I ring up the bill for a group of four, thank them for coming, then when I’ve got another free second I say to Claire, “I know, I’m in shock, too. Katie’s Kitchen has been in business for years!”
Claire shakes her head in bewilderment. “But it’s just a rumor right now?”
“Yeah. But Oliver thinks it won’t be ‘just a rumor’ for long.”
“So what does this mean for you?” she inquires, referring to my asking Oliver if he thought I could use Katie’s Kitchen for my flood of holiday baked goods.
“Cut and dry, really,” I say with ease, yet disappointment. “Said that there’s no way in hell I could use Katie’s Kitchen as some extra space. Fact of the matter is, Katie’s probably closing up shop. Why? I have no idea; too much competition, slow business, change of career? But using her place is a dead end.”
“Fear not, my dear.” Claire flashes me one of her golden smiles. “Em and I are here—”
“I can’t work you girls to the bone,” I cut in. “On vacation, too. No. Besides, if Evelyn can’t make the bûche de Noël then, no offense, no one can.”
“Oliver can.”
“Right you are.”
“And?”
“One shining beacon of hope there,” I say. “Oliver did say that if Katie’s is going under there may not be as many holiday orders to fill—if you know what I mean. He just may have more time on his hands than he’d like to have. And hopefully he can help out a day or two before I go to Santa Barbara for Christmas. We’ll see.”
“Oh my!” Claire clasps a hand to her O-drawn mouth. “Which means…”
“Yeah, yeah.” I roll my eyes at my energetic friend. “Maybe Oliver can work here. Maybe.”
“Squee! Sophie, that would be the best solution to your busyness here! You’ve worked together, he’s French, he knows all about the baking dos and don’ts, and…” She sighs dreamily. “You’d be so much less stressed.”
“Tell me about it,” I say as Chad and Conner stroll up to the counter.
“And then you can focus on your love life.” Claire titters like a schoolgirl. “You can actually have a life!”
“Oh, Claire.”
I stop slouching against the counter and look to the guys. “So, can I get you boys something? Or did you just drop off Claire to make my day?” I give her a side hug.
“Your love life, eh, Sophie?” Chad teases.
“Please. Don’t start.”
“So you’re robbing the cradle too, huh?”
“Whoa,” Conner says. “Sophie’s robbing the cradle?”
“Knock it off,” Claire says in my defense. “He’s a law student. I’d hardly call it a junior in college.” Her voice falls to a whisper so as not to offend the actual junior in college, Evelyn, in the off chance she can hear us from the kitchen. “Like some people I know.” Claire glares at Chad.
“Well, well,” Conner says, “good for you, Sophie. You haven’t had a boyfriend in forever.”
“Yes, and thank you for knowing that, Conner, and for bringing it to my attention.”
“So, what?” Chad says in a somewhat sneering kind of way. “This law student guy…you guys hit it off or something?” He absentmindedly picks at one of the credit card stickers on the front of the cash register.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” I say, “but we’ve been on one date. One date only.”
“Hardly too soon to tell if they’ve hit it off,” Claire cuts in pertly.
Or soon enough to know you haven’t…
“How’d you know about Dean anyway?” I ask Chad. I push his hand away from the register stickers.
“Isn’t that the law of women or something?” Chad looks to Conner, hits the back of his hand against his buddy’s chest, and says, “You all know each other’s business? You all gossip about it?”
“Evelyn,” I say. “I see.” I sigh. “Yes, I went on a first date with a guy—a law student. It’s hardly front-page news, boys.” I flutter my lashes dramatically.
“I think it’s front-page news, Sophie,” Claire says in an animated way. “I’m happy for you. Boys, if you’re not going to do anything constructive, go back and sit over there.” Claire makes a shooing motion.
“Actually, I can do something constructive,” Chad says. He looks to Conner, brows raised, then looks back to me. “Your oven. Conner and I can take a look at it if you like. Evelyn said you’re still up a creek.”
