by Kim Barnouin
That’s what you get for snooping, Charlie seemed to be saying to me when we got back to Zach’s house just after midnight.
It was crazy that I felt like a popped balloon. If I’d never found that ring box, I would never have been thinking about marriage. Just blink yourself back to six o’clock this morning, before you stuck your hand in that pocket. Before you snooped.
Before Zach wanted to dump you.
Except once again, Charlie’s leash was being clipped on him, which brought me back to that morning.
I just wanted to go home and complain to Sara about what an idiot I was, but she was likely at Joe’s anyway.
Zach and I headed toward the Pier, still lit up. Not many people were on the beach this late, but we passed a few couples, walking hand in hand, just like us.
“You okay?” Zach asked, Charlie scampering ahead of us on his leash. “You got quiet at the after party, and then you took off. Did someone really leave a burner on or did my family just talk you to death?”
I smiled. “I love your family. I had a great time today.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But you haven’t met my mother yet,” he added with a smile.
Huh. Maybe he wasn’t dumping me. “I’m sure I’ll love her too.”
Zach had told me a little about his mother, Dominique Jeffries Huffington. For the past few years, they’d been on the outs and had only recently repaired their relationship. Zach rarely talked about it. His father and mother had been archenemies for years and were never in same room—or stretch of beach—together, so Dominique hadn’t been invited to the wedding.
“My cousin Griff—the guy who got engaged at the wedding,” Zach said, throwing a little piece of driftwood for Charlie to fetch, “he was so afraid he’d lose the ring he asked me to hold it for him until it was time to propose.”
Heart clench. “Good thing she said yes, then.”
He nodded and tightened his grip on my hand, stopping and looking out at the ocean. “Remember when we took that walk on the beach with Charlie last summer and held hands for the first time? I think I fell in love with you that night.” As Charlie came running over with a stick, Zach stopped and moved a lock of my hair from my face to behind my ear. His hand lingered on my cheek, caressed my chin, and the expression in his eyes was so . . . tender.
“I remember,” I said. That night, we’d laughed over Charlie looking for the sticks Zach kept throwing for him, and I’d felt as if I were in the middle of an incredibly good dream. “It was soon after we met. You were telling me about how much you loved that we’re from the same place, that we both grew up on farms.”
Zach and I were both from farm country three hours north of Los Angeles, but the fifty-acre organic-vegetable farm I’d grown up on and the thousands-acre cattle ranch where Zach had grown up were night and day.
Sometimes, such as now, I felt so close to Zach, so connected to him. Getting engaged, not getting engaged. Who gave a fuck? We were together, had a good thing going, and that was all that mattered. Unless he was about to tell me he was moving to New York or Paris or Sydney.
“Close your eyes,” Zach said.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
I closed my eyes, listening to the whoosh of the ocean, the breeze stirring my hair.
“Open,” he said.
I slowly opened my eyes and gasped. What?
He held out an open velvet ring box. Nestled inside was an even more beautiful diamond ring than the one I’d seen earlier. Big, perfect, round diamond in an antique setting, the platinum band studded with smaller diamonds.
I stood there, unable to speak, unable to breathe.
“Clementine Cooper, I love you more than anything in the world.”
“I love you too,” I whispered. Mind blown.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, lifting my chin.
Only the mini-angel was around this time. “I want to marry you more than anything. I love you, Zach. So, so much.”
“Me too,” he whispered back, and slid the ring on my finger.
6
First the ring wasn’t a surprise and freaked me out. Then it was a surprise and freaked me out even more—in a good way. When had Zach Jeffries not kept me on my toes?
We didn’t tell anyone last night. Both of us wanted to keep it our hot secret for the evening. We celebrated with Veuve Clicquot on the moonlit balcony outside Zach’s bedroom, talking for hours about the past, present, and future, where we wanted to go for a honeymoon (Bali, maybe) and even how many kids each of us wanted someday (Zach wanted four, maybe even five—and he wasn’t kidding). Kids and me? Maybe ten years from now. It was close to three before we finally fell asleep.
