Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Work on the wedding continued over the next couple of days, and things were coming together.
Jenn was preparing the final batches of food for the wedding.
The wedding cake, already baked, was sitting in the walk-in fridge, waiting to be frosted.
Travis had assembled the plans for the various security details—and there were a lot of them between airport runs, booking limos, and keeping the Married in Malibu site clear.
A few fans had been seen trying to camp out in hopes of seeing their hero, Zach, live and in-person, but Travis moved them along.
Amy had finished one sitting with the happy couple, and the final portrait was almost done.
It was special and unique and included Japanese touches of gold.
Kate had buckets of flowers in her fridges for the bouquet, centerpieces, and for the beautiful hanging arrangement.
The venue looked impressive and magical thanks to Meg’s efforts.
No one had seen the wedding dress except Liz and Meg, and they were ecstatic.
While everyone else was focused on Friday’s wedding, Liz was up in her office working on the next one, because the business could never just stop.
A couple of times a day, Liz would walk around the venue and the offices and check on the team.
She told everyone how thrilled she was with the creativity and hard work that was going into making this one of their most impressive weddings ever.
Nate was overjoyed that Liz thought things were going well.
His professional reputation was riding on this wedding going off without a hitch.
On Wednesday, Tamara was in the shop, filling coffee orders in the quiet of the late afternoon.
Normally, she could do this in her sleep, but today she wasn’t doing a very good job.
The physical side of her work usually came to her automatically—adjusting the controls on her antique espresso machine with a deft touch, steaming the milk, adding syrups, knocking out coffee grounds.
On any other day, she was the best in the business.
Today, however, she’d already messed up three orders.
That had to be some kind of record for her and really not the sort of record she wanted to set.
Even the teens had noticed, although they didn’t say a word.
Again and again, she’d get partway through an order and then find herself thinking about Nate.
“Oh, not again,” Tamara said to herself. Realizing there was no point in wasting more coffee, she asked one of her helpers to make a double cappuccino, extra dry, with soy milk.
Since it was almost time to close for the day, she asked the teens to put the pastries away, hang the Closed sign, and then gave them permission to leave early.
She stepped out the back door to try to clear her head and then walked around to the front of the shop and stood there, hoping the view of the ocean would calm her.
Unfortunately, that also meant looking toward Married in Malibu.
She knew why she had been messing up. Something had been bothering her for the past couple of days.
At first, she tried to ignore it, but by Wednesday, that was no longer an option.
She had to face facts. She had not seen or heard from Nate since he dropped her off on Monday morning.
Actually, she had seen him at the tasting on Monday evening, but that didn’t count.
It was the longest she’d gone without seeing Nate in forever.
On top of everything else, she’d also been plagued by thoughts of her ex—that loser, Brad.
It hadn’t made any sense until now. Back then, she’d known something was up with Brad, but he’d always said everything was okay.
Then he began being unavailable, always busy either with work or sports, and eventually it turned out that he’d been dating her best friend, Stacy.
That had been the worst time in her life.
It had shaken her self-confidence to the core, and it had taken her years to get over it.
Now, she was afraid it was happening all over again.
Nate had been busy this week—or so he’d predicted on Monday.
He hadn’t come by for one darn coffee. He hadn’t even sent her a text.
This was feeling horribly familiar to Tamara.
Was Nate being busy a way for him to say that he didn’t want her anymore?
She felt sick to her stomach. How could this be happening again?
Was it because she’d said she needed time to think?
She hadn’t meant for him to keep his distance.
Tamara began to cry. She was so confused and so worried. Just when her life was changing for the better, this had to happen. She stood on the beach, the setting sun dipping below the horizon, feeling that all the good parts of her life were sinking too.
Yapping nearby brought her back down to earth. Tamara smiled through her tears as she saw the little dog at her feet, looking up at her.
“I suppose you think it’s all simple, don’t you?” she said as she bent down to pet him. “I like Nate. He likes me. What else is there to worry about? Well, a lot, as it turns out.”
The dog sat there, leaning against Tamara’s leg.
“I mean, it’s not like dogs even have exes, or problems with their love lives, is it?
Your main worries are all about food.” Which reminded her that was probably why the little guy was there in the first place.
Tamara went inside to get some scraps of food, but she wasn’t quite quick enough with the door.
She looked around to see the little dog staring up at her.
“You can’t be in here. This is a public restaurant.”
But that was the thing with small dogs and people you loved—they got in places they weren’t supposed to be, and they stayed there.
Tamara went about her chores, trying to refocus her mind. She was busy bussing the tables, stacking chairs, and generally getting the place ready for the morning when there was a knock at the window. She looked up and saw Liz smiling at her.
She went to the door and opened it. “Hi, Liz, come on in,” she said.
“Oh, thanks, Tamara. I don’t want anything,” she said before Tamara could even ask. “I saw your light on, and I just wanted to talk to someone, anyone, for five blasted minutes about anything that isn’t to do with a wedding!”
“That bad, huh?”
“No, it’s not bad—it’s just insane! But I have to say that everything is going to be perfect.
” Liz spent the next few minutes regaling Tamara with everything that was happening across the street, including a funny story about one of Zach’s fans who had tried to get inside the venue by posing as a delivery driver.
Travis recognized him as one of the kids he’d moved along earlier in the day.
Liz kept talking, and then suddenly she paused.
“Tamara, what’s wrong?”
