Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOPHIE
Rob Price is standing just inside the front door of my house in a band T-shirt and worn jeans again. It’s like someone magically rewound the last two weeks out of existence. Except I wasn’t at all happy to see him on my doorstep two weeks ago, and I am happy to see him today.
It felt like a bond formed between Rob and me the day of the great phone-off, and then Dottie called me the following day to say Rob’s tea leaves had formed the same shape she’d seen in our four cups. Admittedly, his leaves weren’t from actual tea, and tea-leaf reading isn’t exactly a science, but it had felt interesting .
Then he came over with that CD two days later. To be honest, I’ve sat in my car listening to it for long stretches of time. So long that Otis once knocked on my window to tell me he’d read up about carbon monoxide poisoning and would be “keeping an eye” on me.
I’d informed him that was only a concern if the car was kept in an enclosed space with the engine running, and Aunt Penny’s house had no garage, but he’d still looked worried.
It was the music that kept me in there, though. The songs he’d chosen spoke to my angry, hurt soul, which was trying to piece itself back together.
I’d thought about reaching out to him, if for no other reason than to thank him, but I would have needed to ask Dottie for his phone number. Something she probably would have taken the wrong way.
But now he’s here, like I’d manifested him.
“Hi,” I say, smiling at Rob. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
There’s a confused, wary look in his golden eyes, which is when it hits me…
Oh, crap. I’m wearing a wedding dress. He must think I’ve gone full Miss Havisham, the jilted bride wearing her wedding dress continually until it’s brown, moth-eaten, and full of holes.
I lift my hands in a pathetic and futile attempt to hide the dress he’s already seen.
“I haven’t been running around in my wedding dress crying,” I say. “Or wearing it at all. This is an aberration. I mean, there have been some low moments, I’m not going to lie.”
Otis nods silently, grimacing. I don’t blame him. The other day, I cut up a bunch of photos and then accidentally got the shreds all over the kitchen floor. Another time, he walked in on me when I was crying while eating an entire pint of ice cream with a fork.
I didn’t love Jonah, because I’d never really known him, but I still mourned the loss of Fake Jonah. Learning the truth about him had felt like losing the last of my innocence, and it was hard to face the world without it.
I force a smile. “But yeah…this isn’t a cry for help. It’s just…”
“She sunk all of her savings into that beautiful disaster, and she can’t return it because she had to get it tailored,” Hannah summarizes, lifting her champagne glass. “So we figured if she’s only going to be able to sell it for a fourth of its value, she might as well get to wear it once.”
“What she said.” I point to Hannah, hopeful no one will mention the rest of the plan for the evening.
“And she’s going to marry herself tonight,” Dottie says with warm enthusiasm. She waves to indicate the setup we jokingly threw together with a few cheap grocery store bouquets, my crafting materials, and the big sheet of red satin material Briar had from a Christmas event at Silver Star last year. “We’re so glad you arrived in time to witness it. Our poor Briar got called into work, but she insisted we push ahead.”
Darn it. I didn’t want him to know that.
Still, it’s impossible to be mad at Dottie Hendrickson.
I love Dottie. After our afternoon at Tea of Fortune two weeks ago, she drove Hannah, Briar, and me back to my house and helped me break the news to Aunt Penny over FaceTime. That proved unnecessary because Otis had already told her everything. She was thrilled I’d finally realized Jonah was an ignoramus and insisted our little group should drink the peach schnapps she kept for special occasions.
It tasted like perfume, but we drank it anyway; it made it feel like she was there. Hannah, Briar, and I also shared our stories. Well, parts of them. I don’t like telling anyone about my past. Aunt Penny knows, of course, and so does Otis. But even though Otis is usually more like a slice of Alpine Lace Swiss than a steel vault, he knows better than to talk about that .
Hannah has an older brother and a much younger brother. Her mom left a few months after her little brother was born, and they were raised by a single dad, who had taught them all how to brew beer by the time they were thirteen.
“Isn’t it illegal for minors to brew beer?” I asked.
But Dottie had harrumphed and poured herself another shot of the terrible schnapps. “My nephew learned when he was a teenager too, and now he’s the head brewer at Buchanan. Sometimes children are prodigies.”
