Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SOPHIE
Me
What about this one?
[picture of Sophie in a dressing room wearing a pink pantsuit]
Tyler
THERE SHE IS.
LOVE OF MY LIFE.
MY BESTEST GIRL.
MY FAVORITE HUMAN IN THE COSMOS.
[panting emoji] [melting emoji] [fire emoji]
Tyler can’t come to the phone right now. You have killed him extremely dead with your hotness.
Me
It’s just a suit.
Tyler
Just a suit? You’re kidding me, right? That suit is giving such hot teacher vibes I think I’m going to die.
Why aren’t you here right now so I can peel it right off you?
Me
Okay fine, yeah, it’s fucking hot. And it matches my hair tinsel, which delights me.
It also makes me feel like I could lift a car or something.
My mom swears by a pink power suit, and it turns out she is one hundred percent correct.
Tyler
I, too, now worship at the altar of a pink power suit.
Me
I think this is the one, but I have to show the girls.
Tyler
That is definitely the one. You don’t need to show the girls. I’m telling you, that suit screams I am a tech goddess and I will kick so much ass at this job you would be crazy not to give it to me and pay me millions of dollars to do it.
Me
I’m not sure how to say this, but…you have a dick.
Tyler
You love my dick. I’m pretty sure last night you begged for it.
Me
Indeed I do, and I did and will again, but penis-havers such as yourself are not often trustworthy when it comes to matters of fashion. For that, I need my ladies who are waiting for me right outside this dressing room.
Tyler
Okay, but send me a naked picture first. Naked mirror shots are so fucking sexy.
Me
I’m dressed. Remember? Pink pantsuit I’m about to model for my girls.
Tyler
Get undressed.
Me
You saw me naked like six hours ago.
Tyler
Sal, I could see you naked every minute of every day for the rest of my life and it would still never be enough.
Me
I do have excellent tits.
Tyler
Baby, you have no idea.
Me
Okay, well I’m definitely not getting undressed to take a picture because dressing rooms are the seventh circle of hell and I’m already sweating from trying on a million outfits. But I’ll do you one better.
Tyler
You have my undivided attention.
Me
When I get home tonight, you can do anything you want to me. And when I say anything, I mean literally, actually anything.
Tyler
Fucking shit.
My mind is going to some very, very dirty places, Soph.
Me
Keep it there. I’ll be home in a couple hours.
Tyler
[picture of dick print in gray sweatpants]
Sophieeeeeee I’m already hard. What am I supposed to do about this?
Me
I’ll tell you what you’re not going to do about it. You’re not going to make yourself come. Not even once. Not even a little bit. Not without me.
Tyler
You’re mean.
Me
I think you misspelled “really, really hot.”
Tyler
That too.
And sexy. So fucking sexy. Sexiest girlfriend in the world.
Me
Girlfriend, huh?
Tyler
Fuck yeah. You are so girlfriended up right now.
Me
Is girlfriended up kind of like wifed up but without the ring?
Tyler
That is absolutely what it is. But make no mistake. I’m going to wife you up. Gonna wife you up so hard. And soon.
Me
You think so?
Tyler
I know so. I’m going to be such a wife guy, oh my god. I can’t freaking wait.
Me
You’re a real one, Tyler Hansley.
Tyler
Bet your beautiful ass that I am going to have my tongue all over you the second you walk through the door I am.
Me
Never change, my dude. I fucking love you. Forevs, Harry. I’m going to go see some girls about a suit.
Tyler
Absolutely, positively forevs, Sal. Fucking love you back.
“Soph, what the fuck is going on in there?”
At Maya’s question, I shove my phone in my bag and push out of the fitting room. All five of my friends are sitting in a row on a pink velvet couch, and in unison their jaws drop.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Emmy says with a grin.
Sarah nods, taking a sip of champagne from the flute in her hand. “Definitely fuck yes. You are the hottest computer genius I’ve ever seen.”
Maddy literally rubs her hands together with glee. “I knew we were right to come here. It’s so cool your mom can get the whole place closed down for us.”
Turning to the gold tri-fold mirror set up along one wall of the lavish dressing room in the Shadyside boutique, I study my reflection and decide I absolutely love what I see.
“Right? She took a design class for fun one semester before I was born and met the owner. I love it here, and the idea of some dark-colored business suit bores me to actual tears.” I toss my hair back behind my shoulders.
