17. Chocolate and Orgasms
Chapter 17
Chocolate and Orgasms
R ose
It had been only four days since I left Jason. Apparently, distance did make the heart grow fonder, because I was only more certain that I was in love with him.
Nothing could keep my mind off of him. I worked on Mom’s designs—thought of marrying Jason. I let Heather get Becca’s dresses from Jason—soaked up every scrap of information she passed to me. He’d been worried about me and sent along Princess Sleeparella because he knew I had a hard time sleeping without it. The pillow was completely saturated with his scent. The majestic bastard must’ve hugged it every moment I was gone.
So then I slept on it every night, missing him even more intensely than I had before.
I woke up a little hung over this morning, even though I’d skipped out on going to Becca’s bachelorette party in case we accidentally ran into Brad’s bachelor party—the French Quarter was small for being so big. So, I was taking it easy today, sipping tea on the sofa and flipping through one of Abby’s flower catalogs. Down the hallway, Chris Evans’s head Photoshopped onto a naked hunk’s body stared at me from the poster Heather brought home from the party. The three of us stayed up too late playing pin the junk on the hunk, and Heather and I drank too many margaritas. Abby put up with us and got us into bed, bless her teetotaling heart.
A key turned in the door, and Heather came in from work. She flopped beside me on the sofa, sifting through mail in her lap.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for Becca’s rehearsal dinner?” she asked.
My stomach flopped. “I already told Becca I wouldn’t make it.”
“Um, ma’am?” She tried to take my catalog out of my hands, but I pulled it away.
“I don’t have time to go. I have to finish something for Becca, anyway.” A white lie. I’d finished it this afternoon, but it wasn’t wrapped.
“But you have time to flip through a flower catalog? Rose.”
I met her warm brown eyes.
“You made a commitment to Becca.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to go. I mean, if you’ve stood in one wedding, you’ve stood in them all. I don’t need to practice walking down the aisle. Especially since I’m paired with Jason,” I added in a small voice. “Do you want to make cookies tonight? I want cookies.”
She frowned at me for a moment. “You can’t deter me with cookies, baby girl.”
The doorbell rang.
“You can’t not go.” Heather got up and went toward the door. “You have to go to this thing looking like the fierce, strong woman you are.”
I didn’t answer, just kept flipping as Heather talked softly with whoever was at the door. The only way to stay out of the Soniat family drama was to stay away from the Soniats. It was bad enough I’d still have to stand in the wedding. She’d already lost one bridesmaid, and I couldn’t bail on her.
Heather walked back into the living room with my mom, who was armed with her “my baby needs me” face.
Well, shit. My hand paused on the catalog. “Hey, Mom.” I’d been minimally answering her texts because I wasn’t ready for her cocktail of motherly mollycoddling and reasonable advice. But alas, the time had come.
“Hey baby, I came over as soon as I got back in town.”
Heather looked between us. “Can I get you something to drink, Ms. Dahlia?”
Mom sighed and dropped her purse beside the sofa, re-fluffing her short, dark hair. “No thank you, sweetheart. I just need to talk to this one.”
Heather nodded and left us alone as Mom sat next to me on the sofa and affixed her green eyes on me. The familiar scent of Lanc?me Magie Noire perfume wafted into my personal space. “Rosie, why didn’t you tell me about Jason?” she asked softly.
I went to flip the page, but Mom sat a tissue box on top of the catalog. I huffed a deep breath. “I don’t know. I didn’t think it was going to get serious. And then I thought you’d give me shit about living with him so fast. And he didn’t want his family to know, so I couldn’t tell Lily.”
She chuckled. “Well, Becca told her, then she told me. Are you okay?”
I looked into her big eyes. Just like Lily’s. I was the odd woman out with my dad’s blue eyes. “I’m okay,” I lied.
Mom sighed heavily and pulled all my hair away from my face. “You don’t have to be brave for me, Rosie. Is this thing between you guys serious?”
All the contents of that locked, imaginary box in my heart spilled out into my blood, and I crumpled into her arms in tears.
“I love him, Mama. I tried not to, but I couldn’t stop myself. We’ve been so happy.” I swallowed, trying to breathe. “But he’s not serious about me. I mean—” I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose. “I obviously wasn’t gonna marry him.” That thought only made me cry harder.
“I did this to you, didn’t I? Made you not trust men. I can’t believe it took me and Steve getting engaged for me to start puzzling it together.”