I wasn’t sure I believed that, but there was no denying both Dottie’s nephew and Hannah’s brother were now brewmasters at two of the most successful breweries in the city.
Briar is an only child like I am. Her father had opened Silver Star a few years back, one of the many successful businesses he’d started, only to eventually abandon. She moved to Asheville last year to work under him after her handmade jewelry business went under. She seems to share her father’s reticence toward technology, although she uses Etsy to sell her pieces.
Then there’s Otis and me. Otis grew up here, graduated from Asheville High School, and has been waffling his way through dozens of odd jobs ever since. But he’s twenty-one—waffling is expected.
I’m twenty-eight, I graduated from college six years ago, and I still haven’t accomplished anything. My dream business is still just a dream.
I’d imagined leading messy, fun, immersive projects that parents would never want unleashed on their living rooms. I’d had a name for the business—The Crafty Monster—and I’d even purchased supplies and chosen a location. But the permits hadn’t come through on time, and then my friend Lynn, who’d been all in to run the business with me, had gotten pregnant with twins.
She’d bowed out.
Then I’d moved to Asheville to help Aunt Penny, and that was that. My dream became hazy, the sort of dream you have at night but can barely remember in the morning.
I feel like I’m at a crossroads without a working compass. Which is why I’m glad Dottie has essentially appointed herself our life coach.
She’s the one who came up with the idea of having a healing, symbolic wedding to myself.
I told her it was absolutely unnecessary, but when she takes a shine to an idea, it’s hard to dissuade her. Especially since she convinced my friends to agree with her. Briar thought it was an “inspired” idea, but Briar also has a Siamese cat and sings in the shower. She makes jewelry from rocks she finds and tumbles. Of course she thought it was a good idea. I’d thought for sure Hannah would back me up, but no, she thought it was hilarious and had insisted she was going to bring me out for drinks afterward in my wedding dress.
In desperation, I appealed to Otis for help, but he’d fallen desperately in love with Briar the moment he met her, so of course he sided with everyone else.
Dottie insisted they wanted to celebrate me, the way we were supposed to on my wedding day, and it would have felt ungrateful to deny her. And I love arts and crafts. It had hurt to surrender all of the preparations for my wedding to Patricia. So I’d enjoyed making the lanterns and rearranging the bouquets. It had felt like a harmless distraction, a creative outlet I’d been longing for, and I also really wanted to wear the dress, dammit.
Now, though, with Rob Price grinning at me in that knowing way, I really wish I’d put a stop to this ridiculousness. Especially since Briar’s not even here. Her dad had sensed she had plans and called her in to do inventory as punishment.
Rob sticks his hands in his back pockets, revealing another inch or two of his biceps.
“Do you want some champagne?” Hannah asks, startling me. I try to pretend I wasn’t just staring at Rob’s muscles. “We’re going to eat cupcakes afterward. You in?”
He’s still standing by the door. There’s an inscrutable smile on his face, and I can’t figure out whether he’s going to stay or duck out into the obscurity of night. Please let him duck out.
His grin widens. “Wouldn’t miss it, but I’m not really dressed for a wedding.”
“There’s no official dress code,” Hannah says. “This is an informal ritual…” She pauses dramatically and gives us a wicked grin. “Until the blood sacrifice, of course.” Then she gets up and disappears into the kitchen, possibly to get him champagne, possibly to grab a butcher knife. She likes to keep the mystery alive.
Rob rubs the back of his neck again, giving me another tease of his bicep, and walks a couple of steps inside.
“There now,” Dottie says with a beatific smile as she waves him forward. “That’s the right direction. Come right in, dear. We won’t bite.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hannah calls from the kitchen.
“We could go play Xbox,” Otis offers, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. “I have a pretty sick setup in my bedroom.”
“Oh, quit trying to get Rob up to your room,” Hannah says, returning with her champagne flute refilled and one for Rob. He immediately sets it down on the coffee table.
“I wasn’t,” Otis says, blushing. He gestures to the satin floor covering, the flowers, and the paper art. “It just seems like…you know. There’s a lot of feminine energy in this room.”
“There’s nothing to worry about, dear,” Dottie says with sweet sincerity. “Being exposed to feminine energy won’t shrink your testes. If it did, my poor Bear wouldn’t be nearly so potent in the bedroom.”
