26. Brie
Ezra was…different lately. I’d noticed it before, but that haunted expression he often wore previously seemed to have evaporated, replaced with…I wouldn’t say happiness. I didn’t think he could be truly happy with things between us so up in the air. In fact, he’d made that perfectly clear the night before. But Ezra seemed content, settled in a way I hadn’t really witnessed from him before.
Maybe he’d been telling the truth. Maybe everything had changed, and I was needlessly keeping us in this holding pattern because I was too afraid of getting my heart broken again.
And really, who could blame me? I didn’t fall for people easily. I wasn’t like Chloe, who romanticized everything—and had made a career out of the talent as a novelist. Nor was I like Delia, who wore her heart on her sleeve, or the free-spirited Ella. I’d always been more reserved when it came to giving away pieces of myself, more of a pragmatist like Amara.
It figured the first time I truly did, the man had gone and made me regret it.
From the moment I laid eyes on him in the winery dining room, I’d wanted him in ways I couldn’t quite explain—ways that didn’t make sense—and that desire for him hadn’t gone away. It had only tempered, edged in pain and sadness.
I didn’t want to put myself back there, didn’t want to try again only for it to all fall apart, but I also wanted him so badly, it hurt to look at him. It seemed I’d found myself in a bit of a catch-22.
Ezra had recruited me, Ella, Liam Danvers, who worked as our vintner at the winery, and a number of Owen’s waitstaff from Birdie’s to help serve at his Wine & Dine event, and I hadn’t been looking forward to spending an extensive amount of time with him. I’d barely managed to hold him off the night before—and when he’d kissed me in the CD offices that one day, my body remembering how easily he could light me up and make my nerve endings sing—but I’d been worried for nothing.
Once the appetizer course was passed out and Ezra seemed satisfied everyone was enjoying themselves, he approached me, Ella, and Liam.
“I think we’re off to a good start, don’t you?” he asked with a wide grin.
“Absolutely,” I assured him.
“I still can’t believe you sold out of tickets,” Ella mused.
“I can,” I said without thinking, then resisted the urge to slap my hand over my mouth as I looked at Ezra with wide eyes.
His grin was shit-eating, the chocolate depths of his gaze swirling with satisfaction. “Careful, Brie,” he warned. “You start singing my praises, and I might think you actually like me.”
I scoffed, mentally grappling for something witty to say in return, but my mind was dreadfully blank. Before I could respond, he shot me a wink and waded back into the dining room.
After that, he was so busy running around answering questions and basking in the glow of a meal well-cooked that we never really crossed paths.
Which was fine. I was content to watch him from afar, to witness the people of Apple Blossom Bay fawn over him and his culinary genius.
Although, a few of the younger women got a little too handsy, and only Ella gripping my arm, holding me in place, stopped me from stomping across the room and staking my claim.
I really needed to get it together, but he hadn’t been wrong earlier: I did like him. I never stopped, and it was a constant thorn in my side.
His words, which wound up being his parting statement before he gave me a sad smile and disappeared into the dark last night, had wound on an endless loop in my head over the last twenty-four hours.
And would’ve been there for you. I’ll always be here for you.
Everything else he’d said was right, of course, and despite my reticence to do so, I trusted him implicitly. Everything had changed, and with Dad no longer at the helm of Delatou, Inc., there wasn’t anyone standing in our way, no sense of propriety holding us back from each other.
He had broken my heart—though not through any fault of his own. Back then, I’d been a young girl giving way too much of herself to a man who had higher priorities.
And maybe my heart hadn’t been broken so much because he’d chosen his son over me, a decision I couldn’t begrudge him. In his position, I would’ve done the same thing. Maybe it was simply leftover trauma from dealing with the highs and lows of finding out I was pregnant to miscarrying not long after that made me so…sad and overwhelmed with grief when I looked at him. I’d been broken when he’d left my apartment that morning, but I would’ve gotten over it. Compounding it with everything that came in the few months after had only made it that much more difficult to bear—something I’d had to do alone, no less.
