It Had to Be You

by Georgia Clark

  The concept of a date was akin to alien technology. Everything about it felt beyond the realm of comprehension. “When?”

  “Whenever. Wednesday?”

  “Oh, Wednesday I have a thing.” Liv was surprised to find herself lying, each word layered on top of the last like a messy brick wall. “A cooking class. I mean, a yoga class. A hot yoga class where you cook a hot meal after.”

  “Liv, it’s fine.” Sam retreated a step, his smile wounded but intact. “My apologies. I misread… I won’t mention it again. Good night.”

  He walked evenly to the end of the street, rounding the corner to disappear.

  Liv caught herself staring after him, returning with a thud to the reality of her four bags of heavy groceries. She couldn’t stop a sinking sensation that it was all going to go to waste.

  36

  “We don’t have any butter?” Savannah’s voice cracked. “What kind of monsters don’t have butter?” She slammed the fridge door shut and pressed one hand shakily to her forehead. A woman on the verge of a dairy-related breakdown.

  The buzzer sounded.

  Thank. God.

  A minute later, Honey placed two uncooked birds on the kitchen table, furrowing her brow at the pile of crushed groceries. “What’s going on?”

  Through gritted teeth, Savannah explained the failed dinner attempt and now-absent roommates, topped off by the indignity of a lack of butter, a key ingredient in everything worth eating.

  Honey rubbed her shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll go to the bodega and grab whatever you need. Then you and I can cook dinner. Even if it’s just the two of us, we’ll have a time.”

  The familiar, selfless hospitality prompted Savannah to take Honey’s hand. “Oh, Honey, that’s so sweet of you. But I can’t make you cook on your day off. Making fried chicken in this dinky little kitchen is probably the last thing you feel like doing.”

  “The only thing I feel like doing is hanging out with you. And trying out your grandmother’s recipe. Gotta get to know the competition.”

  Savannah met Honey’s eyes. The color of Hershey’s Kisses. She was so lucky to have found someone who felt like home in a city so far from it. They melted into a hug, the afternoon’s tension draining away. Honey could always reset her mood.

  “That would be wonderful.”

  And just like that, everything was okay.

  As the rain got heavier, the kitchen got cozier. Together, they made Nanna’s fried chicken, the recipe for which called for a fresh buttermilk brine and a handful of crumbled Cheetos in the coating. Savannah pan-fried the different parts, filling the apartment with the warm, salty smell of a backyard barbecue. Honey put a pan of cornbread in the oven and made a bowl of creamy grits. They traded playful insults and made each other laugh. It was both easy and enlivening to be in Honey’s presence. Two Southern girls in New York City, chasing their dreams, figuring it out. Honey got excited around food, talking and moving faster than usual. She was at ease in the poky, understocked kitchen, a deft improviser. Her confidence in all things made Savannah feel confident, like what she wanted in life was actually attainable. But more so, as a single girl, it was just so nice to have someone to rely on, for a laugh or a chat or comfort when things went wrong. Just like she used to rely on her best friend from home, Cricket. Except where Cricket was small-town, Honey was big-city, the one who introduced her to the restaurant reviews in the New Yorker and hidden speakeasies dotted all over Brooklyn. As the collard greens simmered on the stovetop, Savannah opened a bottle of cheap white wine. They toasted to friendship.

  “Speaking of,” Savannah added, “I have something for you.”

  She handed Honey a T-shirt. When Honey unfolded it, she saw it was emblazoned with a Honey’s Fried Chicken logo. Honey’s eyes went wide. “What? How…?”

  “It’s just a first draft,” Savannah was quick to point out. “I’m not much of a designer. I just thought you could wear something like it when you do all this”—she indicated the food—“yourself.”

  Honey couldn’t stop staring at the shirt, a gap-toothed grin plastered on her face. “This makes the whole idea a thousand times more real. Thank you. And now, I don’t have to ask my ex about it.”

  Savannah sipped her wine, curious. “What’s going on there?”

  Honey sighed, folding up the T-shirt carefully. “Me and Rowan, that’s… complicated.”

  “How so?”