“Thanks, but it’s already been looked at and the repairman is ordering the part. As soon as he has it he’ll be over and my problems will be solved.”
“And that happens…when?” Chad presses.
“Yeah, well…”
“Come on,” Conner encourages. He hikes up his rather baggy jeans and pushes up the sleeves of his hoodie-sweater. “Let us have a look. What more harm could we do?”
“It’s absurd you want to try again,” I say. “You tried last time, Chad, and that didn’t work.”
“And the repairman came and tried and it didn’t work either.”
Conner purses his lips as if to say, “That’s a good point.”
“So not the same,” I say through a sigh, “but, whatever.” I hitch a thumb behind me towards the kitchen. “You have my permission to poke around the oven and attempt another fix.”
The guys make their way around, and I add in a low tone, “Oven only; Evelyn’s working.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chad says as he and Conner slouch off to the kitchen, snickering.
“You are never going to let him live that down, are you?” Claire asks, watching as the guys disappear.
“No,” I say with vindication.
It wasn’t all that long ago when I walked in on Evelyn and Chad making out in the kitchen during closing time. It was only kissing, thank god nothing more, but still! I was mortified and don’t exactly feel like reliving that unpleasant situation, ever again.
“You have to admit,” Claire says. She leans back on the counter.
“What?”
“That it’s awfully nice how he’s offering to help. Even in spite of you firing him.” Claire shrugs. “It’s nice.”
“Yeah, well.” Distrait, I pick up a cleaning rag and fold it in half, then half again, then I’m about to fold it in half once more when I blurt out, “It’s not that great, Claire.”
“Oh?” She furrows her brow.
It isn’t really the time or the place to divulge what’s been weighing heavily on my mind. There are still customers here, and, while they’re complacent, they are still present and I am still working. And god knows I’ve got enough work to last a lifetime—but there’s no time to sit and gossip. Certainly no time to reveal any secrets!
However, now that I’ve let on that something’s not quite right, Claire won’t let it go.
“What?” she pushes anxiously. “Did something—” Both hands fly to her mouth. “Did you and Chad hook up again? Are we talking college summer in the pool all over again? Oh, Sophie!” She moves a hand to the top of her wild mane of golden curls. “You two didn’t?”
“Wha—? Hell no, Claire!” I choke. “Are you insane?”
“Are you insane?”
“No. No, this is not that summer in the pool.” I roll my eyes. “No! Don’t jump to crazy assumptions.”
“Well, what else can I think?”
“Listen,” I say in a low tone, pressing a hand to her forearm, “I don’t really want to talk about it all right now, but we should talk at some point, you know?”
I pause, biting down hard on my bottom lip. I survey the room of customers as I give my next words a second more of consideration. Then I spit hastily, “Yes. We need to talk. Seriously.”
Claire leans in close, her expression imploring me to go on.
“You and Conner are still planning on crashing at my place, no?” I ask. “I mean, I totally get it if you want a hotel and all…”
“Yes we’re so crashing your place. And whether it’s cramped or not on your sofa bed, I
so cannot be left out of whatever you’ve got to say.”
“Okay.” I set aside the cleaning rag. “Then before we head home for the night let’s swing by and get a bottle of Riesling—”
“And a bag of salt and vinegar chips,” she interrupts.
“Okay—”
“And some Twizzlers.” She doesn’t skip a beat.
I laugh. “Okay, okay. And some Twizzlers. And we’ll send the boys out to a sports bar or something.”
“Totally,” she says, nodding enthusiastically.
“And then we’ll have ourselves a night,” I say with a dash of intrigue to my tone, which sends Claire over the edge.
She groans. “There are just some things Spokane does not offer. It is so good to be back!”
“Claire,” I say, turning towards the cash register as a newly arrived customer approaches, “you have no idea.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Two Years Ago, Summer in Paris
“Look, Claire and Conner will be back any moment now,” I said, fastening the clasps of my raspberry-colored lace bra. “I’d hate for the newly engaged couple to come back and see this.”
