Hopeless Romantic

by Georgia Beers

  Teddi adored her little townhome.

  No, it wasn’t the kind of place she’d pictured herself inhabiting a few years ago. She remembered spending Sundays with Julia early in their relationship, looking at houses along the canal, fantasizing about how they’d be able to afford one of those someday. And those fantasies had come closer and closer to reality as time went on and Hopeless Romantic became successful. It was interesting, though, how her happiness with Julia—or, more accurately, Julia’s happiness with her—was inversely proportional to the success of Teddi’s business. The more successful she became, the more distant she’d felt from her wife.

  When everything fell apart for Teddi, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Julia wanted to keep their house, and honestly, Teddi was fine with that. She didn’t think she could bear to live there after everything that had happened. But where would she live? What could she afford after Julia took half of everything she had?

  Luckily, Harlow’s brother Eddie was a Realtor, and he decided to make it his mission to find his little sister’s best friend an amazing little place, and he had come through with flying colors.

  Her place wasn’t big, but it had tons of charm and was close enough to Hopeless Romantic that she could walk to work. She’d taken her time choosing colors, painting, going to estate sales to find furniture to add to the new stuff she’d purchased and the few items she’d taken with her when she moved out. It had taken some getting used to, coming home to a place that nobody else lived in. She and Julia had moved in together within their first six months as a couple, so ending her workday and walking into an empty house had clobbered her for the first few months. But gradually, so very gradually, she began to settle in. To start to embrace that the townhouse was hers. That everything in it was hers. After having so much taken from her, possessiveness had made a place in her brain. But now, after so much time, she’d begun to love her home.

  The galley style kitchen was roomier than most. It still needed some updating, and Teddi planned to replace the counters after the holidays, but it was more than functional. She dropped her bag, shed her coat and gloves, took her boots off, and headed straight for it, specifically for the small table in a corner that she referred to as the bar. Various bottles of liquor, a martini shaker, and a corkscrew were enough to qualify it as such, as far as she was concerned. Anyway, who cared? She just wanted a Manhattan.

  Who’d have thunk a person could find solace in mixology? It had started as a passing interest a few years ago, but Teddi found she liked the precision, the methodology, the little bit of chemistry. It relaxed her, helped her clear her mind.

  And did her mind ever need clearing.

  Rye whiskey went into a mixing glass. She added vermouth, then opened the small bottle of bitters and gave that a shake. She’d made enough Manhattans to know she liked slightly more than a dash. Added ice. Stirred—not shaken—and strained into a rocks glass, garnished with a cherry, the golden red color the thing she liked most about it.

  In the living room, she flopped onto her gray microfiber couch—not a material she’d get next time, but the one she’d been able to afford when she’d moved—and sipped, absently wondering what she wanted for dinner. Her phone saved her from that dilemma, and she glanced at the screen.

  Harlow. Right on time.

  “What do you want?” Her standard line when answering a call from her best friend.

  “Your undying love and devotion.” Harlow’s standard reply.

  “Done.”

  “What’s tonight’s cocktail? Old-fashioned? Martini?”

  “Manhattan.”

  “Oh…” Harlow drew out the word. “Yum.”

  “It’s not bad, if I do say so.” Teddi admired this quality of Harlow’s. She never went directly to the subject of the call. She made small talk first. How was your day? Nice weather we’re having. What are you drinking? All before Let’s talk about the hottie that is your client’s sister.

  “How’d things go with your meeting?”

  “Which one? I had four today.” Teddi loved to play hard to get with Harlow.

  “Stop it. You know which one.”

  “I assume, because you’re a nosy gossip, that you’re referring to the meeting with Kelly Scott.”

  “And her hot sister, yes.”

  Teddi mentally gave herself a point for calling that. “It was fine.”

  A scoff. “Fine? No. The meeting was not fine. You know what was fine? The sister. The sister was fine.” She made the word sound almost dirty.

  Harlow wasn’t wrong. That was the thing. “She is.”

