Chapter 1
ONE
WINE ABOUT IT
Caroline
One and a half years later
“That timeline won’t be an issue,” I confirmed with the prospective clients on the video call. The two men lived overseas and wanted a quick turnaround for their wedding ceremony and reception.
It was barely April, and they wanted to travel back to the US in July for the wedding.
I’d planned weddings and parties with shorter timeframes before, so I wasn’t concerned. And with the new assistants I’d recently hired, I knew we could make it work.
“Perfect!” Stephen said, smiling at his future husband, Miles, with so much love I could feel it through the camera.
“Do you have any other questions you want to discuss?”
They looked at each other quickly and both shook their heads. “Nope,” Miles said. “Send over the contract, and we’ll get it back to you tomorrow. We’re going to have one of our friends step in with a few in-person things like touring venues and food tastings. ”
Excited about the possibility of planning their big day, I jotted down a few notes on my notepad and nodded. “Sure, no problem. I understand it can be helpful to have someone around who knows you both personally.”
We said our goodbyes, and I logged off the call. Blowing out a long breath, I slid lower in my chair and leaned back. It had been a long day full of meetings and client calls, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I loved the work I did and the business I’d built.
I’d started Grant Events not long after I graduated college, and now it was known as one of the foremost event-planning businesses in the state. Ten years of hard work and dedication meant I had a business I could be proud of.
There was a knock on my door a second before it opened. Although most of my office was glass looking out into the hallway to my left and to the parking lot below at my back, my door was wood, so I didn’t see Addie’s face until she appeared in the small space between the doorframe and the door itself.
“How did it go?” she cautiously asked.
I waved her in and sat up straight although my back was yelling at me not to. “It went really well. Can you ask Julia to send the contract and questionnaire to them when you leave?”
“Yeah, definitely. You’re leaving, right? Julia said you were already at your desk when she got here at seven this morning, and you’ve barely come out of your office.”
I twirled my hair around my fingers and fished a clip out of my desk drawer, eager to get it off my neck and out of my face.
“Yes, I’m leaving,” I said, closing my laptop and shoving it into my bag along with any other items I’d spread out on my desk during the day.
I wasn’t necessarily a workaholic, but I did occasionally have longer days. That was part of owning my own business.
“You should probably leave, too.”
She rolled her eyes but agreed to head out, too. I’d hired Addie a few months earlier after she applied via one of the many job listings we’d posted. She already had a full-time job as an events coordinator at a luxury senior living community, but for whatever reason, she needed the extra money that came with a part-time job.
She didn’t offer up any details, and it wasn’t my business to ask. She was one of the best employees I’d ever hired—upbeat and always on time. She genuinely enjoyed helping people which extended to me apparently.
The blonde ushered me out of the office and to the elevator before I could even think to argue. She waved at me as the elevator doors closed, and I sagged against the wall.
The doors opened a few seconds later, and I stepped out into the lobby, pulling out my phone and sending a quick text to Natalie letting her know I was on my way to the wine bar.
The entire drive I fantasized about the wine and cheese I was about to consume, and how much I needed some serious girl time.
Natalie had been my best friend for…I’d lost track of how long we’d been friends. It had to be eight or nine years at least. We’d been friends immediately, hitting it off at a Fourth of July barbecue on our block. We started gossiping about our neighbors, and the rest was history.
When I stepped into the dimly lit bar, I spotted Natalie already seated at a table toward the back, next to a stone wall and a wine rack that stored well over a hundred bottles. She was already perusing the menu and didn’t notice me until I slipped into the seat across from her.
“Red, white, or rosé?” she asked by way of greeting, and I couldn’t help the smile.
Simultaneously, we both said, “Red,” and she snapped the menu shut.
Her smile dropped slightly as her eyes raked over my face. Natalie was too nice for her own good sometimes, and as blunt as I was, she took a little bit more of a careful approach to her words .
“Are you…doing okay?” she asked, and I narrowed my eyes as I hung my bag onto the back of my chair.
Our waiter interrupted before I could respond, and we ordered a charcuterie board and a bottle of wine.
The second he left, I asked, “I’m fine. Why?”
She sighed and tucked her long, dark hair behind her ear. “You look tired.”
“Ahh,” I said, taking a sip of my water. “I am, but I’m good. Work is just busy, and business is booming. So, I can’t complain.”
“Didn’t you just hire a bunch of people not too long ago who were supposed to take the stress off of you?”
