“Really?” Leah’s eyebrows shot up and she drew out the word even as she tried not to picture how sexy Teddi would look in front of a stove, whipping up something delicious.
“Mm-hmm. I like to experiment.”
“What’s your favorite thing to cook?”
Teddi pursed her lips, seemed to really think about it. “Hmm. I’m not sure I have a favorite thing to cook, but I do have a favorite meal. Breakfast.”
“It is the most important meal of the day.” Leah grinned. “And it’s my favorite meal of the day.”
“Mine, too.”
They stood there, eye contact intense, and again, the rest of the room seemed to melt away until it was only the two of them.
“Why rom-coms?” Teddi asked suddenly.
“What do you have against rom-coms?” Leah countered.
“I don’t have anything against them, but”—Teddi held up fingers, counting off as she said—“they’re sappy, they’re predictable, and they’re unrealistic.”
Leah counted off her response. “They’re happy. They’re happy. They’re happy.”
Narrowed dark eyes. A tongue poking the inside of a cheek. “Interesting.”
“How so?” God, Leah was loving this. Was Teddi? Was this back-and-forth, this getting to know each other thing, turning Teddi on as much as it was her? She’d been so sure after that last time in the café that nothing would ever happen between them because of their history, but now? She wasn’t so sure. Should she ask? Or just let things progress and see what happened? She decided on the latter and tried hard not to focus on Teddi’s full lips as she spoke.
“When did your love of rom-coms begin?”
“Oh, early teens.” Leah thought about it honestly. “I was probably…thirteen? Fourteen?”
“And what was happening in your life when you were thirteen or fourteen? Anything?”
Leah took a moment. She could blow this off. She could pretend. Make up something. Lie. But, strangely, she didn’t want to lie to Teddi. She never wanted to lie to Teddi and had no idea why, where that thought had come from. She dove in. “My parents were divorcing. It was volatile.” She cleared her throat, sipped her wine before continuing. “Lots of fighting. Lots of shouting. Hard to watch and hear and know. They didn’t tell me anything, but I was old enough to understand something bad was happening, you know? So that was frustrating.”
Teddi laid a warm hand on Leah’s upper arm. “I’m so sorry. That must’ve been awful.”
It wasn’t a time in her life she liked to remember, but she did it for Teddi. “It was hard. I spent a lot of time kind of sheltering Kelly. She’s eight years younger than me, so she was just a kid. I’d bring her into my room and play music really loud so we couldn’t hear our parents shouting or saying terrible things to each other. And when it was just me, I’d escape into movies. The first rom-com I ever saw was While You Were Sleeping.”
“With Sandra Bullock?” Teddi asked.
Leah nodded, pleased that she knew the movie. “It was so…I don’t know. Uplifting? Heartwarming? And it made me want more.”
“I actually really like that one.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, Sandra Bullock? Come on.”
“There may be hope for you yet.”
They laughed together and there was a comfortable beat of silence. Then Teddi asked, “And you watched more?”
Leah nodded, looked into her glass. “Looking back now, I think it was my therapy, you know? My friends were watching horror movies, and all I could think was that there was enough horror and heartbreak in my own life, so why would I want to watch it on a big screen?”
“I get that.” Teddi reached behind them and grabbed a wine bottle, held it up. Leah held out her glass and Teddi poured.
As Leah watched the deep ruby of the wine fill her glass, only one thought was prevalent in her mind: I’m so glad I came.
* * *
This was turning out to be the most unexpected New Year’s Eve Teddi had ever had. Piper’s invitation was really nice, but Teddi had wavered about coming right up until that afternoon. She’d originally planned to go to her parents’ house. She’d done that the past two New Year’s Eves, as she’d tried to navigate the holidays without Julia. It hadn’t been easy, and being around a bunch of friends, most of whom were paired up, just wasn’t something she could handle. But this year felt different. She was a little more solid in her life. Maybe not as confident as she once was, but it was slowly trickling back, and the idea of being in her early forties, single, and spending New Year’s Eve with her parents was just too sad. She’d toyed with staying home alone, but she knew her brain well. It would run away with her, and all the newfound confidence would fly out the window as she browbeat herself into an I’m-going-to-be-alone-forever stupor. No, she needed to be around people, and she was very happy she’d made the choice to come.