I took a big breath, let it go. “It’s just…my whole outlook on relationships was formed at a very early age. You raised us to be independent. Not to rely on men for anything—not love, not friendship, not pleasure. Commitment leads to marriage, and marriage perpetuates the fantasy that married couples are somehow better than couples who don’t get married. It keeps women in abusive relationships and thinking that they have to be subservient to men. So many people use it to exclude and degrade people in the LGBTQIA+ community. God, the symbols of the white virgin wedding, and how dads give their ‘property’ over to the groom. The statistics of married women not living as long as their single counterparts. It’s permeated all of my relationships, been one of my core values. Men don’t feel love the way we do, and they don’t stay. And what happened with Jason proves it.”
Mom’s eyebrows had gone up higher and higher as I spoke. “Rosie, why on earth do you design wedding dresses?”
My nails bit into my palms. I was tired of answering this question. Frankly? Tired of my own hypocrisy. “Because I love to sew, and I love the way they look. It’s the only socially acceptable way to wear ball gowns and princess dresses. Trust me. I tried wearing some of my gowns in New York City as daywear, and the world is not ready for that.”
“Or do you, deep down, want to be a bride yourself, but you’re afraid to be vulnerable? And you’re afraid there’s something wrong about you that makes men leave?”
My heart cracked at her gentle words, exposing its gooey, shameful center. There was no stopping the sobbing now that she named it out loud. The truth. My truth. My big fear. I’d never told anyone, but nobody knew me like my mama.
I nodded. “How did you know?”
Mom held me through the tears, kissing me on the head. “Because that’s how I felt after your dad left. And instead of teaching you to be strong, I gave you my fears. I’m so sorry, Rose. I was wrong. And don’t you misunderstand.” She pulled back and smoothed my hair from my face to look me in the eyes. She was crying, too. “He and I fought constantly, ever since we met. We were completely incompatible. He left because he and I were a nightmare together. He never came back to see you two because he doesn’t care about anybody but himself. Trust me. It was a recurring motif throughout our entire relationship.”
She pulled three more tissues for me and two for herself, dabbing under her eyes. “It wasn’t your fault that he left. Or your sister’s. But after he was gone—” She breathed out, shaking her head. “I didn’t want you girls to think of your dad as the monster he felt like to me, so I made all men the enemy. I made commitment the enemy. It was faceless. It would keep you from being hurt the way I was.”
Mom had never said a bad thing to us about our dad, but I remembered her scoffing at weddings and Valentine’s Days. I remembered her getting hit on in the grocery store and her dressing the man down for approaching her when she was with her two kids. That guy ran off with his tail between his legs, and Mom lectured us on how all men were rude and inconsiderate.
“And you have to remember,” she continued. “My dad died when I was a little kid. I barely knew him. I didn’t have a clue what a real partnership could be like because the only experience I had was my shitty one.”
That’s all I’d had too. Shitty relationships built on nothing but sexual compatibility. Which, important, yeah. But only one piece of the puzzle. I learned that as Jason had lovingly fitted together so many more pieces of the puzzle of us. Him investing his time and know-how in my work because I was important to him. Him saving the last fortune cookie from our takeout for me because he knew how much I love them. Us fitting together like two puzzle pieces ourselves, helping each other with big and little things, collaborating to solve problems, and truly enjoying the time we spent together. Even the non-naked time.
“But when I went back to school to become a therapist,” Mom said, “gosh, I learned so much. I started seeing all these couples with real problems. But also? With real connections. I thought couple’s counseling was all opposition, a last-ditch effort to reanimate something already dead. But more often than not, it’s two people who love each other so very much that they’ll do anything to make it work. To deepen or rekindle their connections, not to break them. Men as equally as women. And no, they weren’t all married. Marriage isn’t for everyone, and that’s okay. But I’m so sorry I didn’t bring what I was learning home to you and Lily.
“Until I met Steve, I didn’t know how amazing a true partnership could be. Our life together is built on mutual respect and unconditional love. A commitment with the right partner is life-changing.” She laughed. “Even if it’s with a man, and he still can’t find shit in the pantry if other shit’s in front of it. No one’s perfect, Rosie. And good relationships still take a ton of work. It’s not all chocolate and orgasms. It’s both of you choosing each other, repeatedly, over all the other problems. Because you each know in your heart that the other person is worth it.”
“How do you know they’re worth it?” I sniffled and wiped my nose. “How do you know if your relationship is worth it?”
She blew out through her mouth. “That’s a hard one. I think you have to just…feel it. Of course, we’re assuming far and above the low-bar baseline of they’re not abusive or someone who would cheat. When you’re both good people, it’s really a personal decision because no two relationships are the same. But intention matters. Compatibility matters. Willingness to say, ‘I’m sorry’ and not only mean it, but actually do better. That matters a lot.”