The waiter set our bottle of wine on the table and poured us each a glass. We tapped our glasses together and took our first sips. “I did, but I still like to do the new client meetings, especially for the larger weddings and events.”
Always worried about my health and well-being, Natalie gave me an incredulous look over her wineglass. “You need to slow down. Otherwise, you’re going to give yourself a heart attack by the time you’re forty.”
I shook my head and took another long sip of wine. The blackberry and chocolate notes hit my tongue, and I savored the taste. Although Natalie was giving me shit, the longer I sipped and sat across from her, the more I could feel any stress or lingering anxiety leave my body.
“And you would know, wouldn’t you? You have, what? One more year until you’re forty?”
“Wow, thank you for that beautiful reminder,” she said sarcastically. “Honestly, I’m not scared of turning forty. I know the best years of my life are still ahead of me.”
Her smile was genuine, and I was happy for my friend. Thankfully, her divorce several years earlier was amicable, but that didn’t keep the scars of a years-long loveless marriage from rearing their ugly heads. It wasn’t until Theo came into her life that she realized what she’d been missing all those years .
“Is that because you have a really hot twenty-five-year-old boyfriend with a perfect…?” I asked, pointing to my lap and obviously indicating what appendage I was alluding to. This all happened at the same time the waiter appeared with our charcuterie board. He blushed quicker than I’d ever seen and stammered out something about letting him know if we needed anything else.
I was surprised there wasn’t smoke billowing behind him the way he rushed off.
Natalie leaned over and smacked my arm. “Now, he’s never coming back. And yes, Theo is a contributing factor, but everything else feels right, too. Work is going well, and I just feel more comfortable and confident with myself now than I did when I was in my twenties.”
“That’s really great, babe. You have seemed like you’ve come into your own even more in the past year.”
“Thanks,” she said with a smile. “But anyway, I want to get back to you. I know work is a lot, but busy is good, right?” I nodded, unable to speak with a mouthful of cheese and crackers. “What about on the relationship front?”
I swallowed before I started coughing and managed to clear my throat before a cracker went down the wrong pipe.
Natalie was supportive of all my life decisions, but she was also a hopeless romantic who was in a relationship so healthy it made me sick. So, of course, she thought that was a possibility for everyone. But I had all but given up on relationships a long time ago. Love was stupid and only led to heartbreak. I was cynical—sue me.
But the past was funny like that. It had this great ability to remind you of all the shit you would much rather forget.
No matter the past, a relationship wasn’t my priority. Or at that moment, anywhere close to being on my radar.
Natalie also, up until a little over two years ago, had been with the same penis all her life, and that couldn’t be me. Especially since the first boy I’d slept with was in ninth grade, and we’d had to have an anatomy lesson about my genitalia prior to insertion. I hadn’t really wanted to have sex anymore after our impromptu science class, but back then, I was tired of carrying around my “V” card like it made of lead in my pocket. It was a preposterous thought now, but I was barely fifteen and hormones were a bitch. As was peer pressure.
“Sorry, I know they’re not relationships,” Natalie corrected without judgment. “You just haven’t told me about any of your recent hookups. Usually, I get to hear all the details.”
I laughed and scooted the pickles in her direction as she pushed the olives in mine.
“I think you had more fun with it when you were living vicariously through me. Now, you have your own stories.”
“You’re deflecting,” she stated.
I sighed and popped an olive in my mouth. “Yes, but I thought I was doing it quite well.” The band at the front of the bar was doing a soundcheck, and in the short time we’d been sitting there, the crowd around us had doubled.
“I know you better than that, and I love you enough not to let you deflect,” she said above the noise of the bar and with her eyebrows expectantly raised.
Pursing my lips, I decided to tell her the truth, knowing that she’d get it out of me one way or another. “I’ve had a bit of a dry spell.”
“ You’ve had a dry spell?” she repeated back to me. There was surprise laced in her tone, and I shrugged. I was a woman who enjoyed sex, and I was unapologetic about it.
Which was harder for people to understand coming from a woman than from a man. Because what was worse than a successful woman who didn’t want her entire life to be settling down and procreating? If I was going to do that, it needed to be with an exceptional man who made my life better. And nothing less. And the likelihood of finding someone so exceptional was growing less and less by the second.
“A self-inflicted dry spell? ”
I pursed my lips and tried to hide my expression behind my wineglass.
“Somewhat, I guess. No one has really interested me recently. I just want to focus on myself.”
