Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Sophie
Okay, so it’s fine, right?
Friends hold friends’ hands all the time. That’s all that was. Just friendly, totally benign handholding.
Handholding that made my breath catch and my skin tingle and my heart flip somersaults in my chest. But that’s fine!
All of this is absolutely fine.
“You’re awfully quiet over there,” Allison says as we make our way down the sidewalk. The weather is nice enough that we decided to walk the half mile to Cookie’s Coffee House, something I’m grateful for because I could really use some time to clear my head.
“Am I?” I say as I step around a puddle. “Just enjoying the sun.”
“Uh-huh,” Allison says. “I’m sure that’s all it is.”
I stop. “What?” I ask. “Just say it. You’re clearly thinking something.”
She bites her lip and looks over at me. “I’m not thinking anything,” she says. “I’m definitely not thinking about you darting away from my brother like you were caught doing something sneaky.”
I shoot her a look. “You just startled me. Don’t make this a thing.”
She chuckles. “Funny. He said the same thing.”
My ears perk up. “He did? What did he say? What did you ask him?”
Allison stops in her tracks and spins to face me. “So it is a thing. You wouldn’t have just asked all those questions if it wasn’t.”
I scoff and put my hands on my hips. “You tricked me.”
“You’re avoiding my questions.”
I huff out a breath and start walking again, hugging my arms around my sides. I am avoiding her questions. Because I have no idea how to answer them.
Was holding Peter’s hand a thing? Or was it totally innocuous and friendly? Do I want it to be more?
It’s not lost on me that in the past two weeks, I’ve spent a lot of minutes noticing things about Peter that I’ve never noticed before. But when he held my hand—that’s the first time I’ve truly recognized how good of a boyfriend he would actually be. There was a spark, a real connection, and a potent awareness that he’s pretty much everything I want in a man.
The thought hit me like a brick to the forehead, but it was quickly eclipsed by an overwhelming sense of fear.
I don’t remember much about when my dad left. But when my stepdad left, my mom and I both fell apart, and it was Peter who held us together. Peter who promised I would still go to college even though Mom’s savings were gone. Peter who let me cry on his shoulder. Peter who listened to us both lament over my stepdad’s betrayal, over his careful paper trail that made it look as though his actions weren’t criminal.
Through it all, I was okay because Peter was there to keep me grounded. To take care of me. But if Peter is my boyfriend, and things don’t work out, who will be there for me? Not my mom—we haven’t been that kind of close in years. Willa, of course, but she’s got so much on her own plate, and she has Archer to focus on now.
It’s always been Peter for me. He’s always been my safety net.
I don’t know if I can give that up.
Allison falls into step beside me, her expression worried. She nudges me with her elbow. “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll let it go.”
I give my head a little shake. “It’s okay. I know how much you would love for us to get together for real. But it would be so complicated,” I say. “We’ve been best friends for so long. I don’t want to lose that.”
“Who says you would have to?” she asks.
History. Time immemorial. My own crappy dating history that indicates I am a master at torching relationships.
Instead of answering, I steer the conversation to safer territory. “Let’s talk about you, okay? How are you feeling about the move?”
She shoots me a knowing look. “I’ll allow the deflection, but only because of how much I love you.”
I loop my arm through hers. “Come on. Spill. Are you excited about South Carolina?”
She’s quiet for a long moment, so long that I start to worry there’s something really wrong. Finally, she breathes out a sigh. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“Wow. Way to really sell it,” I say, and Allison rolls her eyes.
“I am!” she says. “I promise I am. I’m just worried about Peter.”
“Peter is a grownup, honey. He’ll be okay.” I eye her, suddenly wondering if there’s more to Allison’s hesitation than meets the eye. “Is Peter really your only reason for hesitating? You know you don’t have to move, right? If you wanted to stay in Serendipity Springs, I’m sure your parents would understand.”
We walk in silence for almost a minute before she finally says, “I think my logical brain knows that, and it also knows a fresh start is what I need. But a tiny part of me is still clinging to the possibility that if I stick around, Chase might change his mind.” She winces as she says the words, like she knows exactly how ridiculous they are.