Leah Scott had been icing on the cake.
Stunning. That was how Leah looked. And stunned was how Teddi had felt when Leah had come walking into Piper’s kitchen. What were the chances?
They’d been standing there, she and Leah, just talking, just getting to know each other, for—she glanced at the clock on Piper’s microwave—oh my God, over an hour? It felt like a ton of time had passed and also no time at all.
“Tell me about you,” Leah said, interrupting Teddi’s thoughts. “You have siblings?”
“Two brothers. Both older. Both married with kids. And my parents have been married for fifty-five years.” She met Leah’s eyes and was shocked to realize that Leah got it. She got it.
“Your divorce was extra hard, huh?”
“It was. It was so hard to be the only one in the family who couldn’t seem to make her marriage work.”
“You do know that’s not the case at all, right?” Leah stood up straight after leaning against the counter, as if her posture would punctuate her statement. “It takes two to break up a marriage. Believe me, I know.” Her half grin kept things from getting too heavy.
“I know that now, but when it first happened? Ugh.” Teddi dropped her back and groaned. “I felt like a failure in my marriage and a failure in my family.”
“Man, that sucks.”
“It did. It really, really did.” Teddi followed Leah’s gaze across the room where her friend—Tilly, was it?—was standing very close to a petite woman and seemed to be having an intimate conversation. A niggling in her brain forced the question from her lips. “You and…” She gestured toward Tilly with her chin. “Are you…?”
Leah’s eyes went wide. “Me and Tilly? No. Oh God, no. Tilly’s my best friend from college.”
“But no romantic history there?” Teddi didn’t know why she was being so nosy, asking such personal questions, and she knew she was giving away a little more than she wanted to. But something in her needed to know.
“Not even a glimmer.” Leah’s grin said she was amused by Teddi’s inquiries, and those green eyes held hers as she sipped her wine.
It was as if there were no other guests at the party. They talked only to each other, and in what seemed like ten minutes, Piper raised her voice and let everybody know they should move into the family room or living room where the TVs were.
It was almost midnight.
There were more guests at the party than Teddi had realized. As they flowed into the two rooms that had televisions, that became clear, and people ended up standing close together in order to see the ball drop.
She found herself pressed against Leah’s smaller body, and she was more than okay with that. The top of Leah’s head reached Teddi’s nose, and when Leah looked up at her, those bright eyes sparkled, and Teddi knew Leah was feeling it, too.
What was it? What exactly was she feeling?
Oh, please. Stop pretending you don’t know.
Okay, fine. She did know. She was devastatingly attracted to Leah Scott. She had been the second she’d walked into Teddi’s shop. It was instantaneous. Teddi had never
felt that before, not even with Julia. That instant, undeniable attraction to someone. It was almost tangible, like she could reach out and touch it. Taste it.
And now? With Leah standing so close, close enough to smell the coconut scent of her shampoo, close enough to see the flecks of gold and black in her green eyes, Teddi knew exactly where this was headed. Judging by the way Leah’s eyes darkened, so did she.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
The whole room was counting down except for them. They stood together, gazes held, as if in some kind of trance.
“Five! Four! Three!”
Leah turned slightly so they were face-to-face. Teddi brought her hand up and brushed some of Leah’s hair to the side, tucked it behind her ear.
“Two! One! Happy New Year!”
Teddi closed her eyes. Leaned down.
Her hand slid along Leah’s face. Held it.
Lips met. Soft. Warm. Amazing.
Teddi wanted more. She knew it in an instant that this could not be the only time she kissed Leah. But this was not the time or the place to explore that warm, wonderful mouth, or to let her hands roam. She pulled back gently, opened her eyes, and met Leah’s. And everything she saw in them echoed her own thoughts.
