“I want to go.”
“Listen, all those things you said—”
“I’m a fool. An idiot to think things change. To think you can change.” I point at the door again and tell him he best open it now. “You’re a pig! You’re a liar, deceitful, a player! One woman one minute, another the next—”
“I’m working,” he says.
“Clearly!”
“Soph—”
“Now.” I bang a hand on the door.
He stares at me, his eyes imploring me to stay, to listen.
“This was a mistake,” I say. “All a mistake. I even smudged my nail polish because of you!” I bang on the door again.
“Calm down and give me a chance to explain.”
“I gave you a chance! A chance to explain Evelyn, and clearly you can’t do that. Now you have this woman,” I wave a hand vaguely behind me. “That’s all it is with you, isn’t it? Charm and sex, breaking hearts. Well I’m done playing your stupid little game!”
“She’s a client!” he growls, hands pressed hard on his hips. “All right? A client!”
“Well,” I mutter, immediately feeling like a fool.
“If you’d stop running around on all gears, shouting, acting hectic, and just slow down for one damn minute and give me a chance to explain things—”
“Whatever,” I say, catching sight in the corner of my eyes the woman—the client. She’s staring on in intrigue as she twirls about her boa.
“Please.” He grips me by the arms, eyes entreating, as he begs me not to run out.
“I’ve said what I came here to say,” I tell him. “I was honest with you. Now unless you can explain to me what really happened with Evelyn and why I’m involved—be honest with me—I’ll be going now.” I look at him eagerly, anxiously awaiting his response.
But all he can do is stand here with a dopey, blank expression, shrug his bare shoulders, and say nothing. Absolutely nothing!
I can’t believe it. Enraged and exhausted, I spin on my heels and pad angrily to the door. “I’m out of here.”
“Listen, what you said about us—”
“Forget about it.” I hitch a thumb to the door as I feel tears rushing forward. “To think I actually considered something real with—” I stop myself and sniff back the tears that I fear will burst through at any moment. “Such a player. I’m a fool. I just want to get out of here.” My voice is unflinching.
Chad leads me to the side door, shoulders hunched slightly forward, his usually confident gait deflated. He unlocks and opens the side door a crack.
“Sophie, can I see you later? Privately?”
I glance back at the client. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, come on.” He leans against the slightly propped open door.
I forcefully pull open the door and Chad stands back, both hands held up in supplication. “This is so like us it’s pathetic,” I say. “I should’ve known.”
“Come on, babe,” he says, touching my waist. “I want to talk to you about us, about what you sai—”
“There is no us, Chad.” I shiver away from his touch. “And I’m a fool to think there could’ve been. We can’t be honest with each other…there’s no hope. No point.” I yank open the door. “And I’m not your babe,” I add before charging back into the warm daylight.
“Sophie! Sophie, wait!”
In a flurry I get into my car, start the engine, and begin reversing out of the gravelly drive right as Chad runs up to the side of my car.
I shove the gearshift into drive and buzz out of the lot, leaving Chad behind in literal dust, while I find myself in a stream of uncontrollable tears.
Chapter Forty-Six
He won’t stop calling. It’s like I’ve walked into the lion’s den, caused a massive disruption, and now the beast is awake and on the prowl. He won’t give up, and I’m about to lose my, pardon my French, fucking mind.
I glance angrily at my ringing cell phone. As expected, it’s Chad, calling for the seventh time these past two days. Seven times! And that’s not even counting the text messages…or considering the voicemail left after each and every call. “Please, Sophie, let me explain,” and “Let’s have that talk you want,” and “Can I come over?” and, the most frightening one of all, “If you don’t call me back or pick up I’m coming to the café. I know where you work,” which was followed by a smug laugh.
