The Lucky Dress: A perfect feel good holiday romance for summer 2018

by Aimee Brown

  I hop from the chair and wrap my arms around Amelia’s neck, feeling her slowly slide her arms around my back. “Thank you.” I cry.

  I knew last night when I found the ridiculous law school towel that I was still in love with Jack. I don’t know if I ever really wasn’t. Amelia may have a strange way of doing things but it’s a way that gets things done and despite the fact that her plan was unnecessary, it’s only proved what I was afraid to admit to myself.

  “What about this?” I motion to my apartment.

  “I’m sure the building will still be standing when you get back, dear.”

  “That’s not what I mean, I live here, I own a business here and Jack… doesn’t. Isn’t that only going to complicate things more?”

  Amelia shakes her head in frustration. “Love prevails over all my dear, if you and Jack choose each other, you’ll make something work so you’re both happy. I have no doubt about that.”

  “Is he expecting me?”

  “Of course he isn’t. Right now, he’s probably trying to figure out a new plan, one where he can get you back despite what happened. It’s what he’s been doing since you left.”

  I nod, a tear sliding down my cheek. “I’m gonna go.” I say with a nervous laugh. “I knew I still loved Jack the second I saw him this week. I was just so afraid to admit it and every time I thought I was ready, something else would happen and I’d convince myself I was wrong.”

  Amelia grins, “I knew it.”

  I grab my still packed suitcase and pull it through my apartment and into my room. I can’t bring dirty clothes with me. I toss in new clothes as quickly as possible.

  “Let’s bring this…” Amelia hands me the dress bag containing my lucky dress. “I don’t think you’ll need the extra luck but it certainly can’t hurt.”

  “Right. I’ll take all the luck I can get,” I say. “When does the flight leave?”

  “We’re boarding in two hours.”

  “Wait, we? You’re coming with me?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll wait in the wings, as they say in show business,” she laughs. “The ticket is bought and paid for. I’ll just be there for moral support, and on my best behaviour, I promise.”

  I’d be nervous about her being there when I tell Jack everything that needs to be said but I’ve pretty much had my entire life announced to anyone who wants to listen this week. One more time can’t hurt, I suppose. I just hope nothing else goes wrong.

  Twenty

  The Meet-Cute

  Five years, nine months ago.

  Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon

  “Oh my God, I am so sorry.”

  Even though I have my hands over my face, I know his voice. Never in a million years did I picture actually meeting him at the exact moment I’m assaulted by a rogue Frisbee.

  When I peer through my fingers he’s kneeling in front of me, with ten other guys behind him, reaching for my hands.

  “Let me see it,” he says, wrapping his hands around mine. “Go get her some ice!” He yells at someone near him who doesn’t waste time taking orders. “Is anything broken?”

  When he pulls my hands from my face he lets out a little gasp. “Is it bad?” I ask him, worried about what he’s seeing. Is my eyeball hanging from its socket? Is there a gaping wound? Is my brain (or lack of brain) visible?

  He laughs. “Nah, you’re going to have a black eye, but I think your skull is still intact. I’m really sorry.”

  “Oh.” I wave my hand at him trying to play it cool. “It’s no problem. It’s actually why I came down here. I haven’t had enough black eyes in my lifetime, and I was needing a memorable Fourth of July story to tell my grandkids one day.”

  “Well… I don’t think you have a concussion. Your wit seems to be still intact.” He laughs, sitting next to me, inspecting my face closely. “It didn’t break the skin but it is starting to swell. I feel like a real ass.”

  “You should, you ruined my face.” I try to joke through the pain.

  “It’s a very pretty face too.” He smiles sympathetically. “I feel like maybe I know you from somewhere.”

  “You do, I’m the girl who makes great coffee.”

  He comes to my coffee window nearly every day. His passenger seat is always piled high with books, and every day he orders the same thing: an Americano with room for cream, with two sugars. I never talk to him, apart from taking his order. How can I? He’s beautiful. Probably easily the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever not formally met. His handsome face melts my heart every time he smiles at me as I hand him his coffee.

  “Right! You are the coffee girl. I thought I knew you. How weird is this?”

  “Weird that I don’t spend every waking moment at the coffee shop?”

  “No.” His friend returns with the ice. He gently raises it to my eye which is feeling puffier by the second. “Weird because I always want to talk to you but, you know… In the drive through, there isn’t a lot of time for conversation.”

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I’m a little surprised by this because he’s always so nonchalant at the drive through. Like he’s avoiding chit-chat with random coffee gurus.

  “Of course. You’re gorgeous, and you do make a heck of a coffee.” He pulls away the ice pack to see its progress. He grits his teeth and scrunches up his face, obviously not impressed with my slow healing during the past sixty seconds. “How about I make this up to you today?”

  I glance over at my friends, who are all anxiously nodding their heads. They act as if I’ve never met a random gorgeous man before.

  “I’m kind of not looking my best today. Are you sure you want to be seen with me?”

  “It is gonna be risky, but I think I can take the challenge. My dad actually owns one of the yachts in the pier but I feel like that’s too much considering I just injured you.” Jack laughs nervously. “I know the perfect spot where you won’t be visible enough to scare children or anything?”