When the sun streaming through the filmy, white curtains woke me up on Sunday morning, the first thing I saw was my ring, because my face was pressed against my left hand on the fluffy down pillows on the bed. And the diamond was wider than my finger.
I glanced over at Zach, sleeping on his back, watching his chest rise and fall.
I ran a finger down his cheek. How could I love someone so much? What the hell had happened to me? Last year, I was cynical and nowhere over my ex-boyfriend of two years. Then I met the one guy on earth whom I should have had zero chemistry with, and it was like parades in my head every time I looked at him, every time he kissed me. Zach Jeffries had turned out to be everything I never knew I wanted—someone who supported me and challenged me at the same time. Someone who made me melt. Someone who made me laugh and think and feel as if I were both floating on a cloud and standing on solid ground.
“Hey, fiancée,” Zach said, pulling me on top of him.
I kissed him, ridiculously happy.
“So what kind of wedding do you want?” he asked, running his fingers through my hair.
The no-wedding wedding. “Maybe we should put off wedding plans for a while. I want to focus on the restaurant, and I know you’ve never been busier. We can be one of those couples who’s engaged for years.”
“Only problem with that is that I want to marry you ASAP.”
“So we’ll go to city hall. Or elope to Paris.”
“Clementine Cooper, the antibride.” He wrapped me in a hug. “Whatever makes you happy.” He headed into the shower.
I called my sister, Elizabeth, with the news that she was gaining a brother-in-law. Despite being an uptight lawyer married to another uptight lawyer, Elizabeth still managed to be one of my favorite people on earth.
“Congrats!” Elizabeth said. “Thank God I know I can count on you to not stick me into some hideous, jewel-toned taffeta dress.” Elizabeth’s requirements for the maid-of-honor dress I wore to her wedding: something not white. That was it.
“I was actually thinking of pastel chiffon. Bright peach.” At her dead silence—as if I could possibly be serious—I added, “I kid, I kid.”
When we hung up, I called my parents. My dad answered the phone.
“Hi, Dad. How are you feeling?” My father had Stage III cancer and had his good days and bad.
“Feeling fine. I haven’t had to use the wheelchair in weeks, and I’ve been back in the fields, harvesting parsnip. Slower than usual, but at least I’m out there in my favorite place.”
I pictured my parents’ farm, the beautiful little white house with its window boxes of flowers, the rows and rows of beautiful crops, and trees for as far as you could see. Nothing made me happier than to think of my dad out there with his beloved dogs, pulling up eggplant and stacking them in the wheelbarrow next to the cucumbers and onions and tomatoes.
“I’m dang glad to hear that, Dad. I have good news too. I’m engaged!”
I heard him gasp. Then call out to my mother with “Mayzie, hurry over here. Clementine’s engaged!”
“Clem!” my mom said. “I’m so happy for you!”
“You and Zach could come up soon,” my dad said. “We have to celebrate. We’ll get the whole family together. You don’t know how happy this news makes me. If the la
st thing I do on this earth is see my Clementine walk down the aisle, I’ll go a happy man. You know I’m not the sappy, ‘my little girl is getting married’ type, but I’ll tell you, Clem, having your days numbered makes a difference.”
Gulp. Forget city hall. Or eloping. We had no idea how much longer he had. If he wanted to see me walk down an aisle, I was walking down an aisle.
“Tell Zach we said welcome to the family,” my dad said before we hung up.
Zach came out of the bathroom, his wet hair in peaks, towel wrapped around his waist.
“My parents welcome you to the family.”
“I’m honored to be a Cooper,” he said, kissing me on the forehead.
“So I’ve been thinking—how about we get married at my restaurant? It’s perfect for the ceremony and reception.” I loved the interior of Clementine’s No Crap Café so much that sometimes I slept there, in my office.
“Nice idea, but it’s not big enough. My parents’ guest list alone will be more than two hundred people.”
My eyebrows shot up. “What? I thought we invite the guests.”
“We do. But so do our parents. We can set limits and stomp our feet, but between family friends and business acquaintances, the wedding will be huge.”
