“Oh, Bailey.” My heart ached for her. She looked so small, sitting across from me, sharing this awful, awful story of a young man, gone before his time. As I squeezed her hand, tears began to spill down my own cheeks. What had I been so sad about: some guy I barely knew, two-timing me with a woman I hated? That was nothing. This. This was something: the loss of the man you loved.
She pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve to wipe away the tears, the way my nana used to do. It was quaint and old-fashioned and brought a watery smile to my face.
“I know I may look like I’m not over it, but I am. Well, as much as I’ll ever be, I guess. It was hard and it was horrible and I wish with all my heart he was still here, but he’s not.” She swallowed, then took a deep breath, attempting a smile.
“I’m so sorry. I never knew. And . . . Josh never said anything.” Oh, Josh. This must have been so hard on him, too. Something went click in my brain. That was why he had been strange that day on our run: this was the thing he mentioned he had to deal with, the reason he had left his high-flying career as a V.P.
“Don’t blame him. I asked him not to say anything to you. It affected him deeply, of course. But for him, out of the ashes came Ned’s Coffee, his passion.” She let out a puff of air. “You see, Dan’s nickname was Ned. It’s some weird childhood name, you’ll have to ask Josh about it.”
I swallowed. Ned’s was named after Josh’s dead brother, Bailey’s dead fiancé. I tried to swallow a lump in my throat the size of Texas. It didn’t work.
“So, what happened after Dan passed away is his mother, Meredith, took over his interest in the café. I didn’t have the capital to run this place on my own, and it was always Dan’s and my dream to do this together.” She paused, clearing her throat. “Anyway, to cut a long, unpleasant story short, she’s finally agreed to take a step back.”
I nodded, watching my friend closely as I tried to take everything in. It was overwhelming for me—I couldn’t imagine how all of this was for Bailey. Or for Josh. “That’s . . . good?” I chanced.
Her face broke into a smile. “It is good. It means I can call the shots, do what I want to do with the place.”
“Bailey, that’s great. I’m so happy for you.”
“Thanks. I understood what Meredith was doing, of course, trying to keep things the way they were before Dan died. It’s good for her she can begin to let go now.” She took in a breath of air and her expression changed. “Now, I have a proposition for you, as the new sole owner-operator of the Cozy Cottage Café.”
I returned her smile. “That has a nice ring to it.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I know you want this new job of yours at that electricity company, and you’re so talented, I can imagine they’re desperate to have you. But, would you like to join me here?” She looked around the café.
“What do you mean?”
“You have so many great ideas, and you’ve helped me begin to develop this business into what I want it to be. Plus, you’re an amazing baker, and I could really use another pair of hands.”
“You want me to stay on?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, as my business partner. Help me run this place, make it our place.” She bit her lip and looked at me, her face full of hope.
This time I didn’t need to ignore what my gut instinct was yelling at me. I bounced out my chair and hugged her, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Yes! Oh, my god, yes!”
Bailey let out a laugh. “I’d hoped you’d say that. Josh was right.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Josh?”
Bailey nodded. “He told me this needed to become your place now. With me.”
“He did?” I thought of Josh on the yacht, telling me to talk to Bailey. I’d assumed it was to stay on as a waitress because he knew I’d loved that so much, not to become Bailey’s partner.
Somehow, he knew. Somehow, through all ßthis mess, he knew me better than I knew myself. He could tell my heart was here, with Bailey, at the Cozy Cottage Café—not trying in vain to follow some career other people wanted for me, working in a job where my soul was being sucked out of me by some corporate vacuum cleaner each and every day. Here. Doing this.
“You know, it might have been Josh’s idea, but the moment he mentioned it, it was like the jigsaw puzzle pieces fell into place. You love this place as much as I do.”
A rush of excitement ran through my veins. In an instant, my grin was big and fat. “This is going to be a-mazing!”
“I know! We’re really doing this!” Bailey’s eyes were the size of the saucers she served her delicious cups of coffee on.