  “We got together when I first moved to New York. Rowan means a lot to me. Always will. I just can’t figure out if we’re meant to be.”

  “If you’re not meant to be with him, what sort of guy are you meant to be with?”

  Honey met Savannah’s gaze. As if she knew the answer to that already. Savannah scanned the available men in Honey’s life. Guys who worked at the restaurant, friends who’d drop by for happy hour, a few colleagues from past jobs whose meals Honey always comped. None was a match for Honey: she was so much better than all of them combined. Being unable to guess the riddle felt like losing equilibrium.

  “Who?” Savannah pressed. “Do I know him?”

  A strange smile played at Honey’s lips. “Savannah. It’s not—”

  The front door unlocked. Leonie was soaked. “My date was a total psycho!” She dumped her bag and busted umbrella. “Oh my God, it smells amazing in here!”

  Savannah cleared the kitchen table and set it with cloth napkins and the nicest plates she could find. As Honey began serving pieces of chicken, Yuli arrived home.

  “The cornbread’s vegan!” Savannah pointed eagerly. “And so are the collard greens!”

  Yuli took a seat.

  The four feasted. Leonie regaled the table with online dating horror stories and Savannah laughed so hard she got a stitch. She had no idea Leonie was so funny. Yuli ate three pieces of cornbread and canvassed for advice about a job he was going for at a charter school. He taught eighth-grade English and wrote young-adult romance novels under the pen name Summer Winters. Again, a revelation. Just as the wine ran out, Arj returned home from his shift. “I was going to drink this in my room, then try and get some REM,” he said, extracting a bottle of burgundy. “But if there’s fried chicken going…”

  “Best fried chicken I’ve ever had.” Leonie reached for a drumstick. “Yuli, you’re missing out.”

  “Screw you,” said Yuli companionably. “I have my cornbread. No!” He batted Arj’s hand as he tried to take the last piece. “Mine!”

  “That reminds me,” Leonie said, chewing on a drumstick, “of the time I went on a date with this guy who wouldn’t stop eating off my plate.”

  The table groaned, laughing, as Leonie launched into another anecdote.

  Honey met Savannah’s eyes across the table and grinned, as if to say, You did it!

  We did it, Savannah wanted to say. We’re a team. She hadn’t thought about a girlfriend like that since Cricket. She and Cricket were a team: a two-for-one deal. In fact, Cricket kind of looked like Honey. Both were small, spunky brunettes with big smiles and expressive eyes. Maybe I have a type, she joked to herself. A girlfriend type.

  She paused, a forkful of cornbread frozen midair. Honey met her gaze. Blinked. Turned to Leonie, laughing a bit too hard at whatever she’d just said.

  Which is when it all started falling into place.

  Her roommates were yawning and stacking the dishwasher by the time Honey was at the front door, a bag of leftovers in hand.

  “Honey?” Savannah kept her voice low so that her roommates wouldn’t hear.

  “Yes?”

  “About Rowan…”

  Honey looked up at her quizzically. No. Expectedly.

  Everything was shifting, the horizon at a slant. “Rowan’s… not a guy. Right?”

  Savannah couldn’t read what was in Honey’s eyes. Apprehension? Relief? An eternity passed before her friend slowly shook her head.

  “No. She’s not.” Honey leaned up on her tiptoes and brushed Savannah’s cheek with a kiss. “Good night
, Savannah.” She headed quickly down the stairs and into the rainy, summer night.

  * * *

  The following morning, Savannah and Liv sat side by side in the sunny front office of In Love in New York. Before them were two open laptops and two oat milk cappuccinos. Dolly Parton, a shared favorite, played softly on the Sonos. To an outside observer, a perfect tableau of women at work. And yet neither woman had moved in the last fifteen minutes.

  Why hadn’t Honey told Savannah that she was gay? The first and most horrifying thought was that Honey, whom Savannah believed to be her closest friend in New York, thought she wouldn’t be accepting. Judgmental. Which she wasn’t.

  Okay—maybe it had been a shock.

  It had definitely been a shock.