After the third call and one-too-many text messages, I began calling up all my girlfriends, and John, and I even sent an SOS email to Emily. I was in full-on panic mode, so angry with myself for having gone to the loft and blubbered on like an idiot in the first place, livid with Chad and his man-whore behavior—the lying, the deceit, the secrets, the teasing, the games—and I was so incensed for having these “gut” feelings for such a man.
See, the thing is, as much as I hate having admitted these feelings, and as much as I resent having them to begin with because they totally blindsided me and seem so unlikely, the fact of the matter can’t be denied any longer. There’s a part of me, some part deep down, that wants Chad. Against all odds I want to be with him. Not as a random college fling, not as a romantic tryst abroad, not as a secretive friends-with-benefits kind of thing. I want the real deal—true love.
I can’t explain it, but it’s there. And given recent events, I’m as confused as humanly possible. I put it out there for Chad and all he could do was stutter about, refuse to answer my questions, be the furthest thing from real with me! Would it kill him to be honest? And then the way he acted all smooth and flirty and called me babe, and then that naked, hot model client he was all so cavalier about… I’m insane to be attracted to this man. He’s nothing but trouble. History ought to have taught me something.
I figure at this point all I’ve got to do now is find a way to push past these ridiculous feelings and embarrassing turn of events. I need to lock these thoughts and feelings up in the vault, call it one more for the baggage, and try to let Time heal. Clearly I was an idiot to think Chad and I could have any future together. We’re hot and cold, a past too murky upon which a future can be built.
Hoping my girlfriends and big brother could rally to my cause, offering up all sorts of helpful and wise advice, I was still just as confused, answerless, curious afterwards. The advice was all the same: What does your heart say?
My answer: It caused the shit to hit the fan, and now I’ve got a real mess to clean up. This is why Sophie Wharton doesn’t do love. It always bites her in the ass.
I’m also inclined to say I don’t give a hoot what my heart says at this point. Look at where it got me! In an even bigger mess with a man who drives me crazy in an annoying way half the time, and the rest of the time drives me crazy in that really sexy and good kind of way. It’s utterly hopeless.
My cell phone pings, indicating a message. At first sound I think it could be Emily—an incoming email. But when I pluck up the device I’m disappointed, and enraged, that it’s yet another text message from Chad.
“He won’t leave me alone,” I grouse under my breath from behind the front counter at the café. I quickly turn my phone off, not even bothering to read the message.
“Have you ever picked up and told him to stop calling?” Oliver asks as he sashays around the corner. He’s carrying a tray of freshly-prepared white chocolate, raspberry, and macadamia nut cupcakes.
“Please,” I reply morosely. “I’m not giving him the time of day.”
I had actually texted Chad a reply before, right after he’d told me he could always come into the café, and I told him to keep his distance or else. That bought me a reprieve of an afternoon, but later that night I was hounded with two calls and a series of pathetic, pleading text messages, one, in fact, accusing me of being irrational. If he was expecting to score points with that one he had another thing coming.
Oliver proceeds to situate the cupcakes in the countertop refrigerator display case, telling me it sounds like Chad won’t let up until I make the next move.
>
“You know,” I say, picking up my cell phone again. I click open the most recent text message. “You may be right. But what more can I say to him?”
“It’s true. Some men just don’t get the hint,” Oliver says with a sigh.
I hastily decide to click open the text, considering sending another threatening reply.
PLEASE talk to me! Should I come and visit you? Chad’s message reads.
“That’s it,” I say.
“You replying?”
“Yup.” I stab out the letters. “He’s threatening to come over here and talk to me.” I give Oliver an annoyed expression. “Could you imagine? Oh, the humiliation. No.” I wag my head as I finish my message.
“You wanted to talk to him, though, didn’t you?” Oliver peeps out in a timid voice.
“Too little, too late, Oliver. I’m putting this mess behind me. He wants to talk on his terms and not mine? Forget it.”
“You’re the boss,” he says in a way I can’t quite discern.
I dismiss the comment and hand the phone over. “Short and not so sweet,” I say to him with a smirk. “What do you think?”