My excitement morphed into a beautiful sense of serenity, the kind of calm you can only achieve when you know deep, deep down in your bones something is right. I looked at Bailey for a moment and took a deep breath. “We are.”
Chapter 22
IT WAS THE DAY of The Color Run, and I was up, ready, and raring to go, my newfound exhilaration at becoming Bailey’s Cozy Cottage partner—her partner!—threatening to spill right out of me. I wasn’t going to let myself waste another second thinking about that love-rat Marcus and had ignored his texts and “please let me explain” voicemail. What would be the point? I didn’t need it spelled out that I’d been well and truly played. I knew that already.
I met Marissa and Cassie at the starting point, a cocktail of excitement and nerves running through my veins. We were dressed in our matching white tutus, headbands, and Color Run T-shirts, ready to get majorly “colored” together as we ran through the streets of Auckland. We had cheap reflective sunglasses propped up on our heads, important to keep the colored powder out of our eyes, Marissa had instructed, the only one in our group to have done a Color Run before. We’d agreed to tie our hair up in high pigtails with oversized white ribbons and wear big red dots on our cheeks. We bore more than a passing resemblance to something out of a Britney Spears video from the nineties.
The intensity of the atmosphere, the excitement in the air was almost tangible. I surveyed the crowds of people dressed up in similar outfits to ours. There was a group of people—gender unclear—dressed as large white and black dogs, a bunch of men wearing women’s dresses with their fluffy afros and knee-high socks, and even a group of women wearing ball gowns—although how they would ever manage to run five kilometers in those was anyone’s guess.
“This is amazing!” I said, shouting over the music blaring from the speakers around us.
“I know, right? So fun,” Cassie replied with a grin.
“The atmosphere is electric, isn’t it?” Marissa yelled, and we nodded, soaking it all up.
“Well, it is the happiest five k’s you’ll ever run,” Cassie added, quoting their catchphrase. “Here, put these on.”
She pulled our official numbers out of a bag, and we attached them to our matching tops with safety pins.
“And . . . these.” She handed us each a packet of powdered color.
I took mine and looked down at it. “I thought they threw the colors at you, not the other way around.”
“This is for your own personal use,” she said, her eyes shining. “Line someone up and chuck it at them. The more color, the better.”
“Fun!” Now, which of my friends was I going to color bomb first . . . ?
“Hey, look, here’s Bailey,” Cassie said.
“Geez, it was hard to find you guys!” Dressed in normal people’s clothes, no tutu or high pigtails, Bailey greeted us all with her characteristic grin. “You all look awesome! It’s almost a shame you’re going to get covered in powder. We’re here to support you.”
“We?” I asked.
“Hey, Paige,” a voice said behind me. I turned and came face-to-face with Josh.
“Hi,” I said to him, suddenly awkward. I hadn’t seen Josh since our “woman overboard” yachting disaster. He looked the same old happy Josh I’d grown to know, but something was different about him, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I smiled at him and looked down to re
ad his T-shirt, which had become my habit. It had the words “You are brew-tiful” with a picture of a grinning face on a coffee cup.
I smiled at him. “I haven’t seen that one before. Is it a new addition to your extensive collection?”
“Yeah. As a matter of fact, it goes with this one.” He held up a smaller white shirt with a picture of a face with long eyelashes on a cup of coffee and the words “I am brew-tiful” emblazoned across the front. “It’s for you.”
I took the shirt in my hands, gazing down at it, not sure what to think or say.
Marissa elbowed me in the ribs. “Oh, that’s so cute! Paige, you have to wear that.”
I looked from the T-shirt up into Josh’s eyes, my heart suddenly inexplicably hammering hard. Our eyes locked and his smile broadened. Something moved in my chest, although I couldn’t have named the feeling if you’d paid me a million bucks.
“I hope you’ll wear it,” he said, an uncertain look on his face.
