Chapter 19 #2
I laugh a little, but it turns into a sob. “I don’t think I’ll ever find the One.”
“You always said you didn’t believe in the One.”
“That’s because I thought it was vanishingly rare. Not something I could ever expect, and then Cal made me hope.” My voice breaks.
“Sometimes the One is right under our nose, but we don’t see it for a while.”
“That was true for you and Dad. Not me and Cal.”
“Okay,” she says indulgently.
I give her a hard stare. “Do you swear you weren’t doing any matchmaking between me and Cal?”
She cocks her head. “Oh, what was that? I think Rowan’s saying it’s time for cake. We’d better go over there.”
“I knew it!” I look to the ceiling, relief flooding me. I’m not crazy or paranoid. She was totally matchmaking me! No wonder I resorted to fake dating. “All that networking to help Cal was to see how he’d fit in with our family.”
“And to help him. It’s not easy to build a client list. If he didn’t have enough work, he might not have stuck around.”
I hold up a finger. “Promise you won’t interfere with Finn.” My younger brother deserves to skip all this drama.
She smiles. “I don’t have to. He’s kept in touch with Olivia all on his own. She’s the One for him.”
“Doubtful. They live on opposite coasts, she’s four years older than him, and they’re on completely different career paths.”
“Time will tell. Come on, let’s go have cake.”
I go with her and watch my parents slice the cake and feed it to each other playfully.
Bittersweet. I’m so happy for them and so sad for me.
Why didn’t I stick with my gut where Cal was concerned?
I ended it early on before any heavy emotions moved in to lodge in my heart.
That was the right move. The rest was a mistake.
The next morning I drag myself out of bed and force myself to go running. After a night of too much crying, I could use the endorphins.
Just as I’m dragging myself home, I see Sutton jogging toward me. “I didn’t know you were a runner too.”
She smiles. “It’s new. I have a lot of rage. Wasted years, betrayal, regret, the whole sandwich.”
“You mean the whole enchilada?”
“Exactly. Did you and Cal get in a fight? He’s upset, and you look like you lost your best friend. And I get it. I feel like I lost my best friend, even though he turned out to be a weasel.”
“Do you want to come in? I live up there.” I point toward my house.
“I’d love some girl time.”
“Me too. My cousin Harper should be home soon too. You’ll like her. She tells it like it is, though I have to warn you she thinks she’s funny. Not so much.”
She laughs a little. “Okay.”
A short while later, we settle at the kitchen table with tea and chocolate chip cookies. Yes, I’ve been stress baking. “Harper will be home in about an hour.”
Sutton warms her hands on the mug. “I can’t wait to start work on Monday. I could use the distraction.”
“If you want, you can get familiar with this organizational software I’m trying out. It’s a work scheduling app I’m hoping will make it easier for the team to stay on the same page. I’ll show you.”
“Sure.”
We spend the next hour talking about the program as we snarf down cookies. I’m high on sugar when Harper gets home.
“Mmm, cookies.” She smiles and walks over to Sutton. “Hi! I’m Harper.”
“I’m Sutton, the new office manager for Brooks Campbell Security.”
Harper narrows her eyes at the laptop. “Don’t tell me Mackenzie’s making you work on the weekend.”
“I asked her to. I’m getting over a breakup and need the distraction.”
“Same here,” I say. “My fake relationship is over.”
Harper takes a cookie. “Did you fake break up?”
I get teary.
She pulls out a seat. “Oh no, what happened? Did it get too real?” I guess I didn’t tell Harper the whole story. All these feelings I didn’t want to admit to anyone. For good reason too. Now they left a hole in my heart.
I nod. “I’m an idiot. I knew I should’ve kept it casual from the start. He came at me demanding answers for how complicated things got, and then when I said I don’t know the answer, he ended it. Fake, friends, or otherwise, his exact words. It takes two people to make a complication, right?”
“Right,” Harper says around a bite of cookie. “What a jerk.”
“Hey! That’s my brother,” Sutton says. “He seems upset too.”
“Sorry,” Harper says. “Usually in solidarity we follow the all-men-are-pigs rule.”
Sutton laughs. “Let me tell you about my pig.” She fills Harper in on the John situation, complete with the pregnant girlfriend.
“Damn,” Harper says. “You win the loser Olympics. Not you, him. You deserve all the cookies and the wine too.”
“It’s not even noon,” I say.
“At least give her milk. Sutton, you can dunk as much as you want, and we won’t make any comments about gross crumbs.”
Sutton laughs. “You said she was funny.”
Harper leans back and smirks. “See, Sutton thinks I’m funny.”
I roll my eyes. “I said ‘she thinks she’s funny,’ meaning you think that. Not you are funny.”
