“Excuse me!” he announces.
Dear god, I think, having never felt more embarrassed. Now the whole café is looking on.
“Excuse me,” Chad says. “This lovely woman here.” He points to me. “Sophie Wharton. She’s the owner of this café. Responsible for baking the best desserts I’ve ever had the privilege of tasting.”
“Chad,” I whisper, mortified.
“She’s a handful. She’s great at running this place, but when it comes to her love life, she’s not exactly a seasoned pro.” He looks at me with a suspicious grin. “The fact is, I love this woman. And she loves me. But she’s fighting it.”
He lowers his voice, turning his attention to me, changing from speech-mode straight to an intimate exchange between the two of us. “She’s fighting it. She’s afraid,” he whispers.
I gather the nerve to look at the café filled with awestruck people. The room is silent—the most silent it’s ever been with customers present.
I notice Oliver standing not so surreptitiously in the hallway, eagerly biting his bottom lip and staring at Chad and me.
Then, amidst the deafening silence, someone across the room calls out, “What’s it going to be?” Someone else adds in, “Yeah, don’t leave the guy hanging!”
“Well?” Chad says. He looks deep into my eyes.
“I am afraid,” I admit to him.
My heart’s been broken before. Fear is why I’ve run and hidden from, even tried to suppress, my true feelings for Chad.
“I know you are. But I’m not Brandon,” he says, reading my mind.
“I know.”
“I’m not some nerd law student you pretend to like,” he says with a teasing smile. “I’m not some hoity-toity French writer.”
“I know.”
“I’m Chad.”
“I know.”
“We’re Chad and Sophie,” he says with a cocky smile, a sexy smile, a smile that I want to wipe off his face with a kiss, telling him, “We are Chad and Sophie, and that’s what scares me.”
I pause. “It won’t be easy,” I say.
“No.” He wags his head. “But Sophie,” he chuckles, “you’ve never been easy. You’re the most difficult woman I’ve ever met.”
“Insulting a woman is a way to her heart?” I say in jest.
“We’re Chad and Sophie.”
I roll my eyes and give a half-smile. “Yeah, we are.”
“And I love you. For all your idiosyncrasies, for all your need for control, for all your silly ways.” He ruffles my hair, and I, by rote, swat his hand away and begin to smooth my hair back out.
“See? I love you,” he says so simply, lifting his shoulders and dropping them with a sigh. “It feels so good to say it. I love you for your quirks, but more importantly, I love you for you. Your smile.” He cups my chin in his hand. “Your laugh.” His thumb grazes my lips. “Your kindness, your spirit.” He taps a finger to my heart. “I love you with all your fears and all your worries, your hopes, your dreams.” He brushes his fingers gently across my cheek before saying, “I’m turning into a romantic sap, putting it out here, and making a fool out of myself for you, Sophie.”
I laugh and dab away the tears in the corners of my eyes with a pinky. “Yes, you are doing a fine job of that.”
A low murmur begins to build in the café as everyone watches on in anticipation. But soon, everyone but Chad begins to fade away into the background. It’s all white noise. All I’m aware of is what it looks like going forward in life, what it looks like letting go of fear and letting myself really find love. The road looks like it’ll be a bumpy one, and there are parts that are so curvy I can’t see straight ahead again, and that’s kind of scary.
But I don’t have to know what’s at the end of the road. And it’s okay to be scared, it’s okay to let go of a little control. Because when you let yourself love, everything else suddenly seems so simple. Finding love’s been the hard part, and learning that it’s okay to explore it will be a challenge. But having it? Sharing it? A requited love? That’s the cherry on the cupcake.
I take Chad’s hands in mine, give them a squeeze, and lift up on my tiptoes. I’m about to lean in for a kiss but decide, since I’m going all in, chips down, cards on the table, risking it all for true love, I turn to the front of the café, and say, “I’m going to kiss him now.”
And as I turn to Chad, leaning into his warm, strong chest and open arms, tangling my hands in his hair and locking my lips with his, the café fills with an uproar of joy.