  “Oh, so you’re not blind. Good. I’m relieved.” Teddi could hear Harlow’s TV in the background. “What is The Little Mermaid?” she shouted.

  Jeopardy. “Are you winning?”

  “I’m kicking these contestants’ collective ass, so yes.” Without missing a beat, Harlow went right back to the original topic and said, “When will you ask her out?”

  “Ask who out?”

  “Oh my God, do you do this on purpose? Do you play dense just to drive me insane? Is that your grand plan?”

  “Maybe.” Teddi grinned and took a sip of her Manhattan. “I’m not going to ask her out.”

  “Why not? She’s hot. She seems intelligent. She’s into you.”

  A snort from Teddi this time. “She is not into me.”

  “Please. You should have seen things from my seat. Trust me. She’s into you.”

  “Don’t you think our history makes a pretty good obstacle?” She was admitting that she’d thought about it, thought about a date with Leah, what it would be like, where they’d go, what they’d talk about.

  “Honey, obstacles are made to be conquered.”

  “I lost so much because of her.” Voice soft. Emotions close to the surface.

  “No.” Harlow was suddenly gentle. “That had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Julia. You’ve got to shift your way of thinking around that, you know?”

  Teddi gave her head a shake. “I don’t have to have this one. There are lots of other fish in the sea.”

  “Yeah? When’s the last time you went fishing?” A little firmer this time. “Because—and feel free to correct me here—as far as I know, you haven’t been on a date since your divorce was final.”

  God, was that true? Teddi blinked.

  “What’s it been? Two years now? Two and a half?” Harlow asked.

  Teddi hated to admit that Harlow was right, but she was. She’d tried to do some online dating not long after she moved out of the house, but that was more about being rebellious than trying to find somebody to click with. Once the divorce had been finalized and those papers arrived in the mail, Teddi found she had exactly zero desire to be with anybody. Maybe ever.

  “Yeah. Around that.”

  Harlow let a beat pass and Teddi could almost picture her reining herself in, telling herself to ease up. Harlow had the habit of going at something she was adamant about at full speed, and sometimes, that could shut down the person she was talking to. “You deserve to be happy, Teddi.”

  “I was.”

  “You deserve to be happy again.”

  Do I? It was a thought that ran through Teddi’s head regularly. Loudly. With heavy footsteps. She’d had a marriage, something she’d thought was solid. But she’d taken it for granted somehow. Did she really deserve a shot at a second relationship?

  What if she ruined that one, too?

  Chapter Seven

  It was the Monday before Thanksgiving and Teddi needed a break. She and Preston had worked their asses off on Saturday on a wedding that had been one of the most difficult plannings she’d ever done. A bride who couldn’t make up her mind. A mother-of-the-bride who thought she knew everything and that Teddi knew nothing. Twin sisters who had made final calls on more things than they’d had a right to. A groom who’d barely participated in one second of the planning. Not atypical, but not super common, thank God. Teddi and Preston had made sure
their cleanup crew had things under control and then headed for the nearest bar.

  Forty-eight hours later, and she still felt some residual stress. The shop had been busy—brides-to-be with upcoming holiday weddings were starting to panic. Teddi’s day had been a long one, spent mostly on getting everybody to just breathe. A glance at her watch told her it was nearly seven.

  Downtime. She needed it.

  At her desk in her office, scrolling through Instagram, she saw an ad for the Classic Theater and Café. A chocolate raspberry torte special. A classic film. Teddi stared at it for a long while.

  * * *

  Maybe I’m too early.

  Teddi didn’t stop to think about what she was doing. How ridiculous it might be. The Classic Theater was showing You’ve Got Mail. A classic romance. Right up Leah’s alley, or so Teddi figured. If she stopped to think about how she was now going into the restroom to kill a little time before grabbing popcorn and a seat, knowing that Leah tended to be late and hoping that maybe she’d come in during that time, she’d have to admit to herself that Harlow was right. That she was, maybe—just maybe—into Leah Scott. For some reason, it seemed like something that was too big for her to swallow right now. Also, she hated when Harlow was right.

  So she ignored it. And went into the ladies’ room instead.

