“Anyway,” I said, backtracking and swigging at my champagne with gusto. “Speaking of dance moves, I’m going to break out some of my own now.” I moved towards the floor, crossing in front of Chad, and then his hand shot out and stopped me.
“Wait.”
I looked up into his dark eyes. They looked kind of sad, distant.
“What? You want a dance-off?” I teased.
“No. Yes.”
“No? Yes?” I laughed nervously. “What?”
“N-n-o,” he stuttered.
I pulled back from his outstretched arm. “If you want a dance you can just ask, Chad.” I rolled my eyes. “I won’t step on your feet or anything. Although, I can’t promise I won’t bite.”
“No,” he repeated, “I’m not talking about dancing. Your question, about getting married some day?”
“Oh, that!” I waved the topic away. I made a motion to move forward towards the dance floor once more, but his arm stretched out again.
“Chad?”
His eyes locked with mine. Now they didn’t look so distant, instead serious, almost drawing me in. “Yes,” he said, “I do think about getting married some day.”
“Oh.” My voice lacked any intonation. “Okay.”
It was only a question in the name of small talk, I told myself.
“With the right woman, obviously,” he continued in a serious vein.
“Obviously.”
“It’d be a gut thing.”
“A gut thing?”
“Yeah. You know? If in your gut, in your heart, you know, you feel it’s the right thing to do?” He shrugged and looked back at the dance floor.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m not exactly the pillar of the relationship community.” I giggled like a tipsy bridesmaid, which I fear I had become, at least in that uncomfortable moment.
“Oh, come on,” he drawled. “You know what I’m talking about. When you feel in your gut,” he pressed a fist to his chest, “in your heart, that it’s right with that person. No matter whether it seems right or wrong…you feel it.” He looked deep into my eyes, and the uncomfortable moment doubled—no, tripled in uneasiness. “A gut thing,” he whispered.
Just then I tossed my head back and gave a loud, anxious laugh. “Oh, Chad!” I hooted.
“What?” he asked, his face going long, a hint of embarrassment crossing it.
“You’re such a sap.” I laughed some more before finishing my champagne, hoping and praying our odd exchange was finished. I was sorry I had ever asked the stupid question.
“I’m going to dance,” I stated. I tried to push forward to the floor, but Chad’s arm jutted out again.
“Y-yeah. Yeah. I’m being a sap,” he said with an unsettled beat of laughter. “Total sap. God.” Some more peculiar laughter.
He finished off his champagne in one hearty slog, then took a step back to stand right in front of me, obscuring my path to the dance floor yet again. “I’m just trying to flirt with you, Sophie,” he said in a quirky kind of way. He winked. “But it’s evidently not working.”
“Flirt?” I spluttered.
He leaned forward, his pink cheeks growing red, and said in a husky voice, “I was kidding about that serious, lovey-dovey marriage stuff.” He took my empty champagne glass from me.
“Oh?”
“Go all romantic-cheesy to get the wedding date.” He nodded towards the wedding reception venue, a beautiful and romantic mansion in the hills of Queen Anne. “What do you say to a quickie?” he blurted out unexpectedly.
“What?” I said, completely taken off guard.
“Come on.” He cleared his throat. “You. Me. Like old times?” He rubbed at his now pink jaw and fingered his lip ring for a second. “What do you say?”
“You’re disgusting,” I said, pushing past him.
He started to laugh as I stomped to the dance floor on high heels and wonky ankles. “Disgusting,” I called behind me as he stood there, laughing at his childish and revolting behavior.
“At least save me a dance,” he called out.
***
I pull up in front of Chad’s houseboat just as the memory of that night at Claire and Conner’s wedding subsides. It, like so many memories of Chad, is one I’d kept in the vault for a long while, hoping time would make it fizzle and fade. The way he looked at me and talked so soberly about marriage…a gut feeling. It’s one of those memories that’s left me frustrated and confused (and still a tad nettled at his boyishness at the end). But now it’s making me question my obstinacy. It’s making me wonder, could Chad and I be that something more he’s talked about? That something more I’ve thought about? Is it a gut thing? And then the most terrifying yet electrifying thought overcomes me: Is Chad the one I’m supposed to be with?