“There’s . . . there’s nowhere to change.” I tore my eyes from Josh’s face and looked around at my friends. All three of them were watching me closely. I felt like a chimpanzee at the zoo.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Bailey said. “No one will be looking. We can all crowd around you and you can slip that shirt off and this one on in a flash.”
“Just like that,” Marissa said.
I bit the inside of my lip. “Okay.” I stole a quick glance at Josh. His face was beaming, his eyes dancing. A couple of butterflies batted their wings in my belly. I looked down at my sneakers, not sure quite what to make of what was happening between us right now—but kind of liking it, nonetheless.
“I’ll . . . ah . . . just go over here while you do that,” Josh said, turning his back and stepping away to give me my privacy. Well, as much privacy as you can get in a field full to the brim with fun runners.
I thought of Josh slipping my wet clothes off me on the yacht after he’d saved me and my tummy began to tingle. He’d already seen me in just my underwear, but this felt different somehow.
As my three friends formed an insufficient human shield, I changed into my new T-shirt, Josh’s face front and center in my mind. I attached the race number and smoothed the shirt down. It fitted me like a glove, the cute coffee mug grinning out at the world.
“You look adorable. Josh obviously really likes you,” Cassie said as Marissa and Bailey nodded along, all three of them shooting me meaningful looks.
I looked over at the back of Josh’s head. He was standing a few feet away, next to a family group of a mom, a dad, and two kids. And it was then I knew what I wanted to do, what I needed to do. Without letting myself even think about it, I took a few short steps over to him and placed my hand gently on his arm. He turned to face me, a smile appearing across his face as he took in my T-shirt. My heart slamming against my ribs, without a word I reached my hand up around his neck and pulled him down to me, brushing my lips lightly against his. After a beat, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into him, deepening our kiss, intensifying it so the music, the voices, everything around us disappeared into nothingness. It was just Josh and me, no one else, kissing, knowing. The way he felt, the way he tasted, the scent of him. Everything.
And I’d never known.
He’d been here with me, all this time, and I’d never known.
As I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes, I wondered what I’d been doing with my time when, all along, I could have been doing this, with him.
“Thank you.” My voice was breathless, our foreheads touching. “Thank you for this and for talking to Bailey about the café, and . . . well, for everything.” I took his hand in mine. It fitted perfectly; it felt right. My heart still thudding, I swallowed, hard. I thought of everything Josh had done for me: helping me train for this race, supporting me with my career, rescuing me when I went overboard—literally as well as figuratively.
And now the T-shirt, one of his special Josh-shirts, customized especially for me.
His eyes were electric, full of the promise of things to come. “For you, anything.”
Tears stung my eyes as the enormity of how blind I’d been hit me. “And your brother. Josh, I’m so sorry about him.”
I could see the pain written across his face as he said, “Thank you.”
I kissed him again, not wanting to let go—ever. “I’ve been so, so stupid. Can you ever forgive me?” I bit my lip and held my breath, awaiting his response.
A fresh smile spread across his face—a face I had once joked looked like Harry Potter, a face I knew with a deep, unflinching certainty I wanted to see every single day of my life from this day on. Calm pervaded my belly, spreading down my limbs.
Josh. It was Josh.
Why hadn’t I seen what was right in front of my eyes?
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, pushing an errant strand of hair away from my face.
“Hey, you two.”
I reluctantly tore my eyes from Josh’s to see Marissa standing next to us.
“I cannot tell you how sorry I am to have to break this up, really, I can’t. I think the race is starting. They just announced it,” Marissa said.
I looked at her in shock. “They did?” I had been completely oblivious to anything but Josh. Now, the music, the voices, everything came flying back into my consciousness, like someone had flicked the “on” switch of a massive sound machine.
“Yeah, I think you two were kind of in your love bubble there.” Marissa grinned at us and I blushed, looking up at Josh through my lashes. “Love bubble.” I liked the sound of that.
Josh squeezed my hand. “Go, run your race. I’ll be waiting for you at the finish line.”
