“My shoes? Fine, whatever, yes. Thirteen and a half, but they’re yours.”
“I’ll need to see the cash…”
I dug the money out of my wallet and handed it to him.
“Shoes?”
I sighed, kicked off my shoes, and slid them toward him. He slowly took his own off and then tried mine, flexing his toes once they were on. “Very nice.” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a highlighter, and streaked it across each of the twenties I’d given him. “Looks legit.”
“You seriously have a counterfeit pen on you? How often do you take bribes?”
“You’d be surprised. People like to bring weird shit in their luggage and they don’t want it getting scanned. Now come on, the stairs are over here.”
Nobody gave us a second look as we descended the stairs. They opened onto the runway, which was freezing cold and windy once we were outside.
“Dude, wait,” he said, gripping my shoulder. “Are those cupcakes in your jacket?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Then give me one.”
“They’re all warm and squashed beca—”
“I don’t care. I’m hungry.”
I fished out a flattened cupcake and peeled it from my undershirt. He took it and bit into it with an approving nod. “You make these?”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Which plane would she be on? It was gate 8, seat 42.”
“That one,” he said, pointing to the nearest plane. “She should be on the right side of the plane, I think,”
I set off at a jog again, pinning my jacket to my side to avoid losing any more cupcakes as I ran. I ran to the right side of the plane and picked a window at random near the middle. I chucked the cupcake as hard as I could and watched it splatter between two windows. A middle-aged man glared down at me from the window, but I saw a face pop up just behind his. It was her.
I wound up and threw another cupcake directly for her window. It splattered dead-center, but had the unintended side-effect of making me clueless to what she was doing. I pulled out my phone, which was covered in icing because it had shared storage space with a cupcake, and I dialed Grammy’s number.
20
Emily
Ryan just threw a cupcake at my window. I craned my neck to look out the window behind me and saw him standing there on the runway. He was wearing a bright orange safety vest over his long jacket, and it looked like he had the same colored orange icing smeared all over his clothes. Confused didn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling.
It only got worse when I heard a familiar voice a few seats back.
“Excuse me,” asked a sweet sounding, little old woman’s voice.
Grammy was inexplicably standing from her seat. On my plane. All the unlikely coincidences so far this morning combined with Ryan on the runway told me something was going on, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what it was.
“Now,” Grammy said to the stewardess she had stopped. “I’m not saying I have a bomb. But I’m just asking, if someone did say they had a bomb on the plane, would it delay our flight?”
The stewardess looked extremely uncomfortable, and her eyes kept darting toward the front of the plane, where two other stewardesses were standing and talking. “Y-yes. That would mean we would have to delay the flight.”
“Wait,” Grammy clutched at her chest. “Actually, no, I think I’m having a heart attack.” The stewardess, who was clearly confused out of her mind, half-reached toward Grammy and then decided to loudly call for help.
During the chaos, Grammy slid her eyes to mine and gave me a wink before flopping to the ground and swearing up a storm about who she was going to come back to haunt and how “heaven gon’ be lit.”
Between the people who were watching Grammy with mixtures of horror and bewilderment and the people who were trying to figure out who would throw a cupcake at an airplane, chaos was in full swing
For my part, all I could do was stay where I was and stare at the orange frosting smeared across my window. Why would he be here? Why would Grammy be on my flight? Why cupcakes? Obviously I was in the middle of a plan, and I was out of the loop. If I’d had a quiet place to sit down and think, I was sure I could’ve figured it out, but I felt suffocated and claustrophobic.
A few minutes later, a group of EMTs rushed on the plane with a stretcher. The last man in the group was Ryan. He’d ditched the orange safety vest for an EMT jacket that was much too big for him, but nobody seemed to notice he’d just slapped it on over his jacket and pants.
He motioned for me to follow him. Meanwhile, I could hear Grammy cursing at the EMTs to stop molesting her unless they had good insurance, because they could bet their tight asses she was going to sue.
Ryan stopped me just outside the airplane in the tunnel. He was covered in sweat and grinning like a crazy person.
“Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?” I asked.
“Next time,” he said, “I’m just going to text. But I had this whole thing planned.” He held up a hand for me to wait and fished around inside his jacket. His hand made a wet, squishing sound that had me cringing, but he ended up pulling out a mangled cupcake with orange frosting. A piece of paper was stuck in it and completely coated in smeared chocolate and frosting.
“It’s, well,” he sighed, rubbing some of the frosting off on his pants and holding it up for me to see. “It’s a plane ticket. I may have to get a replacement, but the plan was to catch you on the bridge. I was going to give you a cupcake with the plane ticket in it.”
I motioned to the plane. “I already had a ticket… And why a cupcake?”
He sighed a little impatiently. “No, like. A ticket for me. To Paris.”
“What?”
“A ticket for me. To Paris,” he repeated.”
“I heard you,” I laughed. “I just—that’s crazy. You’ve got all your shops here. And I appreciate the gesture, but be realistic. I’m going to be in Paris for two years. What are you going to do, stay a few weeks? It doesn’t change anything, even if it’s sweet.”