“There’s only one way to find out,” I say to myself, parking in front of his houseboat.
His obnoxious truck’s not in sight, but I figure I’ll see if he’s home anyway.
As expected, no one’s home. Still riding the courage wave, I decide to forego any element of surprise, too determined to find him and talk to him. I call Chad’s cell phone, not pausing my dialing for a single moment of hesitation.
“Damn,” I mumble when he doesn’t pick up.
In most circumstances I probably would have given pause, waited until later in the afternoon, but this is not a usual circumstance. If this was all a gut thing, a real matter of the heart, then I needed to talk and I needed answers. And I needed them now.
“You can do this, Sophie,” I give myself one more vote of confidence as I swing a left into the loose-gravel parking lot, the pebbles kicking up noisily as my wheels crunch slowly forward.
The only sure-fire place I can think Chad would be on a Saturday afternoon, if not at home or out with friends, is at the loft where he spends his time painting.
I survey the large, steel and redbrick loft in a heavily industrial corner of Lake Union. I see Chad’s truck, parked as carelessly as when he swings by the café.
“Here goes,” I tell myself, the courage still ever-present and taking me by surprise.
I haven’t exactly thought this through, but I think that’s the best approach here. If this is all a gut thing, then I should just wing it—speak from the heart, get things off my chest, and be honest with Chad. It’s time, as Claire said, we have a real talk.
I raise my hand to the immense, wavy steel warehouse door and knock as best I can against the corrugated material.
Stay calm, I reassure myself.
I knock once more, this time louder and harder. “Chad? Chad, can you hear me? It’s Sophie.” I pause. No response. “I want to talk.”
The creaking of the door startles me as it slowly begins to inch itself upwards, rolling back and revealing flip-flop clad feet. As the door rolls back some more, revealing a pair of blue-jeaned knees, thighs, a waist, my stomach churns wildly, my throat starts to constrict, my heart is beating so hard, so loudly. I close my eyes and inhale; I tell myself I can do this.
As I open my eyes, the door rolled halfway open, a voice sounds. “Sophie?”
The feet inch back, the knees bend, and Chad’s face peers out from under the rolled door. He squints into the sunlight and pans about the lot for a fleeting second. He looks up at me with a baffled yet pleased expression and says, “What are you doing here?”
“I want to talk.”
He waves me in, still crouched. “You know I have a side door?” He chuckles lightly.
I duck down and enter the studio, the cement floor, cold steel, and brick walls keeping the space cool.
“Sorry,” I say. I watch as he maneuvers a thick chain to close the door. His jeans are splattered in colorful splotches of paint. His strong, defined chest, despite the chill in the room, is bare, and also dotted with paint. Suddenly, the room doesn’t seem so cool. I press a hand to my warm cheek.
The door slams closed with a loud, reverberating thud, causing me to jump slightly, but I can’t tea
r my eyes away from Chad, from his chest, his very sensual physique. Before he turns around to face me I wave a hand at my flushing face.
Get a hold of yourself, for god’s sake, woman! I tell myself.
It’s physical attraction to Chad that’s gotten me into plenty of trouble before. I need to get it together. Dare I go and set myself up to repeat sordid history.
Get it together, get it together, I run over and again through my head.
I clear my throat, then manage to choke out in a monotone voice, “I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
“No, I…” He runs a hand through his dirty-blonde hair. It’s wet with a mixture of grease, maybe sweat, and perhaps a bit of paint, too, and falls to the sides in thick strands. “I’m working.” He gestures with an open palm to the wide-open space of the commercial loft.
There’s a large, nearly life-sized canvas in the center of the space, drop cloths splattered with paint spread about. The canvas is mostly covered in strokes of brown, grey, black, and some red paint, a very crude painting in the making.