“Hmph. Milk?”
“Yes, please,” Sutton says.
Harper gets out the milk and pours Sutton a glass. “Did Cal say why he wanted to end the fake-dating thing? Maybe he wants the real thing?”
“Oh!” Sutton exclaims. “That could be it. When we were at Dad’s house, Cal kept watching you with this adoring puppy-dog look when he thought you weren’t looking.”
“Doubtful,” I say. “I have to move on. My heart can’t take this back and forth anymore.
Sutton, if you want a running partner, I run every morning at six a.m. Unless I’ve had a late night.
Sleep’s just as important as exercise, and it really helps with stress like from certain unmentionable people. ”
Sutton dunks her cookie in milk and takes a bite, her expression blissful. Fresh-baked cookies can do that for a person. “Sure. Can we do seven?”
“That works too.” I sigh, wishing I could bounce back the way Sutton seems to be doing.
She’s one of those naturally cheerful people.
Cal said she was like sunshine. Cal with the dark soulful eyes, the terrible taste in baseball movies, the sexy everything, the tolerance for my family.
You don’t find that combination in just anyone. This sucks. I wish—
“Okay, I’m only going to say this once,” Harper announces, startling me out of my downward spiral. “I saw you after you first hooked up with Cal, and you were smitten.”
“Smitten?” I echo, shocked she’d use a word like that. Then I remember she’s shifted to the dark side. She’s a romance reader who believes.
“Aww,” Sutton says. “I could totally see that the first time I saw you two together on our video call.”
I purse my lips. “I was not smitten. I’ve never been smitten in my life.”
Harper barrels on. “You couldn’t stay away from him, and even after you ended it, you still found a way to spend time with him with your whole fake-relationship thing.”
Sutton shakes her head. “You guys didn’t look like you were faking at my dad’s house.”
“That was us being friends at that point,” I say.
Sutton tilts her head. “I didn’t get that feeling at all.”
“Nobody did,” Harper says. “So let’s review. You introduced yourself to him as someone not looking for anything serious. You were upfront with strong boundaries.”
“Yes!” Finally they’re understanding why this is all Cal’s fault.
“Now it’s time to let him know you’re serious about him,” Harper says. “Things changed. Feelings happened.”
I open my mouth and promptly shut it.
“On both sides,” Sutton says. “I could totally tell. He’s not good at showing it, but he cares deeply. I’m talking love territory.”
My heart pounds.
Harper takes a sip of my tea and makes a face. Probably because it’s cold. “Be as direct about your feelings as you were about your boundaries and you’ll be fine.”
“But I’m not sure he returns those feelings.” He was in a panic after the vow renewal and Mom’s hint about our future wedding. It doesn’t exactly scream I have vulnerable feelings for you. Is it possible they’re buried deep down? Is he as scared of taking a chance on me as I am with him?
“I’m sure,” Sutton says. “I’m telling you, when you weren’t looking, he had an adoring-puppy look. That’s the Cal version of love.”
My lips quirk to the side. Sutton reads too many romance novels.
Harper hands me a cookie. “I think he’s feeling something deep too. No guy sends flowers after a one-night stand they don’t plan to see again.”
“He sent flowers?” Sutton asks on a sigh. “Flowers are so nice. John said flowers are a waste of money.”
Harper shakes her head. “Girl, what were you thinking with that one?”
Sutton traces a circle on the table. “He was my high school sweetheart. I thought we’d have a lifelong love like my parents. Well, before Mom died.”
“Seems like their love continues still,” I say gently.
Sutton nods. “Yeah. I guess that’s not my path after all.”
“Everyone’s path is different. Right?” Harper says. “My parents met by accident when my dad and Mackenzie’s dad switched places on a date. Our dads are identical twins.”
Sutton brightens. “Ooh! I’d love to hear that story. A twin switcheroo!”
I stand abruptly and nearly trip over Felix. My cat manages to always be underfoot when I least expect it. “I have to go buy some flowers.”
“Go get ’em!” Harper cheers.
Sutton gives me a thumbs-up.
I rush from the room before I can lose my nerve.
Cal
I get home from a long walk to find Mackenzie sitting on my front porch, holding a bouquet of white roses. “What’re you doing here?” My voice sounds harsher than I mean to because I’m shocked. I pushed her away so hard, and she’s here with flowers. No one’s ever given me flowers before.
“Giving you these,” she says, handing me the roses. “White roses are for new beginnings.”
I take them from her, unsure what she means.
She gives me an uncertain smile. “There’s a card.”
I pull the card from the small envelope and read: Can we start over?
I stare at her, speechless. A sliver of hope pokes in, prodding me to talk to her. See where this goes. “Come in.”