The kiss intensifies, Chad’s hands run up and down my back, and then he pauses. We’re breathless, his forehead’s pressed against mine, and he smiles. “You think you’re free for a hot date tonight?”
“You thinking my place or your place?”
“Well my place is kind of a disaster zone. Renovating the kitchen and all.”
“Ah, yes.” My throat tightens and my mind races to what Jackie had said about the renovation, the possibility of Chad moving…
He pulls me tighter as my stomach starts to ache. I know I’ve made the right choice taking a chance on a love with Chad, because the mere thought of him moving, of leaving, makes me sick.
In a jesting tone he says, “Someone came in and told me my kitchen was hideous.” He laughs, tossing his head back. “And I thought, you know, if I’m going to have a girlfriend who’s a baker, I need a proper kitchen.”
“Wha—”
“I know, I move fast. But it was a gut thing, knowing you and I would end up together.”
“Oh yeah?” I say with a laugh of pleasant relief knowing he’s not going anywhere. At least, not anywhere without me. “A gut thing, really?”
“Really.”
I lean in and graze my lips against his, whispering in between small kisses that I’m excited, though nervous, to see where this goes.
As Chad holds me in his arms, telling me he’s right by my side through this adventure, I no longer feel overcome with fear. Rather, I’m at peace with accepting that the past is the past, the future the future, and whatever baggage has weighed me down before now seems light as merengue. It’s still there, it’s a part of me, but it doesn’t have to hold me back anymore.
It’s like baking that perfect macaron or cupcake: When I start to panic or feel like I’m losing control because I can’t see a straight road ahead, I’ll have to remind myself that, like a recipe, I take one step, one ingredient at a time. And, if I know anything about Time, it’s that it’s responsible for some pretty awesome, unexpected things in life. It has a greater job than healing broken hearts.
It brings them together.
Epilogue
Nearly Two Months Later…
“The limo’s out front, ready when we are,” Jackie says as she slips her cell phone into her oversized snakeskin designer handbag.
“Thank Andrew for us again,” I say. I carefully apply a fresh application of lipstick, holding up a small mirror to make sure I stay in the lines.
“I think the way my company’s going we could say I set this one up,” Jackie says with a throaty laugh.
“Great work on Chad’s kitchen, by the way,” I say as two strong hands grip my arms. Chad’s face appears in the mirror.
“Definitely great work,” he says to Jackie.
I twist towards him, asking if my lipstick looks all right. He says it looks perfect. I ask how my hair is. I’d attempted a chignon but lost patience with my hair’s unmanageable silkiness, so opted for the poker-straight, just-down look.
“Great,” he says, coming in for a kiss.
“Wait. Fresh lipstick.” I point at my lips, and Chad just rolls his eyes, smacking a kind of wet kiss on the side of my forehead.
“Awww,” Claire coos. “The lovebirds.”
“Who would have thought?” Lara says with a smile from her seat on my sofa. “Sophie and Chad?”
“Oh I so figured,” Emily says. She twists a fresh cornrowed braid between two fingers, both of which sport heavy met
al rings.
“Hey, by the way,” Chad says. He snaps his fingers at Emily. “Impressive job with the secret.”
Emily makes a one-shouldered shrug.
“What secret?” I ask, looking from Emily to Chad.
“I told Emily long ago I had it bad for you,” Chad says, massaging my shoulders.
“What can I say?” Emily says. “I don’t meddle.”
“That makes one of us,” Jackie tosses out, followed by more throaty laughter.
“Besides,” Emily says, “I’m a big believer in fate. It was always in the stars for Chad and Sophie to get together.”
“Fate just moved it’s sweet ass a bit slow,” Lara says. She flashes me a look that says, “I love ya, I’m teasing…but not entirely.”
“I know, I know,” I say, feeling myself blush as Chad and I take center attention.
It’s true. Our relationship, in all of its young nearly two month’s of officialness, has been pretty amazing and rather astonishing. It’s like it was a no-brainer that we were meant to wind up together, but at the same time it’s a total mind-bender that we are actually a couple. After all this time. We fit like a glove, and that includes the usual teasing, but we wouldn’t be Chad and Sophie without it.