“Oh, you are definitely going to South Carolina,” I say as we finally reach Cookie’s. “You will not take that man back.”
“I know. I know, ” Allison says. “But?—”
“Nope,” I say. “No buts. And no using Peter as an excuse to stay. You’re going to move to South Carolina, meet a gorgeous, rich Southern gentleman, then you can come back to Serendipity Springs for vacation and rub your happiness in Chase’s smarmy face.”
This finally makes Allison laugh. “I like the sound of this plan.”
I open the coffee shop door for Allison, then follow her inside. Cookie’s Coffee House doesn’t quite compare to Serendipi-Tea, but it makes a mean cappuccino, and they make the best oatmeal cookies in the city, so it was always a favorite hangout spot when I was in high school.
“So,” Allison says as we step into line, “will you tell any of the men in your dating experiment about the handholding that happened earlier?”
I roll my eyes. “Stop it with the handholding talk. You’re turning it into something it wasn’t.”
I think.
Something it probably wasn’t?
Something I think I’d like to do again, despite my better judgement.
“Besides, what do you know about my dating experiment?”
“Nothing at all. Peter mentioned it, but he didn’t give me specifics,” Allison says. “You should tell me everything. I’m already intrigued.”
As skeptical as Peter is himself, I doubt he mentioned the love flower as a part of my experiment, so I give Allison a modified version of the truth, mentioning the dating app, and my determination to date with a little more intention. I even give her a quick rundown of the newest guy I matched with—a pediatrician named Jake who, at least inside the app, seems like an actual possibility.
“We haven’t made plans to get together or anything—his schedule is insanely busy—but we’ve been talking back and forth, getting to know each other, and he seems really great.” Allison must pick up on the slight phoniness to my tone because she offers me a pained smile before saying, “I can’t decide if you’re trying to convince me that Jake is great or yourself.”
“He’s great,” I say. “Of course he’s great.”
“Okay,” Allison says. “Well, if that’s the case, then I hope it goes well.”
When it’s my turn to order, I order two cookies, one for me and one for Peter, tucking his into the outside pocket of my purse.
Allison eyes the plastic-wrapped treat and shoots me a knowing look.
“What?” I ask. “I buy Peter a cookie every time I’m here.”
“You do, don’t you?”
“Because we’re friends, ” I say.
“Mm-hmm,” she says, but her tone doesn’t sound at all like she believes me. “That’s why he’s staying at your place right now.”
“Because the wiring at his place is all messed up. And. We’re. Friends,” I say, enunciating each word.
The barista behind the counter finishes our drinks and hands them over to Allison, who passes mine to me. “A friend who you think is hot,” she says.
“I do not,” I say, but that doesn’t stop my brain from conjuring an image of Peter in his running clothes. I try to shove the image away, but it’s too late. I can already feel the heat climbing up my neck, flushing my face, making my cheeks bright red.
Allison smirks. “That’s what I thought.”
Peter is in the driveway when we get back, loading bins of LEGO bricks into the back of his SUV.
“Are they all going to fit?” I ask as I step up beside him.
“Barely,” he says. “But I still don’t think they’ll all fit in the basement.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say. “Between your place and mine. Speaking of your place, any word on the wiring?”
Peter runs a hand through his hair. “I just got a text from Steve, actually. He says the electricians just finished up this afternoon.”
“Oh that’s great news,” I say.
“Is it?” he asks dryly. “Because even though they cut out half my walls, ripped out insulation, and replaced the wiring in the entire apartment, the lights are still flickering.”
“You’re kidding,” I say.
“I wish I was.”
“Peter. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Steve’s last piece of advice was that the building usually chills after someone falls in love, so maybe I should amp up my dating life.”
“You could join Operation Soulmate,” I say, though the thought of Peter taking women up on the rooftop to see if the flower blooms makes me immediately stabby. “I’m sure the flower would work for you, too.”