Jason had apologized and gotten Misty kicked out of the wedding, and that wasn’t nothing. I closed my eyes. We were good together. So much laughing, all the time. Daily life with him was weirdly fun. Even doing dishes. He approached everything we faced as though we were equal partners, even went above and beyond to do more for me. Until StudFinders and wanting to hide me from his mom, I’d never questioned his intentions. He admitted he’d messed up, without excuses, and he vowed to make changes. But would he?
All I knew was that my whole body ached from the loss of him. I teared up again. “I don’t know what to say, Mom.”
She sat me up and pushed more tissues into my hands, pulling all my hair back again as I blew my nose. “Say you won’t judge Jason by anything other than who he is and who you are together. And admit that it’s okay that he’s not perfect. He’s still learning and growing like the rest of us.” She pulled out her phone and tapped her way to Instagram. “I went to see what I could learn about this Deck Daddy. Did you see what he posted today?”
I shook my head. The day after I left, I’d gotten one too many pop-ups from his socials and turned off all my notifications.
She started a video and handed me her phone. “Take a look.”
My first sight of Jason in days made my breath catch and my heartache intensify. After his cheesy opening sequence of photos of him building and being his goofy self, he appeared. Shirt on for a change, he stood beside a superimposed still image of the video we made together of my table.
“Hey everybody, It’s your Deck Daddy, Jason, and today I want to talk about this video.” He pointed to it. “Not the video itself, but the woman in it. It’s time to set the rumors to rest. Yep, you caught me. This is Rose. And I am”—he pressed his hands to his heart—“hopelessly, completely, transcendentally in love with her.”
He said that to the whole dang internet? Mrs. Betty and Big Brother StudFinders must be crying into their tea and beers.
“In case you missed it,” he went on, “she’s the genius designer and seamstress behind Sweet Roses Bridal, and I recently posed with her to help get her Instagram up and running. We’ve both shared photos from that day, but here’s my favorite.”
The screen filled with the photo of us kissing that he didn’t want to post before. My eyes filled with tears and Mom aww’ed beside me. “Y’all are such a beautiful couple.”
I’d forgotten how devoted and in love he looked in that photo, his brow lowered, his eyes closed, his hand along my jaw as if loving me was the most serious thing in the world.
“The only thing more beautiful than that gown is that woman’s heart,” Jason continued. “And while we were evacuated in Florida because of Hurricane Oscar, she saw this cool wall shelf made from an old church window in a shop. She wanted it for her crystal collection, but neither of us had the extra cash. So I made her one to look like the windows in our converted church home.”
A corner of my mouth twitched up. Again with the “our home.”
I watched the whole video with tears streaming down my face, from him designing the shelf, cutting the wood, bending the pieces to make the curved point at the top. All the little details he poured into it to please me, like the deep shelves and buying me a new set of tarot cards he said he found on my Amazon Wishlist to be sure they’d fit. Becca even came on camera to help him with a portion of it, putting the first coat of the gray paint from the rectory on it—“Diana’s Moon,” Jason called it—and helping him distress it.
I missed him more and more as the video went along. Then finally, he hung the finished shelf on a wall—with tarot cards on it—in the main living area of the church. Where God and everybody could see it.
Becca stood beside him with a gift bag in hand. “I have a friend in Arkansas who collects hunks of quartz off her land.” She reached in and pulled out a gorgeous fat cluster of clear quartz big enough to hold with two hands. “She gave me this a while back, and I’ve been trying to find a good home for it. Would Rose like it?”
“Ahh, thanks Becca, it’s perfect.” He took it carefully from her and sat it on the shelf. “I think she’ll love it.”
Watching Jason and his sister talking so casually about me, hearing Jason call his house my home too…I’d been so certain that what happened between us was the end of it. And so certain that I wouldn’t have a permanent place in his life that I grabbed onto his issues with his mom and pushed our relationship away with both hands.
I walked out on him when he needed me. The truth was, we needed each other.
Mom squeezed my hand. “Does being with Jason make you happy?”
I nodded through softer tears. “Blissful.”
“So…maybe it’s time to follow your bliss?”
I huffed a soft laugh at her choice of words. “Yeah. I think it is.”
“Then go get ready. I’ll drive you to the rehearsal dinner.”
I nodded. “Okay. But I have to wrap something first.”