  When she came out, she couldn’t decide if the Universe was rewarding her or toying with her because there at the concessions counter, bag of popcorn in hand, was Leah. Casual Leah. No business suit. Just jeans and cute brown boots and one of those puffy down jackets, this one purple with a hood. Leah turned and surprise registered on her face when she saw Teddi. Then a smile.

  “Hey,” Leah said, her voice like warm honey. “What are you doing here?” Those green eyes were soft, and—dared Teddi think it?—happy. To see her? Maybe.

  “Same thing you are, I assume,” Teddi replied, hoping her response was playful rather than condescending. “To see a movie.”

  Leah made a show of looking around behind Teddi. “Are you by yourself?”

  With a nod, Teddi told her, “Just about to grab some popcorn.”

  “Do you”—Leah shifted her weight, one foot, the other, back—“want to sit together? Totally okay if you don’t.” The last line was added in a rush after the first.

  “Sure.” Teddi ordered her popcorn. Play it cool. Play it cool…

  They chose seats in the center, about two-thirds of the way to the front. It was a little closer than Teddi preferred, but she followed Leah anyway. This was kind of Leah’s show, after all. This was something she did regularly and Teddi was more or less crashing it, so she didn’t want to lay out demands about where to sit. They were exactly on time—as soon as their butts hit their chairs, the lights dimmed and the previews began.

  * * *

  God, she smells good.

  It was a thought about Teddi that Leah couldn’t get out of her head. It was good thing she’d seen the movie twenty times. Otherwise, she might’ve missed important tidbits while she was busy trying not to be obvious about how deeply she was inhaling, taking in the vanilla and citrus, holding it, trying to identify it. Lime?

  How weird was it to run into Teddi in the lobby? What were the chances? She tried to remember if Teddi had said she’d visited the Classic often during their last accidental meeting here. Leah had been surprised to see her. Very pleasantly surprised. Very, very pleasantly surprised. Teddi wore jeans and a marled beige sweater, the hem hanging past her hips and the sleeves surpassing her palms. Her ivory jacket had been unzipped, her dark hair loose. Leah’d wanted to bury her nose in it.

  She’d have to settle for quietly inhaling Teddi’s perfume instead.

  Watching a movie with somebody new was always a dicey affair for Leah. If she was in her living room, that was one thing. Conversation—if kept to a minimum—was fine. But not in a theater. A vow to never sit next to JoJo at a movie ever again had been spoken more than ten years ago. JoJo had the attention span of a housefly, so she continually asked questions and kept a running commentary throughout the film. It was only Tilly’s presence that day that had kept Leah from killing her. Teddi, however, turned out to be the perfect movie-watching companion. She didn’t talk. She laughed in all the right places. She ate her popcorn quietly, didn’t sound like a toddler crunching away, like the guy two rows behind them did. And when they came to the scene where Meg Ryan was leaving her bookstore for the last time and saw a vision of her late mother twirling around with her childhood self, Leah caught the shimmer of tears rolling down Teddi’s cheek.

  Sitting on her hands helped keep Leah from reaching over to wipe them away.

  Was it weird that, even though they weren’t touching and weren’t on any sort of official date, Leah didn’t want the movie to end?

  Yeah. Definitely weird. Stop that.

  Credits rolled, lights went up, and they were back to reality.

  “Have you seen it before? I didn’t even ask.” Leah waited in the aisle for Teddi to exit their row.

  “I have, but it was years ago. You?”

  “Oh, only a few times.” They strolled up toward the doors to the hallway. “Maybe thirty or forty.”

  Teddi’s laugh burst out of her as if launched by a cannon. “Wow, only that many?”

  “What can I say? Hopeless romantic, right here.” Leah raised her hand, wiggled her fingers. “Hey, do you want to grab a coffee? Dessert?”

  “I believe there’s a chocolate raspberry torte with my name on it.”

  “Then I think we should find it.”

  “Lead the way.”