  I laugh to myself. It probably is exactly that bad.

  “The fireworks look great from there too. And… we can double dip into the jazz show coming from the restaurant up the block.”

  “What about your friends?” I glance around with my one good eye at the group of guys standing around watching my pathetic attempt at pretending I’m not jumping for joy on the inside. Which I totally am.

  “These guys don’t mind. Right?”

  They all mumble something at us before grabbing the Frisbee and going back to their game.

  I sigh, trying desperately to force away the overly excited smile creeping up on me. “I’ll go, but only on one condition.”

  “Anything.”

  “Tell me your name?”

  “Right. God, I’m sorry. I’m Jack Cabot. And you are?”

  “Emi Harrison.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Emi. Ready?” He stands, holding a hand out to me, that I waste no time accepting. He hesitates to pull his hand from mine once we’ve done the formal introduction handshake thing. “Let’s go.”

  It’s not exactly easy to follow someone through a crowd when you’re holding an ice pack over one eye. Especially when you’re not exactly coordinated to begin with. Jack is holding my hand, and that alone has my heart racing. Even my brain feels as if it might be overheating. I just don’t normally have luck like this, so my heart and head are having a hard time connecting the dots here.

  “Here we are…” we’re standing in front of a patch of grass that no one else has claimed for the evening just yet, in front of a popular restaurant. Other couples and families surround us on the grass planning to picnic, watch the fireworks, and listen to the show. Hyped up children yell as they play with each other everywhere you look. “What do you think?”

  “I may still scare the children?” I point to my eye with a smile.

  “I have the perfect plan, I’ll be right back. Sit.” Jack races up the sidewalk and into a small store.

  As he disappears I pull a compact mirror and some conceal
er out of my bag.

  “Oh!” I say to myself when I see my eye. That’s pretty gruesome. I’m not sure I even have enough makeup to help even a little bit, but I’m gonna do my best, dabbing, and smearing, and dabbing a little more softly and I now have an eye that resembles more of a slight bruise than direct impact with a frisbee.

  Jack reappears a short time later with a couple of paper bags in each hand.

  “I’ve got everything, dinner, dessert, snacks and… these.” He pulls out an oversized pair of sunglasses that only a Kardashian could pull off. “Although it’s looking better already, we don’t want to risk those around us having nightmares.” He slides them on my face with a smile, tossing an impressed hand in the air. “See… didn’t even notice it.”

  “Perfect,” I smile. “You’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?”

  “I have my moments. Luckily, you’re making it easy for me.”

  “Do you come down here every year? You know, to hit girls with frisbees and set up romantic evenings under the stars?”

  “Not every year. But I knew the moment I saw you sitting there that I had to meet you and my friends, well they were all up for help—” he stops mid-sentence, his eyes growing big.

  “You set this up?” I ask with a small laugh.

  “Not the way it went, no. All I asked was for some-one to throw the frisbee near you, not through you. Again, I’m really sorry about that.”

  I shrug. “I guess it’ll make a good story one day.”

  He nods, a shy grin on his face. “Let’s see it?”

  I lift the sunglasses.

  “UGH…” he covers my face dramatically, then breaks out into a laugh. “I’m kidding. Still just as beautiful as before.”

  “Do you eat seafood?” He asks, as he pulls some boxes from the bags in front of him.

  I shake my head. “Yuk.”

  “Allergic?”

  “Nope, just hate it.”

  He smiles, “me too.”

  “Really? Most people look at me like I’m crazy when I say that.”

  “I totally get it, it’s the fishy flavor and the texture, and don’t even get me started on the whole raw fish sushi trend. Yuk!”

  That’s it, we’re soulmates. We both spontaneously hate seafood and he can practically read my mind. I’m convinced he’s the one.

  “Tell me about you, I feel like I know nothing but your name and your coffee order.”

  “I’m a law student at Lewis & Clark, hence the passenger seat full of books all the time.”

  “Oh yeah, is that what you always wanted to do?”

  “Um… My dad’s a lawyer so it’s always been on the back of my mind, yeah. How about you?”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m about the most indecisive person on the planet. I’m in business school at PSU because I can’t pick just one thing I want to do.”

  “You’re good at the coffee thing.”

  “Yeah… maybe it’ll somehow turn into a career?”

  The darker the night gets the more romantic things become with the lights shining off the pier near us and the band playing in the restaurant behind us.

  “I’m gonna go grab some wine and glasses from the boat… my mom practically has an entire wine cellar out there. And it’ll seem a lot more romantic if we aren’t drinking it out of dixie cups…”

  I laugh with a nod.

  I swear I’ve dreamed of this day. Not the details exactly, but the dream of being swept off my feet in a single evening by a man mesmerizingly perfect.

  “Are you cold?” he asks after about thirty minutes of us sitting and talking about anything we can think of.

  “A little.” He drapes his jacket around my shoulders as he pulls me to my feet to watch the fireworks show.

  “You know, when I was a kid, my mom forced me to take dance lessons.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yup, I’m pretty sure I could give Fred Astaire a run for his money,” he laughs.