She nodded, and I could see she wanted to pry further, but she refrained. “That’s never a bad thing.”
“Nope,” I said, popping the “p.” “So, tell me about work. You said you had someone quit recently? Without telling you? Did they just stop showing up?”
She dove into the story, and I was more than happy to change subjects. Not only because I wanted to hear about my friend’s life, but because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to tell her that the reason I was going through a dry spell was because I couldn’t stop thinking about her son.
After our encounter in my kitchen almost a year and a half ago, I hadn’t been able to shake the feelings he’d stirred awake within me.
I’d known about his crush—I would have had to be completely oblivious to not notice his occasional flirting and long looks—but he was that way with a lot of people. He was outgoing and charismatic toward everyone. But his confirmation that it was more than that, it sparked something inside me.
And I hated him for it.
If he hadn’t brought it up, I would have continued living my normal life, and I wouldn’t be plagued with questions of “what if”? Or the idea that, God forbid, he was actually right, and I would change my mind no matter the very real, horrible consequences that would come with it.
After that afternoon in my kitchen, he’d toned it down. Only flirting casually and keeping most of his feelings locked down. There was nothing too out of the ordinary—just the random text or wink when we saw one another. Maybe a reason to touch my hair or be close to me. But he hadn’t tried anything so forward again. He was so casual for so long that I thought maybe he’d changed his mind. Until recently, when, for whatever reason, something had changed again.
He was no longer shy or quiet about how much he still wanted me. And every day it was getting harder to ignore.
“…since it’s Ryder’s birthday.”
Realizing I was a crappy friend, and I’d stopped listening for a second, I peered up from my bowl of olives in surprise when I heard her say his name. But I knew it was Ryder’s twenty-third birthday.
“Right, yeah,” I said, trying to recover, but Natalie didn’t buy it for a second.
“When did you stop listening?”
“Sorry, just say the last sentence again. I was lost in thought.”
She took a deep breath and repeated, “Theo is out of the house since it’s Ryder’s birthday, so if you want to come over later, we can watch that movie you were talking about the other day. The one with the blond guy?”
I didn’t have to respond, apparently my expression told Natalie how I felt about the offer without me having to open my mouth.
“Or not, that’s okay,” she said.
She sounded a little dejected, and I immediately felt awful. “Not because I don’t want to spend more time with you,” I reasoned. “It’s just been a long week, and I kind of want to go home and take a bath. Can we do it on Sunday instead?”
“I totally understand. And Sunday should work for me. Also, do you want real food?”
“Yes, do they have real food?” We both glanced at the tables around us and saw a variety of dishes. The pasta the man was eating at the table next to us looked creamy and thick, and that’s exactly what I wanted.
Natalie pushed her stool back and hopped down to the ground. “I have to run to the restroom. I’ll find our waiter that you’ve scarred for life on my way.”
“Good luck!” I called after her. While she was in the bathroom, I refilled our wineglasses and riffled through my bag until I found my phone.
There were the expected texts and emails from clients waiting in my inbox, but what I hadn’t been prepared for was two messages from Ryder. My thumb hovered over the screen for several seconds, trying to decide if I should risk opening them while Natalie was in the bathroom.
He’d already responded to my early text wishing him happy birthday with some dumb GIF. He shouldn’t have been texting me again.
But my curiosity won, and I opened the message.
Ryder: Heyyy beautiful
Ryder: What are yuo doing.?
The two messages were sent within a minute of each other and had the classic drunken typos. I rolled my lips to suppress my smile. It wasn’t funny. Not at all.
Me: Are you having fun?
Texting back wasn’t the best idea, it never was, but I didn’t have a chance to think about it before his response lit up my screen.
Ryder: I’d be having more fun if you were here ??
“Who are you texting?” Natalie appeared beside me, and my phone leaped from my hands. That was the only apt explanation for how it went almost completely across the table, somehow managing to dodge the wineglasses and plates .
I saw her wide-eyed, shocked expression out of the corner of my eye as I scrambled for the phone.
“Umm…okay. That was a little dramatic,” she said slowly, sliding back into her seat and offering me a menu. I tucked my phone back in my bag and took the menu without looking at her. Hoping she didn’t see my blush, I held the menu a little higher than normal. She would know something was even more off if she saw the color of my cheeks.
I didn’t blush.
I chastised myself for my stupidity as she continued, “You usually don’t care if I look at your phone, so it must have been really dirty. You sure about that dry spell?”
Oh, if only you knew .