Otis looks like he’d like to disappear into the couch, but he settles for draining his champagne flute, then looks hopefully at Hannah, who crosses her arms and stares him down, despite being so short he’s practically taller than her sitting.
He sighs and gets up. “Would anyone like anything from the kitchen?”
Shock nearly freezes me solid. Otis never volunteers to do chores.
“Yes, dear,” Dottie says, beaming at him. “I’d love to wet my whistle with a little of that schnapps from the other day.”
I can feel Rob watching me, and another thrum of self-consciousness works through me. No, no way. I can’t possibly go through with this silly ceremony if he’s here. He’ll think it’s another instance of me being a Pollyanna . My fiancé was cheating, but that’s okay, I’ll befriend his girlfriends and marry myself.
Oh. My. God. Is he right ?
“Hey, actually, I need a second alone with Rob,” I say.
“ Of course , dear,” Dottie replies. “You two take all the time you need. I understand what it’s like to have cold feet before a wedding.”
Hannah guffaws.
Rob makes a sound in his throat that sounds suspiciously like stifled laughter.
It would seem impolite to ask Dottie and Hannah to make themselves scarce, especially since it’s my house, so I lead Rob up the stairs and into my bedroom.
When I close the door behind him, he looks even more baffled than when he first saw me in my wedding dress.
“Oh my God,” I blurt. “This isn’t…I’m not trying to, like, seduce you by bringing you in here. I just wanted to beg you to please leave.”
He laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and I feel something completely unexpected—a fluttering sensation in my belly. My exposed skin tingles with heightened sensitivity, as if the temperature in the room just changed.
I’m attracted to Jonah’s brother.
Jonah’s brother .
Oh, this is bad.
“You’ve taken this truth-telling thing to another level,” he says, rubbing his impeccably stubbled jaw.
I gulp, completely unmoored by my sudden awareness of him.
“Sorry,” I manage.
He raises his eyebrows, his mouth twitching with amusement.
“Fine. I’m not sorry. But I can’t possibly do this if you’re here. You’ve got to understand that.”
Something unexpected flickers in his eyes—hurt, maybe—and he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Sure. Yeah. I get it. I know we never got along before. I guess I figured something had changed. But?—”
I grab his arm before he can leave, and then drop it, because it’s thick and firm, which is embarrassing for reasons I can’t express. “It did change. But this is unbelievably embarrassing, and I’m only going through with it because I promised them. I convinced Dottie not to bring her partner, but Otis lives here, so I couldn’t very well kick him out. Look, I know you must think this is further proof of me being some Pollyanna who tries to please everyone, and?—”
“I don’t think that,” he says, touching my arm.
He probably didn’t mean to, but his warm touch sends a jolt of awareness through me.
We’re in here alone, behind a closed door, and it suddenly feels improper.
His fingers glance off my skin, and I’m watching his face now, riveted. His eyes gleam in the dim light of the room, his hair overgrown enough that it’s brushing his eyebrows. “I don’t think that,” he repeats. “It’s cool that you’ve been hanging out with Hannah and Briar. Not every woman would. You’ve taken something positive from a fucked-up situation. I actually admire that.”
“Oh, lucky me,” I scoff, “I’ve earned Rob Price’s approval.”
I’m not sure why I’m baiting him. He’s being kind. It’s just…I’ve drifted into territory I don’t understand in a boat made of cardboard, and I don’t have a paddle. Besides, he brings something out in me, a side I buried years ago without any last rites.
His mouth tips up at the corners. “Yes, you have.” He gestures to the framed ABBA poster in the corner, close to my reading chair. “And also my curiosity. I need to know why you have a framed poster of ABBA.”
“There’s nothing wrong with ABBA.” I’m pretty sure he’s teasing me. I’m guessing Rob’s not an ABBA fan. The songs on his CD were all angsty, and one of them was a Garbage Fire original. I’ll admit that I looked up a few others.
Okay, all the ones available on Spotify.
They’re good, maybe even great, but their songs aren’t exactly bangers. Otis calls them rage anthems. That’s usually not my thing, but ABBA doesn’t do as much for you when you’re filled with righteous fury. I’ve found myself listening to a few of Rob’s songs on repeat, not that I’d ever admit it. His voice is deep and gravelly, and when I play the music loudly, I can feel it thrumming through me like a second pulse.