  “You might have to prove that…” I say at the exact moment that The Way You Look Tonight plays from the restaurant behind us.

  He slides an arm around my waist, holding my free hand in his and swaying to the music exactly like he’s been taking lessons his whole life.

  “Impressed yet?”

  “I am, actually.”

  “I really am sorry about earlier. I mean I’m not at all sorry I got to meet you, and have dinner with you, but for, you know, injuring you.”

  I put the glasses on top of my head. “It feels a lot better, actually.”

  He runs a thumb just under my eye. “It looks better too. Just as beautiful as the non-injured one.”

  It’s in that second that he surprises me by pressing his lips against mine, and basically stopping my heart, right there in the middle of a crowd of people as we dance like lunatics to a song playing around us.

  Be still my heart…

  Over the next hour, Jack and I learn everything one could learn about each other on three dates. He’s got a sister, parents who adore him, a father who’s made being a lawyer look so great that he’s in law school, he’s got a terrible frisbee aim, he’s only ever had one somewhat serious relationship that lasted a year, and he believes in fate. He appears to be a truly good guy, which after dating the guys I’ve dated over the last couple years, I know is a rare find.

  I also learn that I’m completely smitten with him even though we’ve only just officially met. If I believed in love at first sight, I might think that’s what this is, but my luck just doesn’t go that way normally. I love the way he raises his right eyebrow when I say something questionable or unladylike. When I tell him, hesitantly, that I’ve never been in a serious relationship, he seems relieved instead of scared.

  “I’ll drive you home,” he volunteers as we pack up the picnic after the fireworks.

  “It’s clear across town; I don’t mind calling a cab.”

  “I want to, Ems,” he says.

  He started calling me Ems about midway through dinner. Normally only the people closest to me use that name. It’s another sign from fate that we are meant to be. “It’ll give me a bit more time with you.”

  He takes my hand in his and leads me to a black SUV parked in the lot of the pier.

  “I’d like that.”

  *

  Even though I’ve just had the best, most unexpected date of my entire life, the car ride to my house is quiet and awkward. There isn’t much left to talk about, and the sexual tension is far too much for me.

  “It’s the house on the right.”

  His eyebrow rises again when he looks over at me with a smile. “So, you have my number?”

  “Yes.” I’d pull it from my purse to prove it but I don’t want to look like that obsessed girl. “You have mine?”

  He nods. “And I’m not going to wait forty-eight hours either, so be prepared for that.”

  “I hope you don’t.” My words are playing cool and I hope my face is playing along, because my brain is struggling with me just getting out of the car and playing my last card at hard to get, or waiting for him to kiss me, or me just mauling him and doing him right here in the car in my driveway, which I promised myself I wouldn’t do.

  Luckily, I don’t have to wait long and he kisses me. “I’m really glad I met you, officially,” he says, as he pulls away a moment later.

  “Me too.”

  “I’ll wait until I know you got in safe.”

  “OK.” I open the car door and slowly walk towards my front door and the porch light flips on as I’m halfway there. I glance back at Jack who is still watching me and give him a small wave.

  “Where’ve you been?” Evan asks, the second I walk through the door.

  “Out.”

  “Who drove you home?”

  “My future husband, if you must know.”

  “Poor guy…” He rolls his eyes and walks away from me, unwilling to hear every detail of the best night of my entire life.

  Twenty-one
<
br />   The Clues

  Present Day

  Cancun, Mexico

  A flight with Jack’s mother is anything but normal. As if the entire situation wasn’t awkward enough, now she’s as nonchalant as I’ve ever seen her. Me on the other hand, I’ve never been as nervous as I am right now. I wasn’t expecting a week away ending in me telling Jack I am still in love with him. I’ve written and rewritten a speech at least a dozen times and nothing seems to come out the way I want it to.

  I have a headache and my emotions feel raw, which makes them hard to sort out because every memory I have sends me into a fit of tears. Which Amelia is more than annoyed by. She thinks I should just tell him I love him and let that be that but there is just so much more to say.

  The plane lurches towards earth, slowing up for a landing at the airport below us. Even just from the plane, it looks exactly the way it did when I was here the first time.

  “Now… my hotel is across the way…”

  “You mean you’re not staying with me, too?”

  “It could be arranged, if need be…” she says in a motherly tone.

  “No, no. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I hope.”

  I have a dress bag thrown over my shoulder and my suitcase rolling behind me as I walk into the hotel I stayed at so long ago.

  “May I help you?” A woman at the front desk smiles warmly.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Jack Cabot, he should be staying here?”

  The woman types as she scans the screen in front of her.

  “And you are?”

  “Emi Harrison? A friend of his, I need to—”

  “He’s here,” she nods. “Staying in room 233.” She slides a key card across the counter at me.

  “You’re giving me a key to his room?” I ask, remembering Amelia saying that he didn’t know I was coming.

  “Yes,” She looks at the computer again. “It says here that he’s expecting you?”

  “Oh… right, I forgot. Of course, he’s expecting me.” Another moment where I’ve no doubt never ending finances have played well for Amelia and her plans. If I was any other woman, I think she’d have scared me off a long time ago.