“Turns out Em was right,” I say. “Fate had a plan all along, even if,” I look to Lara, “it took fifty kajillion years for the both of us to get our rears in gear. I mean, how clichéd is that? The friend there all along?”
“Ha!” Emily shouts. “Need I remind you of Gatz? If I’m not mistaken, you, Miss Sophie, were the one who said I needed to look right under my nose.”
“That’s right,” Robin says, making an ah-ha face. “Wow. Oh the irony.”
“It’s like I said, Sophie,” Claire says in a sprightly tone. “Sometimes you have to look for love, chase it, and sometimes you have to let love find you.”
“Or you have to attack it,” Jackie says with pursed lips. “Fight for it. Take down any bitch who stands in your way.”
I tell the girls that I was searching for love in all the wrong places; I didn’t stop and take off the blinders or stop running in fear.
“Once she did that, love found her,” Chad says with a cheesy grin. He kisses the side of my forehead once more, then says he’s going to head out with Conner before his Y chromosome morphs into an X before our very eyes.
“No, love didn’t find me,” I say insistently, grabbing Chad’s hand. I refuse to let him run out of this one so fast.
“Oh?” His face twists into a look of confusion.
“No. See, I’m in control.” I smooth back my hair, an overly dramatic air of self-satisfaction about me. “Love didn’t find me. I found it.”
“Oh, brother.” Chad groans. “Miss Control’s at it again. If it makes you happy, I’ll let you believe you found it.”
Emily waves a hand at us and says, “Whoever found whom, it’s found, and all because you took a little thing called chance.”
“To fate! To chance! To love! Yada-yada, all good things.” Jackie holds up an invisible glass of champagne. “Okay. I don’t have a cocktail in my hands and that’s a problem. What are we waiting for? To the limo, ladies!” She charges for the door.
“Let’s get this girls’ night on!” Robin cries happily after glancing at her watch. She says Bobby’s out at a game with some guys from work, and they’ve only got the babysitter until midnight. “Time’s a-wasting, and I haven’t been out in a long time. Let’s move it!”
I pick up my bag and step into my teal high heels as Chad slips a hand around my waist and says, “I’ll see you later?”
“Yup.”
“Oh, here.” He holds out the silk Hermès scarf that matches my shoes perfectly. “You want this?”
“Uhh,” I sound, having already decided that, while it complemented the outfit perfectly, it was the scarf from Henri, so my wearing it just seemed…odd.
“Here,” Chad says, tying it ever so incorrectly about my neck.
“Thanks.” I slip off the scarf and stuff it into my purse. I tell him that he’s an artist with a paintbrush…leave it at that.
“Have fun. Don’t drink yourself silly,” I say, nodding to Conner, who’s complacently seated at my dining table, passing time with his cell phone.
“Claire and I will see you two later tonight…or possibly just wake up and catch up tomorrow morning if we’re all hung over, as could very well be the case.” I wink and make a clicking sound with my tongue.
Claire and Conner arrived in town today, hot on the heels of Emily for her short trip before she returns to Australia to begin her year-long global travels with Gatz.
Apparently Emily and Gatz came across a story on the internet about some couple from Kansas who traveled as far as they could on a very modest budget. They were inspired and decided they’d be the perfect couple to take on the same challenge. So for one year they’re going to couch surf, hitchhike, and slum it along, trekking as much around the globe as they can, all on less than $15,000 each. Emily said other couples have done it, too, and one guy did it for twelve, another girl thirteen-five. It’s their turn to take a stab at it.
“We’ll see you here,” Chad says.
While Em’s got a place of her own still down the road, Claire and Conner are staying the night at my place. It’s almost like a flashback to college, although of course Chad and I aren’t sharing a room because we’re having a random fling.
“As always,” Robin says, slipping into a seat on the lengthy side of the limo, “you outdo yourself with style, Jackie.”