“Considering the Bubbly Baker is expanding to Paris, I wouldn’t say I’ll exactly be a stranger. I’m the self-appointed foreign business manager, too, which means my ass is on the line if we don’t get some franchises overseas soon.”
I tilted my head. “Your ass is on the line to who, exactly?”
“To whom,” he corrected. “And I’d be reporting to myself, technically. But I promoted Stephanie, and William promised he’d help, since he kind of got this whole thing started, I figured it was the least he could do.”
“Well,” I said slowly. “It’s just too bad we broke up, then, because it’s going to be hard for you to find a new girl in France when you don’t even speak the language.”
"I was hoping that part was negotiable. The break-up."
“Oh?” I asked. I was managing to keep my composure, but my heart was thudding violently in my chest. I was still playing mental catch up, but my heart had no doubts about what it wanted. All this time I’d been seeing Ryan as one of two doors. He was option “B” and chasing my dream was option “A.” I’d never even considered a world where I could have both, because what man in his right mind would follow a girl he just met to Paris, especially when he’d be leaving behind a rapidly growing business empire.
“What do you say, new deal?” he asked. “Last time, I promised I’d let you go when the time came, no strings attached. I have a new offer.”
“I’m listening.”
“This time, I don’t let you go, no matter what. Okay, actually, that sounded kind of wrong. I mean, if you wanted me to, obviously, but—”
I rocked forward on my tiptoes and kissed him. “Deal.”
He grinned with a wonderfully stunned look on his face.
“You never explained what the deal was with the cupcakes, or why you seemed to think it was necessary to smear them all over your body.”
“It was symbolic,” he said
a little sadly. “I mean, not the smearing on my body part. That was more because of a security guard who had a fixation with putting things up my butt.”
“Uh, should I be jealous, or do I even want to know?”
“No. You’re way cuter than he was,” he said. “But I messed things up the first time with a cupcake, kind of, at least. I wanted to fix them with a cupcake. Full circle and all that.”
I looked at the mangled bits of baked goods covering him and the sad excuse for a cupcake in his hand. I swiped my finger across the icing and licked it from my finger with a little smirk. “From the looks of things, I don’t know if perfectly executed plans are in your DNA, but I’d be happy to come along for the messy ride.” I paused, then put my fingers to my lip and felt my smirk widen. “That actually sounded really dirty. Sorry?”
“Please don’t be, and I’m going to hold you to that. The messy ride bit.”
Just as he was finishing his sentence, the EMTs came from the plane with a struggling Grammy between their arms. “Get it, girl,” she cackled. “Don’t worry about me! My grandson-in-law is a raving mad billionaire. He’ll bail me out of this jam.”
We watched her kick and shake her way down the tunnel in the hands of the EMTs, then Ryan turned back to face me. “So, uh, I also couldn’t manage to get a flight for today. So I’ll actually have to meet up with you tomorrow.”
I laughed. “This plan of yours really just didn’t go like you wanted, did it?”
He sighed. “No. But the most important part did.”
I kissed him again. “You can be cheesy. But it’s a good kind of cheesy.”
From the stupid smile on his face, he was about to say something dumb. “Would you go as far as to say it’s a Gouda kinda cheesy?”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Leave the horrible puns to William. Speaking of William, I’m pretty sure he was getting chased through the airport by security for shoplifting. I don’t know if he’s going to be able to bail Grammy out as quickly as she was hoping.”
“That explains why I didn’t get a text when you showed up.”
“Okay, you’re seriously going to have to sit me down and explain how complicated this failed plan of yours was.”
“Is this before or after the messy ride you’re going to take on me?”
I wiggled my eyebrows. “After?”
He kissed me this time, and he held his lips against mine in a soft, tender kind of way before he pulled back and gave me that smile of his that made me want to melt on the spot. “You’d better get back on your flight. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up, and then I’ll meet you in Paris.”
“It sounds so romantic when you say it that way.”
“Good. At least one part of this went romantically instead of comically wrong.”
He gripped my hand and squeezed it. “Don’t let them crash the plane.”
“I’ll do my best. And when you get to Paris, maybe you should just call me? No grand stunts or anything. I don’t know if I’d trust you to survive another complicated plan.”
“Deal.”
21
Epilogue - Ryan
Three Weeks Later
* * *
It took a lot more work than I was expecting when I hatched the idea at the last minute, but I finally closed my first deal on a Paris franchise location for The Bubbly Baker. Emily spent almost more time working than me. She busy with her new position with Valeria Purgot, but we were sharing an apartment, which meant I still had plenty of time to enjoy her.
We had a modest little place on the edge of the city, and for once, a small apartment didn’t mean bumping elbows with Steve—instead, I was bumping entirely different body parts with Emily. All in all, it was much more enjoyable this way.
It was evening, and Emily was leaning over our balcony, taking in the view of the city. She had already established a habit of wandering toward the windows, and I’d quickly learned to love just watching her here. At first, I’d wondered if her insatiable need to drink in the city with her eyes at every opportunity was going to pass in a few days, but she was still just as taken with the city as my first day with her here.