Jason
The hot September evening gave no quarter, even as the sinking sun infused the sky with shots of pink and orange. Sweat tracked down my back, soaking my white Oxford shirt under my suit jacket where I climbed the front steps of Bastian’s Bistro. I took another look either way down the street to see if Rose had magically appeared.
But she wasn’t walking or driving up the street. I sighed and went into the restaurant.
“Mama,” Becca said, phone in hand near the empty hostess station, “Rose won’t let me down.”
Enough was enough. Becca hadn’t wanted me to pull Mom aside at the church, but it was time to move forward because loving Rose was my future.
“Maybe it’s for the best if she doesn’t stand in the wedding,” Mom said. “I’m thinking of her, too, and how awkward it’ll be for her to walk with Jason now that they’ve broken up.”
I approached them. “Rose was probably worried about coming tonight because she didn’t want to upset you.”
Becca pointed at me. “Bingo. She also said she had to finish something before she could come, and that it couldn’t wait.”
I frowned at Becca in question.
Becca shrugged back with a smile. “No idea,” she singsonged.
Mom frowned. “It seems a little rude, is all.”
“Ma,” I said with all the calmness and respect I could muster. I took a deep breath, symbolically filling myself with the strength of my love for Rose. “I’m sorry. I was completely out of line not to tell you about me and Rose from the beginning. I was afraid to hurt you again, and I own that I messed up. I promise not to hide important things from you just because I think you won’t like them. You asked me if I was serious about Rose, and I hate that I didn’t answer. I am. I love her. I’d marry her tonight, if she’d have me. I don’t ever want to hurt you. But as a very wise woman told me, I might have to disappoint you sometimes, and we’ll both have to learn that we can still love each other after it.”
Mom frowned back at me, her eyes glossy. “Jason, I’ve just been so worried you’ll get hurt again. You didn’t deserve what you went through with Kasey, and I don’t want you to fall for someone else who’ll take advantage of your good heart.”
“But Rose is an amazing, loving person, which you’d know if you’d give her half a chance. You were really rude to her at our house, and I—”
Mom’s brows pulled together in a question and her mouth opened, but I kept talking before she could speak. “Yes, I said our house . Mine and Rose’s. And she has a right to do what she wants in her own house. She didn’t do anything to deserve you talking to her like that, and I should’ve spoken up for her. She wanted to tell you about us. I’m the one who was afraid to tell you something I didn’t think you’d like.”
Mom’s face crumpled, and she took my hand. “I only want what’s best for you.”
“Rose is best for me,” I said.
“I just don’t want her to take you away from me.”
I squeezed her hand. “Ma, I wouldn’t love the kind of woman who would. Never again.”
“Hey Rose!” Becca called with a smile. “I’m so glad you made it!”
I followed her gaze to my right. Seeing Rose standing in the same room as me hit my system like a drug. My heart thudded into service like it’d been stopped before, and even more sweat poured down my back. She was breathtaking in a flowery dress with a corset top and her long hair curling down. I could tell from the style and how it hugged her curves that she’d made that dress, and my heart swelled with pride for the talent and beauty of this amazing woman.
And when our eyes met, all the stars that had come untethered in my sky snapped back into place.
“I’m sorry I was late.” She stepped forward with a small white box in her hands. “I was putting the finishing touches on this. It’s for Becca, but it’s also for you, Mrs. Betty.” She handed the box to Mom, who looked like she wanted to sink into the ground. “Here, open it.”
“Oh. Um, thank you.” Mom wiped her eyes and carefully removed the ribbon and top of the box. Behind her, Becca’s smile was huge.
I could hardly take my eyes off of Rose, but she didn’t look at me again. How much of that had she heard?
“Oh,” Mom breathed. She pulled a blue handkerchief from the box. “You fixed it, but you—”
I stepped closer to see it as Rose explained.
“You mentioned how you always wanted to have the names of all the brides who carried it embroidered on it, and I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if it was actually their signatures? So, I got Becca to track them down for me, and I embroidered them for you.” She twisted her hands. “I hope I didn’t overstep.”
“I only found Great-Grandma Mary’s this afternoon,” Becca said, “so Rose didn’t have much time to finish it for tonight.”
A tear rolled down Mom’s cheek. She reached over and took Rose’s hand. “It’s beautiful, honey. Just beautiful. It’s exactly what I wanted, and now the tradition won’t be lost. Thank you. It means so much to me that you went to all this trouble for my family.”