Now, it seemed his priorities truly had shifted, and damn, did I want to give him—give us —another chance. He’d handled the news so perfectly, exactly as I hoped he would, and it made me fall for him that much more.
That night, after we’d cleaned up the community center, my sisters and I convened at Mom and Dad’s. I’d sent an SOS text, and they’d all dropped whatever they had planned to respond.
Now that we were all older and moving on with our own lives—and starting our own families, in the case of Chloe and Amara—I’d come to find my sisters understood me better than when I was younger. While they still got on my nerves on occasion, for the most part, they were the best friends I could ask for.
Which was why I needed them.
I was finally ready to spill my guts about my relationship with Ezra Wendt.
Thankfully, Mom and Dad were gone on their annual fall trip to Greece, which they were extending an extra week now that Dad was fully retired from the winery. I wouldn’t have to risk them overhearing as my sisters and I set up camp in their theater room, loaded up on popcorn and sweets, turned on Legally Blonde for background noise, and got down to business.
It was Delia who broke the ice. Unsurprising, given she’d always had a sixth sense when it came to these things.
After all, look where Amara and Cal had ended up.
Then again, she was doing a damn good job of fighting her attraction to Owen despite its blatant obviousness, so perhaps her sixth sense was broken.
Or she was ignoring it.
Probably the latter.
“So what’s going on, Bee?”
“I hooked up with Ezra.”
My sisters made various sounds of annoyance, and Chloe went so far as to chuck a pillow at my head.
“We know that, you goof.”
“No…I mean, more than once.”
The room stilled, going so quiet, I could’ve heard a pin drop before the four of them erupted.
Delia: “What the fuck?”
Amara: “You little minx.”
Chloe: “I need all the tea. Maybe I’ll put this in my next book.”
Ella: “How many times is more than once?”
“Chill out!” I shouted above the din, and they all went silent. I looked at Ella. “To answer your question, more than once means exactly twice. Although…we had phone sex pretty regularly for like four months.”
“What the fuck?” Delia exclaimed again, and I chuckled.
I walked them through everything. How I’d called him that first time in a panic over what to cook for my dinner party. How I returned the favor the following month by helping him bake for Hansen’s preschool. How those two innocent calls had morphed into constant texts that had become nightly calls that eventually culminated in seeking our pleasure together through FaceTime.
I’d shared so much with him, and I truly had been mourning the loss of that friendship, perhaps more than anything else, all these years.
“But that summer when I moved home? Right before I opened the bakery?” They all nodded in understanding. “I invited him down there to sample my menu items. I…trust his opinion when it comes to that stuff more than anyone, even if he isn’t a pastry chef, and I wanted honest feedback. One thing led to another, and…”
“And you fucked,” Amara said bluntly.
“Yes,” I replied, willing my blush away. There wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about, not with my sisters, but I’d never been good at talking about this stuff, mainly because I didn’t have as much experience to draw on as Amara and Delia, nor had I ever been in long-term committed relationships like Chloe and Ella. “We had sex, and it was honestly the best night of my life.”
“How big is his cock?” Delia asked.
“DELIA!” I shrieked.
My older sister tipped her head back and laughed. “God, don’t be such a prude.” She smirked and added, “I bet he’s huge, though. He gives Big Dick Energy.”
I shook my head, unable to stifle my laughter at my sister’s ridiculousness.
“So why are you telling us now?” Chloe asked.
“Because…I mean, we’re not together, so I think it’s obvious that things did not pan out the way I’d hoped. I was really hurt, but I understood why he did what he did. He has Hansen to worry about, first and foremost. Plus, Daddy was running things at the winery at the time. You know his rule about staying away from us.”
“The rule you and Brad are responsible for,” Delia quipped.
“Which is why Amara and Cal didn’t get together until after he’d signed the company over,” Ella reminded us.
We all nodded in agreement, even Amara.