  The queer people Savannah knew were obviously gay, definitely gay, no-surprise-to-anyone gay. Lavinia, a witchy lesbian in her study group. Ryan, her middle school “boyfriend” who currently did musical theater. Scout, a beautiful nonbinary model who floated around campus, making weird art-house films that no one understood but everyone went to see because Scout made them. Lavinia and Ryan and Scout were different, and that was great: live and let live. But while they were different to her, Honey was the same. Honey was like her. And so if Honey was gay, then all bets were off and literally anyone else could be too. The rules of who and what you were felt paper-thin and flammable. And that made Savannah uneasy.

  But not as uneasy as the fact Honey hadn’t returned any of her last three texts. Logically, Savannah knew they’d speak again, and soon: they were adults (basically); they’d clear this up. But to make herself feel bad, she imagined that the previous night was the last time she’d ever see Honey. That one kiss, her lips warm and light on Savannah’s cheek, and then, poof. Gone. The idea carved out her chest and left her hollow.

  Savannah exhaled noisily, strong-arming herself back to the present. The Fitzpatrick-Maple wedding. The recalcitrant father. “If my father couldn’t walk me down the aisle, he’d be crying more than me.”

  “Mmm,” said Liv.

  “There must be some way of appealing to the general’s better self.”

  “Mmm.” Liv’s eyes were glazed, somewhere between dreamy and worried.

  “Liv!” Savannah peered at her. “Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying?”

  “No,” Liv sighed. “I haven’t.”

  Savannah caught a whiff of intrigue. “Why not?”

  “No reason. Let’s get back to… whatever it was you were talking about.”

  Savannah folded her arms. “What’s going on?”

  Liv sighed and recounted the World’s Most Awkward Date Rejection, explaining there was absolutely no way she could go out with Sam. No way she was ready or that it’d even be appropriate. He worked for her. And it hadn’t even been a year since Eliot had died. “I mean, I couldn’t very well say yes, could I?”

  Savannah’s eyes were the size of beachballs. “Of course you should go on a date with Sam! Everyone should go on a date with whoever they want!”

  Liv swayed back from Savannah’s gale-force enthusiasm. “I don’t think so. I mean, look at me.”

  “I am looking at you. And I see a smart, successful woman who he is obviously attracted to. And why wouldn’t he be?”

  Liv frowned. “What about Ben? Isn’t it too soon?”

  “Of course it is—for Ben. But you don’t need to tell him you’re going on a date. It’s just one little date!”

  Liv looked down at her baggy overalls. “What would I wear?”

  “I’ll help you get ready!” Savannah was out of her chair, kneeling besides Liv. “It’ll be so fun, and I’m actually dying to give you a makeover.”

  “You think I need a makeover?”

  Savannah nodded, fervently. “Nothing drastic. We could just shape your brows and do a bright lip, and I bet I can do something cool with your hair—”

  “Okay, point taken. I suppose I could ask Henry and Gor to babysit.”

  “And if they can’t do it, I will!” Savannah clapped her hands. “You deserve this, Liv. And Sam is wonderful. You’d make the best couple.”

  “ ‘Couple’? What happened to ‘one little date’?” Liv was up and pacing. “So, what, should I just call him back and accept? Isn’t that a bit weird?”

  “I don’t think he’ll mind.” Savannah bounced back to her feet. “This is so exciting! And honestly, I need the distraction.”

  “From what?”

  From soft lips and summer tans. A woman’s curves; a topographic map she felt called to explore… “Nothing,” Savannah replied. “Go on, call him!”

  Was there something perverse about convincing her dead ex’s widow to go on a date with another man? Yes. Yes, there was. Yet somehow, that’s what was happening.

  Liv scrolled through her phone, locating the chef’s number. She winced, rubbing her stomach. “Gosh, I feel so weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Like I’m hungry. Or getting sick. Or like I’m… ” Liv’s eyes pulsed in recognition. She met Savannah’s gaze, looking a bit sheepish. “I think I’m excited.”

  Savannah smiled. Liv deserved this.

  Everyone deserved to love, and be loved. However they damn well pleased.

  Liv tapped Sam’s number. “Here goes nothing.”

  37

  Zach’s thumbs moved cautiously over his phone. Hey! I’m here! No, too eager. Yo, downstairs. Too American. Miss Mitchell, your chariot awaits. Oh God, could he be more pretentious?