He reached for his cell phone. “Hey, Dad, I asked Clementine to marry me, and for some crazy reason she said yes.” He smiled at something his father said. “I’ll tell her. Thanks, Dad.” He pressed end call on his phone. “My dad says welcome to the family too. They want to plan a party for us at the ranch.”
I pulled the blanket around me, still shocked that all this had happened. A proposal, after all. Calling parents. Parties. An aisle to walk down. Happy as I was, I’d have to guard my time. “Sounds great,” I said. “I’m trying to imagine any of the Jeffries at my parents’ farm.” I laughed, picturing Cornelius Jeffries looking around for the rest of the farm.
“My dad would be very impressed that your parents raised three children on that farm and make a decent living. He’d love the place.” Zach headed over to the walk-in closet, which was the size of my “bedroom” in the tiny apartment I shared with Sara. “He’d love talking business with your parents.”
I leaned up on an elbow. Yeah, right. “Only after I sign a prenup.”
He put on a dark gray shirt. “I’m not asking you to.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is this your attempt at reverse psychology?”
He laughed. “Like that would work on you? I’m not asking you to sign anything, Clem.”
“Well, I want a prenup. I want it clear to your family that I’m marrying you because I love you, despite your money. As you know, your bajillions are the only thing about you I don’t love.”
He lay back down beside me, wrapping his arms around me. “Let’s get you moved in here.”
Zach’s money was annoying, but his beach house? Less annoying. The kitchen blew my mind every time I cooked for the two of us. Three stories. Floor-to-ceiling windows everywhere. Wraparound decks. Views that calmed me. And it came with Charlie.
But moving in with Zach meant leaving Sara. I didn’t know what I’d do without her in the bedroom a foot away, hogging the bathroom, and keeping me up too late every night with hilarious stories about Joe, the boyfriend I loved to hate. If only she could move next door.
An hour later, when I opened the door to my apartment, Sara and Joe were sitting at the kitchen table and chowing down on Big Macs, a big box of McNuggets with dipping sauces, two supersize orders of fries, and large drinks.
Hey, I don’t judge. Sara could eat whatever she wanted. But she’d been on my Skinny Bitch diet—which basically meant no crap—for months and was feeling and looking amazing. Her skin glowed. Her blue eyes sparkled. Her energy was through the roof. The past few weeks, though, Joe would drive her home from late nights at the studio where they worked with greasy, chemical-laden sludge disguised as dinner from various fast-food joints. The next morning she always woke up with a hangover.
“I thought you weren’t going to be home till tonight,” she said, pushing the container of fries toward Joe as though they weren’t hers, then slid them back over with a smile. “You did say it’s no big whoop to cheat once in a while,” she added as she popped a fry into her mouth.
“Treat yourself to this,” Joe said, wiggling his eyebrows and slurping a long fry from the table. He leaned close to Sara with it dangling from his lips. Ew.
They each bit that fry until there were only lips, then they made out.
I hated Joe’s guts, but I loved Sara. If he made her happy, then I was happy. And it was sort of thanks to him that I’d been able to open Clementine’s No Crap Café at all. Six months ago, I was a contestant on his ridiculous cooking show, Eat Me, and I won the live cook-off challenge (Joe “Steak” Johansson vs. the vegan) with my kick-ass eggplant Parmesan. As if the trash-talking slob could have beaten me with his soggy version and slab of cheese.
I won twenty-five thousand bucks, and Sara got herself a great job as a kind of cohost, since she’d dished back to Joe as good as he gave it out when she’d been my assistant at the cook-off. Sara had come home from work on her first day with the moony smile that told me she’d met someone. When she said that someone was Joe, I wanted to throw up, but he was her type. If I didn’t hate him so much, I’d admit he was okay about a quarter of the time, in my humble opinion, and Sara did like her men with some edge.
Sara and I had been best friends for five years, ever since we’d met as sweating pretzels in the hot yoga studio we lived above. She’d spent years working annoying temp office jobs while she tried to make it as an actress, but because she used to be forty pounds overweight, she’d rarely gotten callbacks. Now, she’d lost twenty-two pounds, had her dream job on TV every week on a hit cooking show, and had never been happier. A lot of that was thanks to Joe, who seemed crazy about her.