I look away from him, feeling my cheeks heat. It doesn’t help that I’m in this dress, a gift wrapped for a man who’ll never open it. A man I absolutely and emphatically no longer want.
“No, but having a framed poster of them suggests a level of fandom I find interesting. There are several things about you I find interesting, Sophie. Including your perfect aim at engagement ring beer pong. So, yes, I’d like an invitation to your wedding, if you wouldn’t mind terribly much.” His almost-there smile slips, replaced by a serious expression. “But that’s not why I came over here. I wanted to warn you that Jonah is planning something. A grand gesture at the brewery.”
I groan. “Seriously?”
“Has he been texting you?” he asks, sounding pissed.
“Yeah, until I blocked him,” I say, my jaw tensing as I remember his wheedling messages. He’d thrown Hannah and Briar under the bus, calling them liars. Saying he’d never slept with anyone else, only flirted, because he’d gotten cold feet, which his buddies assured him was super normal.
Never mind that Hannah, Briar, and I had compared notes about him, and there was no way they were lying.
“Here’s the thing about my brother,” Rob says. “If you don’t give him what he wants, he’ll try harder. The challenge is what he cares about. If you give in, he’ll?—”
“You really think I’d forgive him after what he did?” I snap, straightening my spine. I think of all the times Rob has called me Pollyanna with a knowing smirk on his face.
“He can be persuasive,” he says, shoving his hands into his back pockets again. Once again, his biceps are on display, but I’m not going to be distracted this time.
“I didn’t know him the way I thought I did,” I fume. “But you know what, Rob Price? He didn’t know me either, and neither do you . Just because I give people the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean I’ll let them walk all over me. I think you should leave now.”
He takes a half step toward me, his eyes full of remorse and lined by a surprising profusion of eyelashes.
“Sophie, I’m sorry,” he says, his voice a low rumble. But I steel myself against his apology, his eyelashes, and his presence in my room, my life.
For one thing, he’s a Price. For another, he’s always treated me like I’m as interesting as dry toast.
“You’ve taught me how much apologies are worth to you,” I say firmly. “Why would they be any more valuable to me?”
“I really am sorry. I just didn’t want him to embarrass you at work.”
“Too late,” I mutter. Because everyone knows the engagement is off. Even if they don’t know why it’s off, it’s still mortifying. They’ve all been so nice . And whatever Rob thinks of me and my Pollyanna kindness, their attitude sometimes makes me want to screech at the top of my lungs—or do something truly unforgivable, like empty a pitcher of beer onto a rude customer.
He shifts on his feet. “I don’t want to walk away with you pissed off.”
I exhale so sharply it comes out as a snort. “You don’t get to choose how I feel.”
“I know that. I wouldn’t want to. But it wouldn’t feel right to leave like this.”
“I thought you didn’t care what anyone thinks of you?”
His eyes hold mine, and I see something flicker in them. “I never said that. You did. Everyone cares what someone thinks, Sophie. Including me. I care what you think.”
I sniff in disbelief. “Right. You know what the second thing you said to me was?”
“I’m Rob?” he asks, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“No, that was the first thing—and you didn’t say a word to me for the rest of dinner. The second thing you said to me was at the next family dinner. You said, ‘Oh, you’re still around?’ Like you couldn’t believe it.”
“Because you were nice. I hoped he’d leave you alone.”
“But not because you liked me.”
He falls silent, working his jaw. When he finally opens his mouth to speak, the “Bridal Chorus” blasts deafeningly from downstairs. For half a second I think he’s the one singing it into existence. Then I realize my guests have gotten impatient.
I feel a fresh surge of self-consciousness, my cheeks flushing.
“Look. You can leave, stay. I don’t care.” I look away from him. “They need me, and they’re my friends.”
I don’t glance back to see if he follows me out of the room. I walk down the hall and descend the stairs, collecting a bouquet from Hannah, who’s waiting at the bottom.
Her eyes dancing, she asks, “Are you ready to make the only kind of commitment a woman should ever make, Soph?”
“I am.”
I step into the living room, where Dottie is waiting for me with a loving smile. Otis, who’s back on the couch, burps loudly. He has his phone out and is recording this disaster.
“I think you mean I do ,” Dottie says, her eyes sparkling.