“Precisely. And unlike Amara, I don’t even work for the company. The bakery may be a company asset,” I said, holding up a hand to stop Amara before she could offer up that little argument, “but I pay all the bills myself and operate outside of the winery grounds. It’s not the same.”
“So you want to give things another shot?” Delia asked.
I shrugged. “He does. He kissed me at the winery after my date with Douchebag Damian in September and almost did again last night. God, I wanted to give in so bad. I miss him more than I’d like to admit. Before, I wasn’t sure I could trust him—”
“Wait,” Chloe said, holding up a hand. “Back up. What happened at the winery?”
I stilled, stunned into silence. Surely I’d told them about that.
Hadn’t I?
Then again, I’d been so wrapped up in other things that maybe I’d…forgotten?
Delia crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Spill, Bee.”
I gave them all a sheepish grin and said, “So, you guys obviously remember my date with Damian.”
“Yeah. That guy was an asshat. We really should’ve seen it coming from a mile away,” Ella said, and I couldn’t help but chuckle as my other sisters nodded in agreement. Ella rarely got worked up about anything but, like the rest of us, she was fiercely protective when any of us was threatened. And while I personally thought Damian was harmless—after all, he’d held true to his word and not given his trip to Apple Blossom Bay a single second of video time on his social accounts, not even in an attempt to give me and the town bad publicity—my sisters weren’t as forgiving. In fact, Delia had prepared a smear campaign, ready to launch like the nuclear codes if he ever decided to go scorched earth.
“What I didn’t tell you was that Ezra went full on jealous asshole,” I said, wincing when my sisters gasped. I didn’t want to examine too closely why I hadn’t shared this part of that evening with them. Probably because I hadn’t thought it mattered.
Now, though…well, it was like Ezra had said the night before. Everything had changed.
“What happened?” Chloe asked.
I quickly explained the events of the evening. Damian’s condescending comments and entire air of superiority. The steak he ordered and sent back when it wasn’t cooked right, despite being prepared exactly how he’d ordered it. How Ezra came out and confronted him, agreeing to cook him a new one, and then bringing out that blackened hunk of meat.
I couldn’t help the laugh that burst from my mouth at remembering Damian’s face when Ezra dropped that ribeye on his plate, acrid smoke rising off its surface and scenting the air around us.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man that angry,” I chuckled. “I truly thought Damian was going to have an aneurysm with the way the vein in his forehead pulsed.”
“So what’d you do?”
“I finally told Damian who I was and kicked him out. He spewed some hateful things as he left, but I wasn’t bothered. From the moment he’d picked me up, I’d known I wouldn’t see or speak to him again.”
I didn’t have much dating experience, but I knew how I deserved to be treated, and Damian’s behavior wasn’t it.
That and…he wasn’t Ezra.
“Anyway,” I said, waving a hand. “The point is, after Damian left, I pulled Ezra back to the offices, intent on chewing him a new ass for causing a scene like that, and he kissed me.”
“Was it hot?” Delia asked.
I tried to play it cool, but I could feel the blissed-out smile that played on my lips and the heat rising to my cheeks as I remembered that too brief moment. My toes curled against the couch with the memory of how my entire body came to life under his touch.
The physical connection between us had never been the problem, and I said as much to my sisters.
“I don’t see the problem,” Amara said. “That’s half the battle.”
I narrowed my gaze and pursed my lips at her. “Says the girl who hated her now-boyfriend and future baby daddy.”
Amara rolled her eyes. “I never hated him.”
“Bullshit,” Delia proclaimed. “You hated him for years. But it’s a fine line between love and hate, and you two ended up on the right side eventually.”
“The point is,” I said, pulling my sisters back to the matter at hand— me , “I told him never to kiss me again. Thanks to the event tonight, we’ve been spending some time together. Before, I wanted him to stay far away from me. It was too painful, and after he’d been so callous that morning he left my apartment, I couldn’t handle that sort of disappointment again. But now…”
“But now, what?” Amara asked. “Has he ever been anything but completely honest with you? Even though he hurt you, has he ever lied?”
