Chapter 23 #2
I leave Jackson standing with her mouth hanging open in the vestibule of the restaurant, kiss my parents goodbye outside of it, and then head straight for the rack where I stowed my snowboard earlier.
I need to feel the snow under my feet and the wind on my face.
I need to remember why I do this in the first place, why I can’t be tied down, why I’m not the right guy for Sierra.
SIERRA
Thirty-one.
I glance at myself in the storefront window as I pass by.
I don’t look any older. I don’t feel any different, except I’m one year further away from the goals I’d set when I was a naive twenty-two-year-old college grad.
By thirty I’d be married, own a house, have a family.
But all of that daydreaming avoided the obvious issue—the plan is dependent on the people.
I was so desperate to do things differently than my own mother did, that I didn’t stop to even question whether those were the right milestones, or the right order, for me.
Maybe if I hadn’t been wasting time with Beau, I’d have found Mr. Right.
I think about how Beau has chosen to live his life—to really live it.
To use his time to pursue the things he loves, visit the places he wants to see, build something he’s proud of.
And I compare it to my own life. I do like my job and I take pride in how I do it.
But if I left tomorrow, they’d replace me with someone else who could do it as well as me.
I’m not creating anything that’s mine, there’s no ability for me to shape my role, and there’s no growth potential unless Heather leaves and I get her job.
Basically, I feel stuck in a job most people would be thrilled to have.
This is called stability, I remind myself.
Despite my knee-length down jacket, I’m shivering as I pull open the door to the restaurant.
I rush inside, only to be assaulted by a blast of hot air that whips my hair around my face where pieces stick to my lipstick and get caught in my eyelashes.
I brush them away as I step toward the host stand while also looking for Petra and Lauren.
They’d insisted on taking me out to dinner and though I told them I didn’t feel like celebrating this year, it’s nearly impossible to say no to Petra. So here I am.
I see the two of them waving to me from a high-top table in the bar area so I pivot to head toward them, but someone pushes their chair out and my foot clips the leg of it, sending me straight toward a guy in a wool coat who is moving around the chair pushed in front of his path.
I fall forward toward him and before I can even get my arms out to brace myself for the impact, he’s caught me by my shoulders and set me right back on my feet.
I look up to see who’s saved me. His eyes are the color of the Caribbean Sea, his skin is a creamy gold that I can tell turns gorgeous and bronze in the sun, his jaw is chiseled, and his light brown hair is swept to the side with enough gel to hold it there for good.
“You okay?” His voice is gentle, like he’s asking because he actually cares rather than as a formality.
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Where were you headed in such a hurry?” he asks. A real question with no innuendos. This isn’t flirting, this is him actually wanting to converse with me, which makes him the kind of guy I’ve always imagined being with. A responsible, respectful man—and it doesn’t hurt that he’s so attractive.
“Meeting my friends,” I say and nod my chin toward the table where Petra and Lauren are doing a poor job of not openly staring at us.
“Girls’ night?” he asks, and I don’t miss the way his eyes track my hand as I brush my hair off my shoulder. Is he looking for a ring?
“My birthday, actually.”
“Well, happy birthday . . .” He waits for me to fill in my name.
“Sierra.”
“Andrew,” he says, and holds out his hand. I don’t feel sparks when I slip my hand into his, or when he clasps his other hand around our joined fists and says “I hope you have a magical birthday.”
“Thank you,” I say before walking the rest of the distance across the bar to meet up with my friends.
“What was that?” Lauren squeals when I arrive at the table.
“I’m not sure.” I unzip my coat and hang it over the back of the chair, then scoot up onto the barstool to face the two of them across the table. “He was really nice, though.”
“Nice? Are you kidding me? He’s really cute, and all you can focus on is nice?” Petra says.
“Believe me, his looks didn’t escape my notice. I was just surprised by now nice he was.”
The barstool next to me slides out and I whip my head around halfway, expecting to see Andrew there and I’m pre-embarrassed about him overhearing me talking about him. Instead, my best friend looks back at me, eyebrows raised, like she’s challenging me to question why she’s here. So I do.
Jackson ignores my question and slides into the seat as Petra says, “You didn’t tell us you’d been ignoring her calls for a week.”
“Last weekend, it was understandable that you weren’t ready to talk,” Lauren adds. “But a week later? We don’t do that to each other.”
Jackson and my friendship goes back twenty years, and never in that time have I gone an entire week without texting with or talking to her.
“I didn’t know what to say,” I tell Jackson.
“And ignoring me was going to fix the problem?” She shrugs out of her jacket and levels her gaze at me. Jackson’s the kind of no-bullshit girl who goes after what she wants. Many people find her intimidating, but I’ve never felt that way until now.
“There is no way to fix the problem, Jackson. I slept with your brother, he broke my heart like I expected he would, and here we are.” My words are more bitter than sad, and the look of shock on her face tells me that was too much, too soon.
“Shit. Sorry, I could have . . . I don’t know, rolled that out a little slower. ”
“No, I’d rather just know how you really feel.
” Her words are a kindness I didn’t expect and her face relaxes.
I’m not sure how, but I feel like I passed some sort of test. “We have a lot to talk about, but that can wait until tomorrow. Tonight, we’re celebrating you!
” She pulls me into a hug that’s so warm and unexpected it actually brings tears to my eyes, which I guess shouldn’t be such a surprise given how much crying I’ve done over the past week.
I’d felt so hopeful last weekend when Petra and Lauren and I decided all I needed was a plan. But even with the assistance of the margaritas, we couldn’t come up with a single solid idea for how I could win Beau back.
You know what you can do, I hear Petra’s words from last weekend, but they are as ridiculous now as they were then.
I’m not chasing him around the globe while he snowboards.
That’s not a plan, it’s a recipe to end up like my mom—jaded and bitter while my own career stalls, so I can follow him around like a groupie.
And besides, I have zero indication that’s what he wants, especially now that I’ve broken his trust.
“What’s this?” Petra asks as a waiter arrives at our table with four champagne flutes, each filled with a pale sparkling cocktail.
“It’s a French 75 in celebration of the birthday girl,” he says, handing me my cocktail first. “From Andrew.” He nods toward a table where Andrew sits with two other men, and when we lock eyes, he winks at me.
My stomach flips over, but instead of the excited flutter of butterflies, I feel a low sense of dread at knowing I should go talk to him, even though he’s not the man I want to be spending my energy on.
But Beau is gone, and moving on is the right thing to do.
Thank you, I mouth to Andrew, then turn back to my girlfriends. They raise their glasses in a toast to me, and even Lauren takes a sip.
“Oh God, this is good,” she says. “I haven’t had a drink in over a year.”
“You’re okay to drink now?” I ask.
“Josh is giving the girls a bottle before bed. I can pump and dump when I get home.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Petra says, her voice a low tone of disgust, “but I can imagine, and I appreciate how glamorous you make motherhood seem.”
“Motherhood’s not always glamorous, and making it seem like it is would be a huge disservice. It’s work, but the best kind,” Lauren says with a small smile before she takes another sip of her drink.