His eyes grow wide, his mouth turns down, and he says with a dramatic shiver, “Oooh. I wouldn’t call you back.”
“Perfect.” I hit the “send” key on the text message. You do, you die, it reads.
“Hello, hello!” a cheerful and high-pitched voice rings out.
I slip my cell phone in my apron pocket, feeling quite self-satisfied, and greet the peppy voice with a, “Hey, hey, Jackie!”
She waltzes to the front counter on a pair of navy-blue designer heels, lugging a heavy Louis Vuitton bag on one shoulder.
“Sorry it took me so long to get here,” she pants, waving a manicured hand at her face. “My website disappeared this morning, and I was in total panic mode.”
She catches Oliver in her side view as he gingerly sneaks behind me to grab a saucer for one of the fresh cupcakes. “Hey, Oliver,” she says. “How’s things?”
“Fabulous,” he trills, waving about the cupcake. “Sophie and I nailed—” He pauses and looks to me for confirmation. “Nailed, right?” I tell him he’s right. “We nailed this new recipe for a white chocolate, macadamia, and raspberry cupcake. To die for, dear.”
“Is that it?” Jackie asks, eyeballing the delectable sweet.
“Oui. Tasty, but nameless.”
“It’s got reddish swirls, so maybe something romantic and love-y,” Jackie suggests with pep.
“Or red for blood and anger,” I only half-tease.
Oliver rolls his eyes and mutters something in French when Jackie looks at me with a goofy smirk. “What’s that all about, Sophie?”
“Evidently Chad’s harassing her,” Oliver jumps in.
“Oh, this again.” Jackie heaves her bag onto the counter. “Look, Sophie.” She pulls out a thick sheaf of fliers. “We’ve been over this. I’m getting a bloody nose over your stubbornness here.”
“I know, I know.” I take one of the Interiors By Jackie fliers and compliment her on the fresh design.
“Upping my prices a bit,” she says with delight.
“Really making a name for yourself, huh?” I return the flier to the top of the pile. “Is the website thing okay?”
“Totally.” She roots about her bag. “Some tech thing I don’t understand, but Andrew called the people, and it’s all fixed.” She sets a stack of business cards atop the fliers. “Totally had me freaking, but biz is back to normal. You know that website is really helping me get the clients?” She taps the stack of marketing materials. “And these, too. Thanks again for letting me set up market shop in here.”
I take a moment to help Oliver serve and clean some tables before meeting Jackie at the pony wall where she’s neatly organizing not just her marketing materials but the entire collection of other business cards, pamphlets, and fliers I like to set out helping advertise local start-ups.
“So Chad Harris is harris-ing you,” Jackie says, squealing at her rather lame joke.
“Yes.” I shape neatly the small pile of Studio Tulaa pamphlets. “But I sent him a text telling him to leave me the hell alone.”
“That’ll work,” she says, dripping sarcasm.
“Well what the hell else can I do, Jack?”
She only shrugs, continuing her organization.
“I can’t see him or be around him. He drives me insane!”
“That’s kind of awkward.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know I’m redoing his kitchen?” She looks up at me slowly, the corners of her lips curled in an apologetic way.
“Okay.”
“He’s still a friend, Sophie. And he’s kind of a client and…”
“I’m not saying I’m doing away with him for good. I mean…”
What am I saying, though? I can’t even fathom seeing Chad right now, or any time in the near future. I have these feelings for him, but they can’t ever become anything what with his lies and his immaturity and the disaster we’ve created. I’m ready to lock them away, move on, let Time do its miraculous thing. So, am I considering, on some subconscious level, saying goodbye to Chad…forever?
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “It’s all so weird right now, you know?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” I neatly arrange a stack of colorful business cards for a craft store.
“Do you want to be with him?” She looks at me with a curious and heartfelt expression.
“With Chad?”
The question requires no answer, isn’t even worth asking.