  “Bloody hell.” Zach tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and raked his hair with both hands. What had gotten into him?

  That was obvious. Darlene had gotten into him.

  He’d always had a low-key crush on his bandmate, but it was filed in the Never Going to Happen folder, with a backup copy in Not Her Type and Off-Limits (re: Work). But one impulsive lie followed by two mind-blowing kisses had set those folders ablaze. The kiss outside Babbo started replaying, a tape so worn it was a wonder it hadn’t snapped. The feeling of her mouth against his: eager, passionate. All burning heat and crazed, pent-up desire. God, it was hot. So much more than a kiss. It was a floodgate smashing. A hundred wild horses stampeding. It’d taken him a full week to recover. The idea of texting Lauren or the handful of girls he was chatting with promptly seemed ridiculous. After you fly private, you can’t go back to coach.

  And then there was the photo shoot. If the kiss had been hot, the shoot had been a nuclear explosion. The way she pulled him on top of her, definitely into it, both of them writhing and groping and grinding against each other—

  “Oh, Christ,” Zach moaned. He’d always been horny. But Darlene Mitchell was turning him into thirteen-year-old boy. It was mortifying. The only way he could control himself was by remembering that Darlene was unquestionably out of his league. There was a photograph of her meeting President Obama while she was at Princeton hanging in her hallway! Darlene was beautiful and brilliant. And he was a ridiculously randy idiot.

  “Go away!” he hissed at his lap. “Seriously, Jolly Roger, get the hell out of—”

  Someone rapped on the passenger window.

  “Darlene!” He hurriedly adjusted his pants, abandoning the plan to open the door for her. She slipped in next to him, filling the car with the sweet smell of coconut and jasmine. Somehow she managed to look both adorable and ravishing. Zach did not let his gaze linger on her luscious mouth. Or her perfect breasts. Or her gorgeous ass.

  “Were you yelling at your penis?” Darlene asked, placing her purse on the back seat.

  “No, don’t be absurd.” Zach started the engine. The Mercedes purred to life. “You look glorious,” he added, risking another glance over as he pulled into traffic. “I like the wig. I mean, I prefer the ’fro, but I like the wig.”

  Darlene smoothed her neat, glossy bob. “Not a lot of Black people in the Hamptons. Didn’t want to freak your folks out with the ’fro.”

  “Ha. They could handle it.”
r />   Darlene flipped the passenger mirror down, checking her makeup, which was, as always, immaculate. “I want to make a good impression.”

  “You always make a good impression.”

  Darlene’s smile was complicated. “That’s because I’m always trying.”

  Darlene did always look incredible when they were out in public or onstage.

  “But, you’re not always trying around me. I seem to recall some pretty ripe T-shirts and very baggy sweats at rehearsal.”

  She laughed, relaxing into the passenger seat. “Okay—maybe I’m not always trying around you.”

  “I like that,” he said. “I like I can see all sides of you.”

  “Most sides,” she corrected.

  “With a view to working my way to all,” he replied, unable to resist wiggling his eyebrows at her until she laughed and punched his arm.

  They chatted easily as they drove. Not having to look into her sizzling dark eyes helped. They always had plenty to talk about, but their banter was slightly different than usual. Usually, Darlene was annoyed with him about something he no doubt deserved—she was in the right, and he was in the wrong. But tonight, she was gentler with him. Laughing at his jokes and even paying him a few offhand compliments. He had to admit, it was pretty damn lovely. By the time they pulled up to his parents’ driveway, he was sad the two-and-a-half-hour car ride was over. And more than a little anxious that the reality of his family’s wealth, a reality he chose not to underline, was now on full, gaudy display. Darlene took in the size of the estate, bemused.

  “Okay. You didn’t mention your parents lived in a palace.”

  “Damn, I should’ve warned you.” They parked in the circular drive and ascended the sweeping front steps. “I’m such an—”

  But his next word—idiot—was cut short by Darlene’s lips pressing firmly on his. When she pulled back, he blinked, stunned.

  “—incredibly fortunate person. What was that for?”