“Happy New Year,” Teddi said, though her voice was lost in the revelry around them.
“I think it just might be,” was Leah’s reply.
* * *
“Somebody’s got some explaining to do.” The words were out of Tilly’s mouth the second she slammed her car door.
“So do you,” Leah countered. “Was that the social worker?”
Tilly keyed the ignition, then held up a finger and waggled it. “Oh no. Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about you. And the hot wedding planner. And the kissing. Details. Now.”
“I’m impressed you waited this long to ask.” Leah grinned.
“It was not easy, believe me.” Tilly pulled out onto the road and pointed the car in the direction of Leah’s. “I mean, I knew who she was when you introduced us, but I thought you said nothing would happen because of the whole you representing her ex in their divorce thing.”
“I don’t know what to tell you. That’s the impression I got.”
“Well, you were wrong.”
“Evidently.”
The night could not have possibly gone in a more unexpected direction than it had, and Leah was trying to wrap her head around it even as she sat in Tilly’s car, her lips still tingling from kissing Teddi, her brain still a jumble of caution, elation, and possibility.
“Now what?” Tilly asked.
And that was the question, wasn’t it? Now what?
The party had died down pretty quickly after midnight, people needing to get home to their kids or their pets or simply to their beds, exhausted from a week of holiday celebration. She and Teddi had both been swept up in the leaving.
“So…I’ll call you?” She hadn’t meant to phrase it as a question, but it had come out that way. Luckily, Teddi had smiled because…She found Leah charming? Pathetic? Both? Leah wasn’t sure.
“I told her I’d call her,” she said now to Tilly, who turned and arched an eyebrow at her.
“Really? How romantic.”
Leah dropped her head back against the seat and groaned. “I know! I am so not smooth.”
“You’re really not.”
“Teach me. I’ll pay you.”
“Alas, my little friend, smoothness is not something that can be taught. You either have it, as I do, or you do not.” Tilly waved a hand over Leah. “Case in point.”
Leah turned her head, watched out the window as houses passed by.
“She’s hot,” Tilly said.
Leah grinned and turned her head the other way, caught the glance Tilly tossed her way, the raised brows, the wide eyes. “Right? So hot.”
“Jesus God, yes. Those dimples?”
Leah sat up. “Right? She should smile more because those dimples are life.”
“I think that should be your new job.”
“What?”
“Making that girl smile. The world needs to see those dimples. War will cease. Famine will end. It’ll be a better place.”
“I cannot disagree with you.”
Half an hour later, Leah was home. Face scrubbed, teeth brushed, hunkered down in her bed with Lizzie purring next to her hip. She was exhausted but wide awake, replaying the night. Replaying the kiss.
It had been simple. Almost delicate. Not chaste, but certainly not overtly sexual. They’d been in a room full of people. They’d never kissed before.
But, man, that kiss did things to me.
How was that possible? There’d been no tongue, barely opened mouths. It had been tender. Gentle.
“And somehow, so fucking hot,” Leah whispered into the darkness of her bedroom.
Before she could get lost in that thought, her phone pinged and the screen lit up from its spot on her nightstand. She picked it up. A text. From Teddi.
Tonight was unexpected.
Leah squinted at the words, then typed, In a good way, I hope.
The little gray dots bounced, and then the phone pinged again. In a very good way. Followed by several happy face emojis.
The smile that bloomed across Leah’s face was out of her control. She felt it growing. That wonderful fluttering in her stomach? It had been missing for a long time, and now it was back. She’d missed it, realizing it only then. She typed a whole bunch of mush, then deleted it all. Nibbled at her bottom lip as she contemplated. Then she typed, simply, Happy New Year, Teddi.
Dropping her hand onto Lizzie’s soft head and scratching her lightly, Leah kept smiling. Her stomach kept fluttering.
“Best. New Year’s Eve. Ever.”