Tamara’s face crumpled, and she could see that Liz was shocked. She was probably used to Tamara being sunny and happy, but right now she just couldn’t pretend. She opened her mouth to try to shrug it off, but before she got out the words, Liz said, “And don’t say ‘nothing.’”
Tamara sighed. “Oh… you know… just some old stuff that is coming home to roost.”
“Actually, I don’t know, but something is upsetting you. I’m your friend, and I want to help you.”
Liz’s soft, kind voice was enough to cause Tamara to begin to cry for the second time that day. Liz pulled out one of the tissues she always had on hand, and Tamara dabbed at her eyes. She took a few moments to pull herself together and then realized she needed to be honest and just tell the truth.
Liz listened quietly and patiently as Tamara told her story from the beginning.
She talked about her family and their view on marriage; she talked about Brad and how he and Stacy had deceived her; she talked about thinking she didn’t deserve a second chance and that she was determined never to be deceived again, by anyone.
As she spoke, Liz reached out and held her hand, squeezing it softly.
When she had finished, Liz said simply, “But how did the weekend with Nate really go? You told me that it was great.”
“Well, that’s the thing. It was better than great—it was incredible.” At the mere mention of Nate’s name, Tamara couldn’t help but break into a wide smile.
Liz asked, “So what happened between Monday morning and now?”
Tamara explained as best she could and said she was worried that Nate was ignoring her and that he didn’t want her anymore. She hadn’t seen him since the tasting. She was worried that the situation with her ex was starting all over again.
Liz squeezed her hand again. “I completely understand your situation. I put myself through something similar several years ago, and I messed up big-time. But, Tamara, things with you and Nate are different. You’re being a silly goose!
All of us have encountered stupid situations and stupid people, but that’s how we learn and become wiser and smarter.
Now we can tell the difference. And I’m here to tell you that your wonderful, clever, funny, gorgeous, crazy-in-love Nate Waterson has been working every hour God made this week.
He has barely slept, I’m sure he hasn’t shaved, and as far as I can tell, he’s on a steady diet of our filter coffee and Twizzlers.
And when he’s not doing things on the computer that people like me know nothing about, he is sitting in his office, looking out the window, smiling at absolutely nothing.
If that is not a man in love, I quit my job.
I’ll say one more thing: Do not, under any circumstances, let this man get away.
Do whatever you have to do to get your head around this, but do not let him go. ”
Feeling relieved, unburdened… and maybe like a silly goose, Tamara watched as Liz got up, looking completely relaxed, and walked out the door. She was back five seconds later. “Oh, I completely forgot to tell you—Zach wants you to come to his wedding.”
“What?” Tamara wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“He called to ask. He said that anyone who could do so much to find the perfect coffee for them needed to be part of their special day.”
Sensing her hesitation, Liz said, “Come on, Tamara, when a billionaire wants you to go to his wedding because he’s eternally grateful, you go to his wedding.”
“All right, then.” Tamara smiled. “I’d love to.
Through the window, Tamara watched Liz walk across the street, back to Married in Malibu, knowing she had the best friend anyone could have.
The fact that she’d recognized that something was bothering her in the first place meant the world.
Liz had helped her out of her fog, or funk, or whatever you called it, and gotten her thinking straight. She would be eternally grateful.
Tamara quickly completed her final chores, turned out the lights, and then locked up.
Driving home, she couldn’t stop thinking about Nate.
Liz was right. Nate was a keeper. She had known that about him ever since he had started at Married in Malibu more than six months ago, and they’d hit it off immediately.
They had so many similar interests—most noticeably loving coffee and the beach with a passion.
They both had quirky families and the same sense of humor.
Not to mention, Nate was drop-dead gorgeous and super smart.
He had gone out of his way to make sure she’d had a good time over the weekend, and then he’d driven them back to Malibu and gone straight to work.
And, according to Liz, he had been slogging away for the whole week—no wonder Tamara hadn’t seen him!
As she pulled into her parking spot at home, Tamara came up with an idea.
She wanted to do something special for Nate, something that would show him how much he meant to her.
Nate was always the one making the grand gestures, like that beautiful bouquet of forget-me-nots, but she knew he also appreciated the little things.
Tamara went inside her apartment and rummaged around, gathering the things she needed.
She heated up some leftover pasta, had a quick meal, and then got to work.
A few hours later, probably about the same time Nate was leaving his office, Tamara sat back and examined her handiwork.
She smiled. Nate—her dear, wonderful, kind, handsome Nate—was going to love it.
Nate was working furiously, testing and retesting, compiling new data, only to find more problems, and then coding some more.
By Wednesday, around midnight, Nate knew he was finally on top of everything.
But this morning had been a different story.
He’d been working until past midnight for the past two nights and getting only a few hours of sleep before coming in early the next morning.
He figured the long days had been worth it, and things were looking good.
But that wasn’t the way coding worked. You thought everything was fine, and then the moment you beta tested, things started to go wrong.
The best that could be said about the beta testing was that they’d caught the issues before they went live with the wedding feed on Friday.
Nate stood and stretched. All he wanted right now was to go home and get more than four hours of sleep.
He would never admit it to anyone, but he was exhausted, physically and mentally.
He had to be back at work at nine a.m. for a last-minute meeting with Zach and Yuriko.
If he left now, he would be home in thirty minutes and in bed in thirty-one minutes.
He walked out to his car, looked wistfully across the street at the darkened coffee shop, and then drove home.