“I mean, no…” I lifted my hand to my mouth and chewed on the skin around my thumbnail nervously. “Actually, I was the one who wasn’t truthful. I kept a huge secret from him—you guys too.”
My sisters quieted but stared at me expectantly. They were wholly unprepared for the bomb I was about to drop, but now that Ezra knew, it was time they did too.
“That first time we hooked up,” I started slowly, dropping my gaze to my lap, too embarrassed to face any of them directly, “I got pregnant.”
The pause was deafening, and then they exploded once again, each of them asking questions over each other, hands reaching for me, offering reassuring squeezes and side hugs.
“What the fuck happened?” Delia asked. “This was like…over two years ago? Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I found out on my twenty-third birthday, and I was so scared. I just made the appointment and pretended like it wasn’t happening until I knew what my options were. But I miscarried the day I went in. I was so…embarrassed.”
“Oh, Brie,” Amara said, voice thick as she settled her hand over her stomach and the life growing inside of it. “You should’ve told us. We never would’ve judged you. You could’ve given us the chance to be there for you.”
“I know,” I said, hanging my head and swiping away the tears springing from my eyes and rolling down my face. “I just…I couldn’t tell Ezra, not after everything he went through with his ex, and if I wasn’t telling the father, I couldn’t in good conscience tell you guys.”
“But he knows now,” Chloe said, also cupping her own baby bump. God, this news must have been so difficult for her and Amara to hear. They were both mostly out of the danger zone where miscarriages were concerned, but I couldn’t imagine that made it any less scary to think about losing the babies they were both so excited about.
“Yeah, he does. I told him last night.”
“And how did he take it?” Ella asked.
“Better than I ever could’ve dreamed. He didn’t yell or berate me for not telling him. He just…held me, apologized that I had to go through that alone, and assured me everything was okay.”
“And you care about him,” she continued. It wasn’t a question. “A lot.”
I lifted a hand and tapped my chest, right over my heart. “There’s an invisible string here,” I said. “And it leads right to him.”
“Then I don’t see what the problem is,” Delia said. “You’re into each other. He’s hot as fuck and an absolute boss in the kitchen. Plus, he’s the best dad ever—second to ours, of course. All your cards are on the table. I say go for it.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Chloe snorted. “Miss I’m Going To Pretend My Business Partner Doesn’t Have Hearts In His Eyes Every Time He Looks At Me And That I Don’t Feel The Same.”
“Please,” Delia scoffed. “It is so not like that.”
Amara snorted. “That man is down so fucking bad for you, and you’re a simp for him. How about you stop fighting it?”
Delia rolled her eyes and said, “We’re here to talk about Brie.”
“I’m just saying,” Amara continued, raising her hands in surrender so Delia wouldn’t come for her and numerate all the ways she and Cal had been idiots about their own feelings for each other. “The way you two are around each other… There’s something there. We all saw it at grape crushing.”
Toying with the hem of her sweater, Delia was silent for a beat before she said, “I like him, but…after everything, I’m afraid to go there.”
My heart went out to her in that moment. My sister had been through a shitty relationship with an older guy in college and had been reluctant to give her heart to anyone since. Owen wasn’t that douchebag, though, and Delia knew it. I had all the confidence in the world she’d find the bravery to take the leap before too long.
I reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Now you know how I feel.”
Her expression softened, and she shifted over on the mountain of blankets and pillows we’d set up on the massive sectional to pull me into a side hug.
“I guess we’ll never know unless we try, huh?” she said quietly to me.
“Giving me and Cal a chance was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” Amara said. “But I also knew I was ready to take that step because I couldn’t imagine a life without him.”
I knew where she was coming from, and maybe I was ready to take my own leap of faith at last .
Ezra was finally presenting me with the whole damn meal I’d wanted from him for so long, and it was time I sat down at the table.