“Not for at least another hour,” Chad said. He motioned for me to come back to my narrow, twin-sized bed.
I didn’t know how we’d managed to take a tumble through the sheets in that thing over the past week; it was so small, but after one shared kiss the narrowness of my bed had become one hundred percent irrelevant. That kiss Chad and I had shared on the bridge overlooking the romantic Paris evening, the Eiffel Tower lit up in a frenzy, had sparked the beginning of something I never saw coming.
When I wasn’t in class and when Chad wasn’t busy with his art, we were nearly inseparable. We’d gone out for dinner, dancing, tossed back cocktails and hors d'oeuvres during fancy pub crawls; we’d visited museums and taken a biking tour; we’d wandered aimlessly into the late hours of the summer night in my neighborhood, exploring parts of the Latin Quarter I’d never seen in all the weeks I’d lived there.
We even explored parts of it in ways I never imagined could be explored, like a quickie in the bathroom of one of those famous cafés Hemingway or Hugo used to frequent. We even took a day trip to Versailles together, where I relished droning on and on about the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette; where Chad soaked up the artistic masterpieces around every corner. And, naturally, where we defiled a certain, very discreet section of the massive gardens.
I had no idea what had come over me (aside from homesickness and the charm of the city, both of which I’d grown comfortable in blaming for my behavior that week), but I felt wonderful. I felt alive. Chad and I got along so well, even with the occasional bickering moment or opportunity to poke fun at one another. In Paris we just…fit, somehow. We got each other’s jokes. We sought each other’s company and generally came to an easy agreement on what we wanted to do in an afternoon, what sight we wanted to see, which restaurant we wanted to try out. We laughed, kept quiet with a listening ear, and added to the conversation at all the right moments. We had fun! One-on-one, and in Paris, we were pretty spectacular friends…with mind-blowing benefits.
Our time together was fantastic, but, as with so many lovely things in life, it had to end eventually. Paris would be over soon enough, our one-on-one time in the romantic city becoming a part of our past. We’d had a fun vacation, even agreed we were engaging in a no-strings-attached kind of deal, but back to the real world we would have to ultimately go. And with Claire and Conner in town, Chad and I were only going to set ourselves up for serious trouble if we continued our coquettish game a second longer. Who were we kidding? Paris was nice, but after that? The sooner we nipped our quick tryst in the bud the better.
There was no future for us. Chad and I were friends (and friends who, when not under the rapturous spell of Paris, actually got on each other’s nerves more than we were endearingly on each other’s minds). We may have been a great match that week, but in actuality, in the every day real world, we were Sophie and Chad, two very different people, friends by default and with a history that really bear not repeating. Nothing good (and no solid future) can come from rash and lust-driven choices, which is precisely what Paris was all about. We’d done something stupid and fleeting back in college, and for some reason we’d decided to do it again, tenfold. Whether it felt good in the moment or not was completely beside the point.
But now it was time to move on, return to some form of normalcy. I’d been vulnerable before, so desperate for love I fell into Brandon’s arms without so much as thinking twice. And look at what happened with him! I opened my heart, my life, and made myself completely vulnerable, and for what? So he could rip out my heart and kiss me goodbye. I wouldn’t be vulnerable again, and I sure as hell wouldn’t let something like a Parisian fling with a practiced charmer like Chad be the catalyst for yet another broken heart.
I also couldn’t let this affair come between my friendship with Chad, however quirky and hot and cold our friendship was. And, more than anything, I would never allow something like that to come between my friendship with Conner and my best friend Claire. Chad and I could never work out. If we’d attempt something and fail (which was inevitable), what kind of damage would that do to the friendship the four of us had? The whole circle of friends? No, it just wasn’t worth it. Like so many things that had come before, it was futile. I had to turn on my rational brain, put fleeting and confusing emotions aside, and make the wise, logical, future-focused choice.
I fastened my thin gold watch and glanced at the time. “Forty-five, maybe thirty minutes,” I said to Chad’s reflection in my dresser-top mirror. “They’ll be back soon. We don’t need them coming home to this.”