“I come by it naturally. I don’t think my mom has owned even one single black suit in her entire legal career. ”
Caitlin makes a face as if she’s personally offended by the idea of a lawyer not having a black suit in her closet. “You don’t think it’s too dramatic for an interview?”
I turn back to the mirror and grin. “Nah. It’s better they know who I am right from the start.
I’m not a dark suit kind of girl. I mean, I’m not really an any suit kind of girl, but if I have to wear one, it’s sure as shit going to look like me.
This way, they won’t be surprised when I wear neon on my first day of work and paint my nails purple. ”
The room goes silent, and it only takes me a few seconds to realize what I said.
“So you think you’ll take the job if they offer it to you?” Maddy asks carefully, her eyes studying me as if she might be able to locate the answer I have yet to come up with.
Thinking about taking the job makes me sweat even more than I already was, and I yank off the suit jacket, tossing it onto an empty ottoman before dropping dramatically into a chair next to the couch.
Propping my legs up on the coffee table, I do my best impression of someone whose stomach isn’t a tangled mass of nerves and indecision.
I can feel all my friends’ eyes on me, and I blow out a breath, dropping my head against the chairback.
“I have no clue. I don’t even know if I want to get on the plane tomorrow. ”
“You’re getting on the plane,” Caitlin says firmly.
“You are going to fly to San Francisco tomorrow and take the interview like a total boss. Smart bitches do not turn down career-defining opportunities for anything. You get to decide whether or not to take the job, but you need all the facts to make your decision, and right now, you don’t have them.
The facts are in California, so that’s where you need to be. ”
Caitlin winces then, looking down and digging around in her bag until she comes up with a medicine bottle. Shaking out a few pills, she swallows them down with a sip from her water bottle.
“You okay?” I ask.
She waves me away. “Got my period this morning. We’re talking about you right now.”
Like they always do, Caitlin’s matter-of-fact words have my stomach unknotting enough to take the full breath that has eluded me as the day of my trip gets closer. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”
Caitlin shrugs. “I’m always right.”
Emmy snorts out a laugh, knocking Caitlin’s shoulder with hers. “So what’s making this hard for you, Soph? Is it Tyler?”
I laugh a little. “I mean, yes? I don’t want to get on the plane because being in California this week means I’m away for our birthdays, and we haven’t spent our birthdays separately in almost twenty years.
And taking the job means putting an entire country between us.
We were apart for four years throughout college and it almost killed me even though it was temporary, and I wasn’t even consciously aware that I was in love with him.
This wouldn’t be temporary, I am extremely aware of exactly how in love with him I am, and three thousand miles is a fuckton of miles.
Is that crazy? It feels crazy to consider turning down a major career opportunity for a man.
The Sophie of a few years ago would literally never. ”
“And now?” Maddy asks gently.
I let my mind drift to Tyler. To falling asleep with his strong arms wrapped around me and waking up to his beaming smile.
To movie night and late-night grilled cheeses and to feeling like we’re both exactly, perfectly, right where we’re supposed to be.
Like I am the most myself I’ve ever been, because I get to be who I am with him.
“I’ve waited so long for him. Wished and hoped for years he would see me the way I see him.
Love me the way I love him. Now he does, and god, you guys, it’s even more amazing than I thought it could be.
Even the idea of walking away from him now makes me feel like I’m tearing my own heart right out of my chest.”
Sarah hands me a champagne flute, and I take a long sip. “But you wouldn’t really be walking away from him, right? You’re not choosing between him and the job. You’re just choosing where you’re living. You can still be together, even if you’re not living in the same place.”
I smile at my sunshine, bright-side friend.
“If Tyler did something else for a living, that would probably be true. If he had a job that was portable, I know without one single doubt he would follow me to California and we would build a life there if that was what I wanted to do. But being a professional football player doesn’t work like that.
He has a contract here. The Renegades is his hometown team.
The team his dad played for. You don’t give up that kind of legacy. ”
“He would,” Maddy says quietly. “If you asked him to, he would.”
I nod. “I know he would, which is why I would never ask him to.”
Emmy scoffs. “Why the fuck not? Women make massive changes in their lives and careers for men all the time. They give shit up and make tradeoffs constantly and no one ever bats an eye or agonizes over whether asking them to change their entire lives is fair. If you ask me, it’s time the men start paying it forward. ”