Chapter Eleven
“I’m just taking it slowly. Very, very slowly.” Teddi sighed, feeling slightly winded for some reason after telling Preston all about her New Year’s Eve.
It was January 2 and they were back in the shop. Snow was falling in big, fat flakes, and Preston was removing the window display so he could set up a new one. January tended not to be terribly busy for Hopeless Romantic as far as new business went, so they used it to refresh the displays, peruse new trends, and prepare for the onslaught of Valentine’s Day nuptials that would flood them in six weeks.
Preston had been in the window bay, setting a table with burgundy place settings and eucalyptus greenery. He was dressed down today—or as dressed down as he ever was—in jeans and a navy blue oxford, the sleeves rolled up. He stepped out and parked his hands on his hips, surveying his handiwork. With a pivot on one foot, he looked in Teddi’s direction where she sat behind the counter, answering email. “What happened to She repped my ex in our divorce and I hate her?”
“I never said I hated her.”
Preston tipped his head, gave her a look.
What had happened? It was a valid question and one that Teddi had rolled around in her head for the past couple days, all the while dipping her toe in, starting with occasionally texting Leah.
“I guess…” She gathered her thoughts as she scrolled through a new line of bridesmaids’ dresses and pretended to actually see them. Meeting Preston’s eyes, she said honestly, “I guess I made a resolution to try to be more forgiving. And more open.” She couldn’t tell him that a stupid romantic comedy had made her think. That Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan had her reevaluating where and how she placed her blame. Preston would roll his eyes and laugh her out of the shop.
“Yeah? That’s awesome. I like it.” Preston slit open a box and pulled out a new set of gold-rimmed wineglasses they’d ordered. “What do you think?” he asked, holding it up.
And this is how it starts.
The thought ran through Teddi’s mind on and off throughout the day. Every time she sent a text to Leah—Got some gold-rimmed wineglasses in. Thought they’d be classy, but look like they belong in a garage sale—something inside her went softer. Warmer.
I’ll give you fift
y cents each, came Leah’s reply over an hour later.
Softer. Warmer.
And later that evening from Leah: Chinese at my desk in the office. Hope your dinner is more exciting.
Teddi texted back: Chicken Milanese I made myself. Not exciting at all. Then she sent a photo of her ridiculously good meal just because.
Leah sent back a drooling emoji. Teddi laughed out loud.
Softer. Warmer.
“Yes. This is how it starts,” she said quietly to herself as she sat down in front of the television with her chicken and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
Once she’d finished eating, brought her dishes into the kitchen, and cleaned up, she flopped back onto the couch to relax. The brittle weather of the day had led into an icy night, and Teddi pulled a fleece blanket over her legs, wishing she had someone—or something—to cuddle with. She grabbed her phone.
Do you have a pet?
She didn’t expect a response right away, but it came within a couple minutes.
I do. A cat. Elizabeth Bennet.
Teddi grinned wide. Of course that’s her name.
I’m surprised you recognize it, given your unromantic nature. A wink emoji followed.
Teddi gasped, then chuckled. How dare you? I took English lit in high school just like everybody else.
Point taken.
Teddi let her phone rest against her chin for a moment. When had people become this? Words on a screen instead of actual humans with voices and inflection? The weird thing was, she kind of liked this. Almost preferred it. It felt safer that Leah couldn’t see her right now. Couldn’t hear her or look into her eyes. Teddi could keep her secrets for a while longer.
Is Elizabeth Bennet a cuddler? Then something occurred to Teddi and she typed a second text. Still at work? I don’t want to bother you.
Several minutes went by before Leah’s response came: Lizzie cuddles on her own terms, which I kinda love. And yes, I am and please bother me or I may throw myself out a window.
Please bother her. That’s what she’d said.
And Teddi got warmer.
She kept her texts spaced out, slightly sporadic. She didn’t want to be overbearing, and also, she didn’t want to seem like she had nothing better to do, though the truth was she not only had nothing better to do, she had nothing else she wanted to do.
Hopeless Romantic Page 10