“You know it,” Jackie says.
The rest of us pile into the limo, Claire taking an excited minute to pop her head through the sunroof and wave and shout at Conner, “Love you, baby!”
A muffled “love you, too!” is shouted back from my front door.
“Don’t go wild!” she shouts, her voice more threatening than cutesy, as it was a minute ago.
I tug on the hem of her bright red, sequined dress and tell her to give him some slack.
“Champagne?” Lara asks, taking two full glasses from Jackie.
“Yes, please,” Robin and I say.
“Fill me up!” Emily says.
“Claire?” Jackie asks, holding up a bottle of Dom.
“No thanks,” Claire says with an expression that says she’s carrying the biggest secret of all. She presses a hand to her stomach and says she isn’t allowed to drink.
“One little sip won’t affect your fertility or throw off your ovulation test,” Lara says astutely.
Claire draws from her purse a long strip of white paper. “Girls,” she says, singsong. “I’m pregnant!”
“O-mi-god!” a chorus erupts, an eruption so loud I wouldn’t have been surprised if the driver pulled over to the side of the road, raced back to the car, and stood at the ready for an emergency.
“I’m barely eight weeks,” Claire gushes with pride. She passes around the ultrasound photos of the tiny bean pod of a baby. Her eyes start to well up with tears, and she fans her face rapidly with her hand. “Oh, I just can’t believe it.”
“When did you find out?” I exclaim. “This is amazing!”
“Conner and I promised we wouldn’t say anything to anyone until we got to the eight-week mark, to be safe, you know?” Tears of joy are streaming down her face.
We all nod, gawking at the photos.
Congratulations go around, and Claire eventually pulls herself together.
“This is only the beginning of the wild roller coaster emotions,” Claire says.
I dig in my bag for a Kleenex, and Claire blows her nose.
“You get used to it,” Robin says, giving her a squeeze. “And before you know it you’ll have two rug rats running around, causing havoc, but totally making your heart melt.” Robin looks to be getting a bit teary herself. “It’s the best thing that can happen to you.”
Robin says she’s the most content she’s ever been—more than she could have imagined pos
sible. She has her family, her friends.
“Let’s get real, though,” she says, pausing to take a sip of champagne. “Friends, family. Those words are one in the same here, you know?”
“Definitely,” Jackie says.
“Thick as thieves,” Claire adds. “And I really do feel that even as we get older and our lives change.” She squeals. “We have babies!” Robin pats Claire on the back and smiles. “As we move…” Claire looks to Lara with a long face. “Through all of that, we always have each other. We’ve still got our group of girlfriends.” She sniffs back her remaining tears and dabs at her nose with the soggy Kleenex.
“I’ll plan regular trips to Seattle,” Lara reassures all of us as she crosses one nylon-clad leg over the other. “I’m sure there will be some great excuses for this new firm in Chicago to need me to fly out to the West Coast.”
“Oh?” Jackie perks up, curious.
“And if not, who the heck cares?” Lara takes a sip of her champagne. “We all know we can’t go very long without seeing each other.”
“Hear, hear,” I say, holding up my glass.
It’s all set. Lara and Worth are planning to move to Chicago next month. They’ve found an apartment already, a wedding is planned for next spring, and Lara’s mom is already on top of the coordination. It’ll be strange not having Lara around, and it’ll be weird to see our pack of six shrink to three here in Seattle, but like Claire said, we’ll always have each other. We’ll always be friends. And if that’s not a comforting thought during a bittersweet moment like this…
“Hey, why aren’t you wearing this, silly?” Claire asks. She pulls at the scarf that’s peeking out of my bag.
“Oh,” I say dismissively.
“It’s gorg.”
“Hermès, if I know my designers,” Jackie says in between drinks. “And I do.” She giggles to herself.
“Yes, why aren’t you wearing it?” Robin asks. “It goes great with your outfit.”
“Eh.” I shrug. “Not really feeling it.”
Claire gives me a sideways look, a look that says, “I know who gave you this.”
When Girlfriends Find Love Page 39