“Conner and Claire wouldn’t care if they saw this, if they found out.” Chad patted the rumpled bed, gesturing to the slim spot right next to him. “I bet they’d even congratulate us!” He sat there with a sly grin, one leg propped up under the thin sheet, his hand resting up on his knee.
“I somehow doubt that,” I said with a smirk. “Besides, Conner’s proposing to Claire tonight.”
I quickly slipped my lightweight, black cotton Calvin Klein dress over my head—a perfect piece for a warm July evening in Paris. Chad said it was the perfect piece “for easy access.” God, see what I mean?
“Yeah, and?”
“It doesn’t matter if they’d care or not—and, for the record, they so would care and would so not approve—but I don’t think it’s appropriate.” I brusquely shook my head as I tied the dress’ satin belt in a bow around the back. “They’re getting engaged, and it’s not right for us to steal their thunder like this.”
Chad roared with laughter, slumping down into the bed. “Sophie, you’re a kick!” He ruffled a hand through his shaggy hair and twisted onto his side, the sheet pulling tight in all the right places. “You know what I think, Sophie? Conner would say ‘it’s about damn time,’ and Claire would be ecstatic! She’s dying to see you hooked up with someone after what Brandon did to you.”
“Please do not discuss him.” I looked up at the ceiling, trying to keep my nerves calm.
“Sorry. Look.” He sat back up. “I think you’re making a much bigger deal out of this.”
“No, no, that’s not what I’m doing.” I threw him his pair of tattered, whitewashed jeans. “There is no deal going on here. Whatever’s happened is ending, now. You and I have been having…fun. Which,” I pointed a finger at him, “by the way, you and Claire both said I needed more of. So here I am, having fun.”
“We are having fun, aren’t we?” He blew me a kiss and winked nauseatingly at the same time.
“Yes, it’s fun, Chad, but the fun has to end some time. You’re going back to Seattle in a few days, I’ll be back next month, and—and—”
“And? What then?” He fixed me with a serious gaze.
“I don’t know.”
“Forget whatever happened between us? Forget all of this?” He waved a hand about.
&nb
sp; “Yes. Exactly!”
“Like last time?”
“Huh?” I moved across my tiny studio apartment.
“Summer before senior year,” he said in a low tone. “You couldn’t have forgotten about it.”
“No,” I said, picking up his blush-colored Marc O’Polo shirt. “But I certainly try.” I began toying with the edges of the shirt collar.
“Sophie…” he drawled in a way I couldn’t help but acknowledge was damn sexy.
“Chad, it was a mistake then, and I swore we’d put that behind us and never speak of it, and—”
“You let the cat out of that bag telling your girlfriends, sweetie.” He gave an affected smile.
It was true. The girls found out about that college stint with Chad quite quickly. It fell into one of those Henri-type things where you divulge just a snippet, but not much more because there was nothing to discuss—no future, no promise…futile. But it was still worthy of a juicy gossip session.
What had happened in Paris the past week, with Chad, though? That’s mum’s-the-word material, without a doubt!
“You know what I mean,” I said brusquely. “It’s the past. It’s over. And this shouldn’t have happened either. Again!”
“We’re, what? Supposed to move on?” he asked in consternation. “Walk away? Pretend what we’ve had here hasn’t been un-fucking-believable?”
“Stop that.” I set his shirt on the edge of the bed and took a timid seat next to it.
“Sophie,” he finally said after a brief moment of dead air. “I know we both said we’d forget about that summer, and I’ve tried. God, I’ve tried to move on.”
I turned my head to the side so I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I pressed my lips together tightly, doing all I could to keep my mouth shut for once and let him talk.
“But then I come here,” he said, “I see you, we have this—this—this passion together.” I could see him clap his hands around his head. “You drive me insane, Anna-Sophia, and in a good way. I’m always thinking about you, I’m always wanting you—”
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 20
