure. I’ve suspected, I think, for a while. The look on your face when I called them cutesy. It was more than professional pride. It was personal. Then, when you mentioned that night at the park that you wanted to be an artist, it sort of confirmed it.”
I lift my fingers in a little salute. “Hats off, Sherlock.”
He shifts a bit on the stool and waits until I look back at him. Which I do, warily.
“They’re good,” he says. “The paintings.”
I roll my eyes. “He says, after realizing he put his foot in his mouth earlier with the Cutesy Tinker Bell comments.”
“They’re good.” His voice is firm. Warm. Confident.
I want to accuse him of groveling, of trying to save face or digging himself out of the hole he dug, but he doesn’t speak like a man trying to gain ground or backpedal. He sounds like a man speaking the truth.
And it means a lot. To have someone who’s not related, who’s not a friend, compliment my work.
I wipe an imaginary bit of nothing away from my mouth to do something with my hands, then finally gather the courage to look at him. To really look at him, because he’s looking right at me.