“Look,” I say, turning back around and facing him, but to my surprise he’s much closer than where he was when I managed to peel my eyes from him a second ago.
In the midst of my stalling, he draws even closer. “Yes?”
I swallow, trying to quell the childish flips beginning in my stomach. If he could put a shirt on things might not be so difficult, I think as my eyes fall to his pecs, to the dots of paint dancing down his cut abdomen, to the hard lines at his waist, dipping low and angular as they disappear below the belt line, behind the rim of his jeans—
“Sophie?” Chad’s face is so near, his body so close I swear I can feel the heat—physical, metaphorical, all of it—forming between us. His eyes meet mine when he says my name again.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I think I say, unsure if I’ve actually spoken my ears are burning so.
“Are you all right?” His brow knits ever so slightly and just when I think he couldn’t draw in any closer he bends his head down, eyes locked even more intently with mine. “Sophie?”
I shake myself into rationality. “Can I talk to you?” My voice is firm.
His eyes dart about, then he looks back to his canvas. With a purse of his lips he runs another hand through his hair. “Uhh…”
I take a step back, too close for comfort, and get my thoughts in order. “It really can’t wait,” I press. “Please.”
He claps loudly and asks if I want a seat, gesturing to an aged wooden barstool. I decline, telling him I’ll be as quick as possible so he can get back to his work.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” I jump straight to the point, despite my foggy head, my weak knees. I stand a few feet away from him, mostly keeping my eyes either focused on his forehead, on a spot on the wall just behind his head, or occasionally the floor. Anything but his chiseled abs.
“Been doing some soul-searching,” I say, “tapping into my emotions, all of it. Not just logically thinking but—”
“Thinking. I get it.”
“Yes. Thinking.” I swallow away the small knot in my throat. “I’ve been thinking about…us. About our past, our history.” I quickly catch his gaze, and a very faint smile plays his lips. I close my eyes, inhale, and force myself to carry on, not to get swept up in raw emotion.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” I explain, “and I know I swore to myself I would put it all behind me and forget about our past and keep quiet about it. But lately all I can do is think about you, about us.” I can feel my hands start to shake, so I slip them behind my back. “And it’s not just in the memory kind of way. Or in the ‘Oh, I can’t believe that happened!’ kind of way.” He lightly laughs, which gives me an instant dose of courage to surge ahead.
“Okay,” I say with a discomfited giggle, “so maybe sometimes I’m thinking that.” I give him a tiny smile, and he just nods, eyes telling me he understands, encouraging me to continue.
“But Claire got to talking about these gut things…these heart things.” I flutter my lashes as my stomach does crazy flips. “And it got me to thinking…” I can feel my mind wander about, and I fear I’m starting to ramble. “Why did I fire you from the café? Was it because I was jealous of seeing you with Evelyn?” I rub at my forehead. “I don’t know. Maybe. Possibly? Probably a little bit?” I grunt, completely uncomfortable with pouring forth my feelings, my emotions, like this. And to Chad! Have I lost my mind?
I take a few deep breaths to try to gain control of the conversation and my train of thought.
“Anyway,” I blurt, arms now stiff at my side, “I’ve been thinking a lot about my pathetic love life, and about you and us. And then I start thinking about you helping me out at the café those nights—you can be so nice to me, Chad, when you’re not driving me batty of course and teasing me. But working at the café with you I can’t help but think of that pull we kind of had going on and those quiet moments and of course you were with Evelyn and I would never get in between two people romantically involved but it’s not like anything happened with us and that’s not really even the point and you’re not with her anymore…although that’s not really the point either.” I swallow quickly.
“Then we’ve got these moments when you look at me and it’s like your eyes speak to me and I get lost in them and…” I sigh, gripping my head with both hands. “God, we can be so good together, just us. And that’s when I start to think of Paris and—God, I’ve been reflecting back on that time way too much—but I find myself wanting to go back there with you and get lost in those memories and…” I exhale the little breath left and look straight at Chad, worry mixed with panic covering my face.