While they got busy on another long fry, I looked around the kitchen where I’d sliced and chopped and baked for the past five years. I’d miss this place. If it weren’t for this apartment, I wouldn’t have met Zach.
I glanced at my sparkly ring and shoved my hand in my pockets. I wanted to tell Sara my news in private.
Joe got up, shoved a handful of nuggets in his mouth, then bent down to give Sara another slurping kiss. As he headed toward the door, he eyed me and said, “For fuck’s sake, Clementine, you’re too skinny. Eat a sandwich. I’m making chicken-fried barbecue ribs for tonight’s taping. Sara will bring you home a rack.”
Ignore him for Sara. Ignore him for Sara. Ignore him for Sara.
And I wasn’t “too skinny.” I’d been working my ass off since Clementine’s opened, maybe literally, but I ate a ton of great food, as always.
I rolled my eyes at him, which made him smile and sock me on the shoulder. Finally, Joe was gone.
“I gained three pounds this week,” Sara said, eyeing the two empty containers of large French fries. “Fourteen since I met Joe. Being with him is making me gain all my weight back.” Her frown turned upside down. “But you know what’s amazing? He doesn’t even care. I told him he was going to undo all my hard work if he kept encouraging me to pig out with him, and he said, ‘Good. I like my women with meat on their bones. More to love.’ ”
As I said, a quarter of the time, Joe was a pretty good guy. I liked that he liked Sara no matter what.
She gathered up her long, curly, brown hair and twisted it up into a knot at the back of her head, sticking a pencil through to secure it. “But I don’t want to undo all my hard work. I kicked my own ass to lose those twenty-two pounds.”
Sara used to eat bacon double cheeseburgers and family-size bags of Doritos and drink two liters of liquid Satan, aka Diet Coke, a day.
I wanted her back on the Skinny Bitch plan, but I wasn’t going to preach. When she was ready, when she felt like crap daily and started getting zits on her chin, she’d be back.
“It’s okay to have McDeath’s once in a while, Sara. But a small
fries. A single cheeseburger instead of a Big Mac. That’s how you’ll keeping losing weight, if you want.”
“You’re not grossed out that I’m eating animals? I try so hard, but I keep cheating.”
“You’re dating Joe ‘Steak’ Johansson. I knew it wouldn’t be easy for you to stay a vegan.”
“You’re dating Zach ‘the Silver Steer’ Jeffries and you don’t eat prime rib.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been a vegan my whole life.” Which was true. My parents were hard-core vegans, and except for the one summer when I graduated from high school and thought tasting freedom included eating dead animals and gross, chemical-stuffed food, I never veered. Being a vegan was who I was, part of me, like having blond hair and hazel eyes. But newbies struggled, and that was okay. I just had to remind her it didn’t have to be all or nothing. Because Sara was an all-or-nothing kind of chick.
She was also my best friend, and I was dying to share my big news with her. We’d been through everything together. Breakups. Getting fired. Insane bosses. Crushing disappointments. And the flip side—amazing, hilarious times.
I went to the kitchen and poured us two mimosas. “Here.”
Sara took the glass and held it up. “Oooh, what are we celebrating?”
“This.” I held out my left hand.
She grabbed my hand and stared at the ring. “Oh my God. Clem!”
“I know! I can’t believe it myself.” I’d tell her the whole story later.
Sara hugged me tight. “I’m so happy for you, Clem.” Her blue eyes got all misty, and I laughed. “Now I’m sobbing. Can you imagine how I’ll be at the wedding? A puddle on the floor.”
“Will you be my queen bridesmaid? I have to ask my sister to be my matron of honor. But you can lord over whoever else I ask as a bridesmaid.”
She hugged me again. “Of course I will. Me, a bridesmaid at the society wedding of the season,” she enunciated in an English accent.
“Ha. I’ve barely given two thoughts to the actual wedding. I’m just so happy!”