My belly flip-flopped. “Okay.” With reluctance, I let his hand drop to his side. “I guess I’ll see you in five kilometers.”
He grinned at me and heat spread through my chest. I turned to my friends. All three of them were beaming at me like a bunch of happy teenage delinquents on a day out. I returned their smiles tenfold.
“Shall we go run this race?” Marissa asked.
I nodded, my happiness threatening to bubble over. “Let’s do this!”
Bidding a reluctant farewell to Josh and Bailey, Marissa, Cassie, and I walked toward the starting line. My head was abuzz with Josh and that incredible kiss. I couldn’t help but turn back to take one final look at him. He was watching me with an intense look on his face, one I hadn’t seen before.
“Oh, my god!” Marissa exclaimed. “Did I say you two were perfect together? Let me think. Hmm, why yes, I believe I did!”
I shoved her arm, my happiness almost bursting out of me. “Is that an ‘I told you so’?”
“I think it is,” Marissa replied with a grin.
We got into position, deep within the large crowd. “Hey, you two, glasses on,” Cassie instructed.
We did as she said, slipping our sunglasses into place.
“Now, we need to do this.” Marissa ripped open her bag of powdered color and threw it at Cassie and me, my brand-new T-shirt turning pink.
“Oh, no you didn’t!” I grabbed my own bag of blue powder and began throwing it at Marissa and Cassie until we all looked like rainbow ballerinas on some kind of bachelorette party in Vegas.
Our bags emptied, we surveyed one another. Marissa’s blonde hair had turned blue on one side and pink on the other, with a splash of green thrown in for good measure.
“You look great!” Cassie declared, and we all laughed, having the time of our lives. “And Paige? I’m so happy for you. Josh seems like a great guy.”
“Oh, he is,” Marissa gushed before I had the chance to respond. “You should read the dossier we put together on him for Paige. He’s one impressive guy.”
The dossier? I thought of the blue folder, still sitting in my drawer, untouched. I smiled to myself. I didn’t need to know what was hidden inside that folder. I had all the time in the world to learn everything I needed to know about Josh. And I lik
ed it that way.
The announcement was made to start the race and we were off, my good friends and me, jogging along together amidst the large pack of runners. I couldn’t keep that look on Josh’s face as I turned to look at him one last time out of my mind. I knew I was no expert on men—hell, I’d shown how utterly useless I was with them over the Marcus debacle—but that look? It felt different; it felt like something big, something huge. I couldn’t wait to see him again, to see what lay ahead for us.
As we reached each color bomb station, we slowed down to ensure we got a decent dousing in color, and by the end of the race, tired and hot, the only white on us was the whites of our eyes, hidden behind our glasses.
As we passed through the finish line, we were each handed a bottle of water by the perky cheerleader officials, congratulating us on a great effort.
“That was amazing!” I said, my hands on my knees, puffing from the exertion of the race. Although it was only five kilometers, we had run the whole way and I had a real sense of achievement. I had set out to do this and I’d done it.
Paige was back!
“Oh, my gosh. Totally!” Cassie said. “Great job, girls!” She raised her hand in the air, and we all high-fived one another, bouncing on the spot, high on the adrenaline, atmosphere, and sheer excitement of the day.
The music was pumping, there were people everywhere, all covered in every color of the rainbow. I unscrewed my water bottle and took a long, cool drink. I scanned the crowd, eager to see Josh again and pick up where we’d left off. I’d felt something for him that had startled me. It was unexpected, and it was very, very nice.
And then there he was, next to me, holding me, kissing me, congratulating me on my run. It felt like a wonderful dream, one I never wanted to wake up from.
Chapter 23
I STOOD IN THE Cozy Cottage kitchen, leaning up against Josh, one of his arms wrapped around my middle, the other holding a frosty glass of champagne. It had been nine weeks since The Color Run and we had been getting to know one another and spending a lot of time together. It had been nothing short of blissful.
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