  The movie hadn’t had more than fifteen or twenty viewers, it being a Monday and the week of Thanksgiving, but the café bustled a bit more. They placed their orders, found a table, and got comfortable.

  Leah put her elbows on the table, clasped her hands, and held them near her cheek. “So, you haven’t seen the movie in years. What did you think?”

  Teddi pursed her lips, gave a nod. “I liked it.”

  “I’m sensing a but.”

  “Well…” She stopped as the waiter appeared with their desserts, Leah’s coffee, and her tea. A few moments for them to doctor their drinks and take bites of their tortes, and they were making twin humming noises of utter delight.

  “Okay, so go on,” Leah prompted, taking a second bite.

  “I take issue with the fact that Tom shut down Meg’s business. Her livelihood, yes, but more importantly, something she’d put her heart and soul into.”

  “But that wasn’t personal—it was business. He says so right in the script.”

  “Yeah, but it was absolutely personal to her. I have trouble with her not holding it against him, you know?”

  Step carefully here. This wasn’t a new viewpoint. Lots of people felt the same way about the film. But for Teddi, it was, well, personal. Very. And Leah knew it. “I get that. I do. But he was…” She wasn’t sure the words that came next were ones she should say.

  “Just doing his job?” Teddi said them for her.

  Leah nodded. Braced. Sipped. Waited.

  It felt like an hour went by as Teddi gazed off into the café, seemingly people watching. Finally, she let out a heavy breath. “Yeah. He was. I know.” She took one more bite of her torte, then set her fork down, clearly done.

  The mood had shifted. It was slight, subtle, but it had definitely shifted. A wall had gone up between them—no, that wasn’t right. Wall was too strong a word. More like a curtain, a sheer one, something that veiled Teddi a bit from Leah’s view. She sighed inwardly, bummed out that Teddi had withdrawn. They talked about a few more very surface things, but that was it, and Leah was more disappointed than she cared to admit.

  On the sidewalk, they said their good-byes and walked in opposite directions toward their cars, Leah’s mind a whirlwind of thoughts, predictions, wonders.

  Reality: She’d enjoyed herself. Right up until Teddi had shut down on her, she’d had a better time than she’d had in months. I
t hadn’t been a date, of course, but it had almost felt like one, which was strange to admit. Not a date. Maybe that was the reason her brain was on overdrive? Because it had felt like a date, but wasn’t? And the other very big question: Why was Teddi even there? She didn’t seem to be that big a fan of rom-coms. She’d already seen the film and didn’t really like it. So why go? Was she bored and wanted to get out of her house? Or was she hoping to see somebody there…

  Really? Think that highly of yourself, do you?

  Leah shook away the thoughts as she drove. If tonight had proven anything, it was that the history she shared with Teddi was an obstacle that was likely never going to be hurdled.

  “That’s a damn shame,” she said in the quiet of her car.

  She meant it.

  Chapter Eight

  Leah sat in her car and blew out a breath. She could do this. She would do this. It was Thanksgiving. A holiday. She could grit her teeth and make it through a dinner that included Dylan’s parents and not get into anything with them.

  Dylan’s parents made her decidedly uncomfortable. There was no way around it. They were nice enough, but they always seemed to hold that slight, not-so-subtle air of judgment. It hung around them like a mist. In their eyes, Kelly had been a terrible influence on Dylan. They didn’t go to church (that was Dylan’s choice; Kelly had nothing to do with it). They’d been “living in sin” for the past two years in Kelly’s house. They weren’t getting married in a church or by a priest. Kelly’s parents were divorced and her sister was gay. So many strikes!

  She didn’t like the way they talked to Kelly. The way they looked at her, kind of sideways, like they were always judging what she was doing. Because they were. But Kelly had begged her more than once not to start anything. She’d made her swear it, told her she could take it. And much as Leah always wanted to stand up for her little sister—hell, that was her job—the silent, constant plea in Kelly’s eyes always made her hold her tongue, swallow her anger, and keep her mouth shut.

  The number of cars in the driveway—and the hands on her watch—told her she was the last one to arrive, as usual, and she took a breath and made her way inside.