She wore a classic little white dress with a black polka dot pattern. It was girlier than her usual style, but it still had her signature dash of quirky. I admired her while she admired the city. It wasn’t just how well she wore the dress or the way the wind teased her long hair. I admired how determined she was to chase the dream that led her here. She was willing to sacrifice everything for it, and even though I knew I was one of those sacrifices, it made being here with her mean even more.
She wasn’t like any of the women I’d ever dated before because she had her own purpose in life, with or without me. She knew where she was going and how she wanted to get there. I wasn’t the answer to her problems or the path to her dreams. She didn’t need me, and that made the fact that she wanted me here matter.
I moved to join her on the balcony and slid my arm around her waist. “I like watching you out here.”
“Creep,” she laughed.
“Sorry, you bring out the stalker in me, I guess. Did I mention you looked great while you were sleeping last night?”
She lightly rammed her shoulder into me and smiled. “Thank you.”
“I was kidding. I mean, I’m sure you looked great, but—”
“No, I’m not talking about that. I mean thank you for not giving up on me. I haven’t been able to stop looking back on how it all played out, how easy it would’ve been for you let me go and forget me.”
“I’m glad I didn’t, because then I never would’ve had the chance to hear how horrible you are at karaoke.”
She slapped my arm. “Yeah, well our kids would be doomed, because you sound like—" She paused, swallowed hard, and then cleared her throat. "Ever wish you had a five-second time machine?"
I laughed. “No, but I’m glad you don’t have one. Now I know you’re already thinking about the kids we’ll have.”
She made a pouting face and hid behind her hands. “This is the part where I become the overly attached girlfriend meme, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s the part where I start imagining how much fun I’d have putting babies inside of you.”
“Wait, like, literally, or do you just mean in sperm form?”
“Way to drain the sexy right out of that statement.”
22
Epilogue - Emily
* * *
It was my first Thanksgiving outside the country. I still wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Paris was wonderful and amazing, but it wasn’t home.
Ryan was doing his best to distract me, but I’d spent much of the day feeling a little off. We were walking on a grassy pathway outside a busy little street crowded with shops. Ryan looked amazing, as usual, in a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. When we rounded a corner, I saw a large table sitting beneath a pair of trees and stopped in my tracks.
Almost everyone from back home was sitting at the table: William, Hailey, Bruce, Natasha, Lilith, and even Grammy.
“Wow,” I said. “Did you do this?”
Ryan gave me a little smirk and a shrug. “That depends. Are you happy?”
“Yes!” I laughed.
“Okay, then it was me. Seriously, William?” Ryan asked when he saw William had already loaded his plate full of food and was eating. I had a little speech I was going to give.
Everybody groaned.
Ryan and I found our places at the table without any big ceremony or awkward pause, like we’d just come in from the kitchen instead of wandering upon the table in the middle of a park in downtown Paris.
I sat between Lilith and Ryan, and once we were seated, everybody started helping themselves. The food was mostly in to-go style containers, and while there were a few staple Thanksgiving items like a turkey and cranberry sauce, there were also a few bits of French cuisine sprinkled in like baguettes and croissants.
“Were you serious about the speech?” I asked
Ryan quietly.
“No, definitely not.” He answered a little too quickly, and I thought his cheeks looked rosy, too.
I nudged him. “Were you going to talk about pilgrims?”
“Keep teasing me and I’ll make you listen to the pilgrim speech in bed tonight instead of letting you experience the Thanksgiving miracle I had planned.”
I laughed and darted my eyes nervously around the table. Everybody was chatting or admiring the view, and thankfully not paying much attention to us. “And that is?”
“Well, it’s the after dark turkey stuffing ceremony.”
“Like leftovers at night?”
“No, like I call you a turkey and then we have sex. The turkey gets stuffed. I say thanks. Bada bing, bada boom.”
“One, never say ‘bada bing, bada boom’ again, or I’m going to get you deported. Two, if you call me a turkey, you’re not getting lucky tonight.”
He jabbed a honeyed carrot from a tinfoil tray and popped it in his mouth. “We’ll see about that, turkey.”
I stomped on his foot a little, but he only grinned.
“So,” Lilith said. “Now that you two are done making plans to bone, are you going to say hi to your friend that you haven’t seen in forever, or, you know, just keep ignoring me?”
I gave Lilith a one-armed hug and kissed the top of her head.
“Ew,” she said dryly. “I didn’t ask you to touch me.”
“Well, too bad. I’m excited to see you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad your plane didn’t crash or whatever.”
“What is it like working for Valeria Purgot?” Natasha asked. She sat beside Bruce, and the two of them seemed the most interested in the view of the city. I also noticed that Bruce had a banana on his plate, even though I didn’t see where he would’ve found it among the Thanksgiving food.
“It’s hard, but kind of awesome,” I said. “She’s a total perfectionist, but she’s really savvy with the commercial side of art. She’s all about how you can chase your passion and still find a way to put food on the table.”
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