“I’m driving myself crazy thinking about you, about us, Chad. I don’t know what it all means, I don’t know what the hell I want, but I’ve kind of sort of been thinking that maybe…maybe…I don’t know.” I rub at my head some more. “We haven’t done so well in the past, but maybe we’ve grown a little? Maybe things can be different? Do people ever really change? Have we grown? I’m rambling. I don’t know.” I sigh heavily. “Claire told me I needed to be honest and talk and—”
“What are you trying to say, Sophie?” he says bluntly.
I stare at him, mouth slightly parted. I don’t really know, I think. What haven’t I said?
He draws nearer, and my eyes can’t help but fall to his exposed torso. I feel myself go weak at the knees, hands shaking again.
“Sophie?”
“I think what I’m saying is,” I say as I gather the nerve to tear my eyes from his body, “I’ve been wondering if what I’m thinking and feeling is one of those gut things. Someone once told me—”
“I know,” he says. His voice is a hair above a whisper, his face inches from mine.
“So I’m thinking that maybe…” I draw my words out slowly, cautiously. “Maybe we owe it to each other to give each other another try? A real try?” I swallow. “Like, see if we can be together as more than just friends…and more than just friends who sleep together in Paris.” I roll my eyes and rock back on my heels, feeling absolutely overcome with nervousness.
“But I need answers,” I spit out, immediately remembering the other part of why I came here in the first place. The part that I actually intended to address first, but was so overcome with emotion I totally lost my train of thought.
I stand up a little taller, forcing myself to gather a better sense of composure after having babbled unexpectedly.
“Answers?” He looks nonplussed.
“The breakup with Evelyn.” I give him a deadpan expression, and he grunts in exasperation. “She comes to the café and tells me that you have some inside scoop about why she quit. What is it?”
“She quit. We broke up. It’s over.”
“What is it?”
“Sophie.” He rolls his head a few times, cracking his neck. “Evelyn’s done. Let’s not talk about her. Let’s just…move on.”
“No,” I insist. “She comes
into the café and tells me she couldn’t imagine it working out anyhow, her working there, with you and I being together. What is that? What is she talking about? We aren’t together, Chad.”
His face goes long; he’s speechless.
“Chad!” I feel tears about to spring forth for whatever reason; the emotions are running high. “What did she mean by that? What’s going on? I want answers.”
“Sophie.” He sighs. “Does it really matter? I know how you feel now and—”
“Yes! It does matter. I want you to be honest. I’m so confused right now. Please.”
“Look, there’s nothing to talk about. Evelyn’s gone,” he says as a female voice rings from behind.
I spin around.
There, prancing into the room, atop a pair of shiny black stilettos, a long, red boa wound through her arms, is a gorgeous, leggy bleach-blonde woman with shining lips to match her boa and a figure that can certainly be found in magazine advertisements, if not on the cover of Playboy and Maxim. She’s gorgeous, revealing everything as she stands in the center of the room in all her naked glory.
“Chad, darling, I’m all—” the twenty-something woman trills. “Oh.” She looks straight at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”
“What?” I gasp, slowly turning to look back at Chad.
He pulls a tight and very guilty face. “I can explain,” he begins, but I don’t let him finish.
“Clearly I came at a bad time.” I can feel my cheeks flush red with mortification. “You waste no time moving on!”
Eyes wide, stomach churning madly, I pace on shaky legs to the warehouse door. My eyes then fall to Chad’s discarded polo, lying in a wrinkled pile on the ground, and instantly images of Chad and—and—and—this woman playing their own rendition of Parisian Romance flash before me. Then I think about how I’m just another number! Just another helpless woman who gets weak at the knees for Chad Harris and—and— I’ve had enough.
“I’m leaving,” I say, short of breath.
“Sophie, wait. it’s not what it looks like,” Chad pleads. He rushes over to me as I point at the door.
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 35