I cross my arms over my chest. “It doesn’t matter what I think anymore, Jackie,” I say after a lengthy silence. “The situation’s ridiculous. I’d be setting myself up for hurt by wanting to try to have something with him.”
“I didn’t ask if the situation was ridiculous—which, by the way, it totally is.”
“Thank you!” I hold a hand out to her.
“It’s ridiculous because you two so clearly belong together!”
Okay, that, I didn’t see coming.
“It’s ridiculous because you two are acting so stupid. Who cares that he was with some sexy client painting?”
“That’s not it!” I gruffly set my hands on my hips.
“Evelyn?”
“Yeah. The whole thing with Evelyn—”
“Is in the fucking past,” she breathes exhaustedly.
“Jackie…”
“Come on,” she says with urgency, abandoning her organizing. She’s now standing directly in front of me, arms akimbo. “You two just aren’t talking—”
“I tried.”
“And failed. And gave up. Dammit, girl.” She sniffs a laugh. “You two know how to beat around a bush, I’ll tell you. You two are great at starting things, but finishing them…” She wags her head, wearing a grin.
“On the contrary, it turns out we do finish things. We are finished.” I cross my arms over my chest. “We’re just stupid and start things up again.”
“Listen,” she says, sounding a twinge exhausted. “I swore I wouldn’t say anything, but…ah, hell, who am I to keep a secret?”
“Huh?”
She steps closer to me and drops her voice significantly. “It was last year,” she begins, “September, October…I don’t know. Right before Conner and Claire moved to Spokane.”
“Yeah?” I’m all ears now.
“Conner and I were just talking…I don’t know about what…Chad? You? Who knows? Doesn’t matter.” She flutters her faux lashes. “Conner let it slip, totally backpedalled, then because he couldn’t make his way out of it he just told me the truth.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He said Chad has it bad for you.”
“He has made it clear he’s had it for me.” I roll my eyes. “Remember? Paris?” Must I be reminded of this?
“What? Three years ago?”
I nod and tell her that C
had wanting to have a go at a relationship with me—that he “was into me”—isn’t fresh information.
“Not three years ago.”
“Oh, you mean the whole Evelyn assumption about Chad and me being together?” I laugh at the guessing game. “Honestly, Jackie, wh—”
“No assumptions. This was last fall,” she says with hungry eyes. “We’re talking only months ago.”
“So? Conner told you this months ago.”
“God, Sophie,” she groans. “Don’t be so dense. Chad still had feelings for you, last fall. Back right before he got with Evelyn, in fact. Maybe even during.” She shrugs. “Hell if I know. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“Wait.” I scrunch my forehead in entreaty. “So he, what? Was feeling this like recently? We’re talking before he got with Evelyn, recently?”
“Yes!” she nearly shouts. “Look, it all sounds really elementary school right now with ‘he said,’ ‘she said,’ ‘when did it happen?’ and ‘he likes you.’” She laughs. “But Conner made me promise not to tell you, because it was evidently real, evidently serious, and, well, Chad was seeing Evelyn when I found this out.”
“I’m so confused.” I lean against the wall and close my eyes.
“And that’s why you two need to talk,” Jackie urges. She presses a hand to my arm. “Come on, Sophie. I know you’ve tried once, but try again. Or…” She puffs out a loud breath of air. “Well, you’ve gotta let go of something.”
“Let go?”
“Yup. I’ve been there, I’ve done that.” She leans against the opposite wall and begins to toy with her Tiffany charm bracelet. “You either need to let go of the memories and the what-ifs and all of the possibilities with Chad, for good…”
“Okay.”
“Or you need to let go of the fear of something good happening in the future with him, of a possibility for something really special and different.”
“Jackie…” I start, but I don’t really know where to go. She is right. I have to let go of something if I’m going to move forward. But what?
“Which one?” I ask.
She laughs and pushes away from the wall. “Same advice I gave before.”
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 36