“Of course. Try and keep it in this archival, acid-free tissue paper. It’ll help keep it from yellowing. And I wrote up some instructions to best preserve it.” Rose tugged on a card stuck into the box. “There’s no reason it shouldn’t last until your descendants run out of places for signatures.”
Mom stared at the card. “I can’t believe you did all this for me after I was so awful to you.” Mom placed the handkerchief back into the box and handed it to Becca. She took Rose’s hand. “I’m sorry, Rose, for the way I acted and for what I said.” Then she took my hand. “And I’m sorry, Jason.” She connected my hand with Rose’s. I held my breath, afraid to grab hers too fast, but she grasped my hand first. I squeezed hers for dear life.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance, Rose,” Mom said. “I’ll do better.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about us,” Rose said softly. “We should’ve been honest from the beginning.”
I wasn’t sure where we stood, but I loved hearing “we” and “us” from her mouth.
“Thank you for saying so. And thank you for the handkerchief. It’s perfect. More than I imagined.” Mom put her hands on each of our cheeks. “Be good to each other.” She turned and took Becca’s hand, going back into the restaurant.
Rose’s gaze met mine. She took my other hand. “I saw my crystal shelf. Thank you. It was beautiful, like everything you make. But…aren’t you worried about what StudFinders will think?”
I shook my head. “I already turned them down.”
She gasped, her eyes wide. “Why?”
My heart pounded a desperate rhythm, and I swallowed hard, wanting to throw my arms around her, but also needing her to say it was okay for me to. “Because it’s not enough to follow my bliss. I want to move forward with integrity. And I love you too much to hide it from anyone.”
One side of her smile quirked up as her eyebrows pulled together. “But what about your community room?”
“I’ll figure it out.” I shrugged. “Like you said—if that wasn’t the way, then the right way’s coming.” I licked my lips. “Thank you for doing that for my mom. That was really cool of you.”
“She’s important to you, so she’s important to me,” she said. “I missed you.”
A dam broke in my chest. “I missed you, too. I’m so sorry, Rose. I should never have talked to you the way I did, and I shouldn’t have let my mom talk to you that way, either. I should’ve been honest and told my mom how I feel about you. There’s no excuse for any of it, and I’d undo it if I could. But I promise I’ll do better. If you let me.”
She nodded. “Thank you. And I’m sorry I walked out the way I did. Next time we argue, I’ll stay and work it out. Because we’re everything to me.”
The aching in my chest subsided as warm relief stole through my limbs. “We’re everything to me, too.”
“And I’m also sorry I couldn’t say it before…but Jason?” She bit her lip and studied my eyes. Took a deep breath. “I love you.”
A full smile broke across my face and warmth like sunshine filled my chest. “I love you too. So much. So…does this mean you’re coming home?”
“Um. Just one thing.” She busied herself with straightening my tie. “I overheard what you said to your mom.”
I closed my hand over hers, over my pounding heart. “I meant it all.”
“I know. I want you to know…I’m not sure if I want to get married. I might, someday. But I’m not sure right now. If that’s a dealbreaker, please tell me now.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “Because I don’t want to stand in the way of your happiness, but I selfishly want you to be happy with me.”
I slipped my hand along her face. I’ve always wanted to get married, and even more so, I wanted to marry Rose. But there was something I wanted even more than that.
“I want to be your partner. If I get to do that as your husband or as your boyfriend, either way, I’m thrilled. And I respect your feelings about it. I promise I’ll never hold it over your head, and I’ll never ambush you with a surprise proposal.”
She exhaled and smiled. “Thank you,” she murmured, pulling me closer by my lapels. “Now I’m ready to come home.” She reached her hand along my jaw and brought my face close to hers, looking deeply and seriously into my eyes. “But I have to warn you.” She smiled, her wet eyes starry. “You’re never gonna be able to get rid of me.”
Tears slipped down my face as I pressed my forehead to hers. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I pulled her closer, breathing in her rosy scent like a parched man who’d finally gotten a drink of water.
She wrapped her arms around my neck. “I’m serious, Deck Daddy,” she murmured against my lips. “You’re gonna be so stuck with me.”
“I want you, I love you, and you can’t threaten me with something I want. Weak sauce, Sweet Rose. Weak…” I kissed her. “Sauce.”
She pulled my ear to her mouth. “So how long does this shindig last? I desperately want to be reunited with Dick Daddy.”
I laughed, squeezing her tight and leaning into her with my hips so she could feel how badly I wanted her. I nuzzled my face next to hers. “Baby, did you name my cock?”
“Yeah.” She nipped my ear and pressed back against me. “And it feels like he likes it.”