“I don’t think Steve was serious, Soph,” Peter says, and a weird sense of relief washes over me. I should not hate the idea of Peter dating someone else.
I shouldn’t.
But I absolutely do.
“So what are you going to do?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” he says. “I just know I can’t sleep on your couch forever. But I also can’t live in an apartment that’s somehow both disco night at the dance club and a hallucinogenic fever dream, all at the same time.”
I’m not sure where the laugh comes from, but hearing Peter talk about his finicky electricity suddenly sends me into a fit of giggles. Once I start, I have a really hard time stopping.
Peter looks at me, his expression annoyed, but the longer I laugh, the more he smiles.
“Stop laughing,” he finally says, his shoulders shaking because now, he’s laughing too. “It’s not funny.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re laughing.”
I don’t stop until my phone buzzes with a text that I do not expect. “Whoa,” I say, and Peter frowns, the traces of his laughter gone right along with mine.
“What is it?” he asks.
I hold up my phone. “A text from my dad.”
“But it isn’t Christmas or your birthday,” Peter says.
“I know, right?” I turn and sit down on the bumper of Peter’s SUV and open the text thread, and Peter sits down beside me.
Dad
Hi, Sophie. Quick question for you. Do you remember that box of your grandmother’s journals I gave you? Callie is working on a family history project for her history class, and I think it would be great for her to read them. Do you still have them? I’d love to swing by and pick them up.
“What does it say?” Peter asks, and I hand my phone over. He’s quiet while he reads, then he hands it back. “That’s not too bad, is it?”
It isn’t, but it still leaves me feeling hollow. “Not really. But…”
When my words trail off, he nudges my shoulder with his. “But what?”
“I don’t know. It’s just…weird to see him being a dad, I guess?”
It’s not like I think my dad is a terrible person. He’s not—not like Charles Crooksley is. He’s just always been absent, at least when it comes to me. He checks the boxes, sends two hundred dollars every birthday, and I get the family e-greeting his wife sends out every Christmas. But that’s it. We’ve never been close, and I’ve never felt like more than an obligation.
Which is fine with me, honestly. I don’t want to be close to him, because I know how badly his leaving broke my mom.
“I didn’t know you had your grandmother’s journals,” Peter says.
“Yeah, he gave them to me when I was in middle school. Eighth grade, maybe? His mom died before I was born, so I never met her, which made it all feel very weird to me. I barely knew him, so it seemed strange he’d want me to get to know his mom.”
“He just randomly showed up with them one day?” Peter asks.
“Not entirely,” I say. “He got into a fight with my mom, I think. Probably because he was never around. I overheard them on the phone, and she said all this stuff to him, listed off all the things that were going on in my life. I’d planted a garden all by myself, and I’d won the science fair at school and gotten straight A’s and started my period for the first time. I really loved that part—that she felt like she needed to include that, talking to a man I rarely even saw. Anyway, it must have triggered some kind of guilt trip because he showed up the next day with a box of his mom’s things and took me to get ice cream.”
“Wow,” Peter says. “That’s…was it awful?”
“Totally awful,” I say. “The only thing he asked about was my period.”
“Not the science fair?” Peter asks. “That would have been so easy.”
“He was nervous,” I say. “And I could tell he was trying, it was just…I don’t know.”
“Too little, too late?”
I shrug. “Yeah, maybe.”
“It had to be hard,” Peter says, his tone gentle. “Seeing you grow up. Knowing he wasn’t a part of your life.”
“I’m sure,” I say. “But he could have been. Until we moved to Serendipity Springs, he lived on the other side of town. It was a thirty-minute drive, Peter. That’s nothing. I know he couldn’t be my mom’s husband, but he could have still been my dad.” Familiar tension claws at my throat, and I shove it away, just like I always do. “It’s honestly fine though,” I say. “I got over it a long time ago.”
Peter slips an arm around my back and tugs me toward him. I fall against his side, breathing in his familiar scent, and my nerves immediately start to settle. “Even if you aren’t over it,” he says, “it’s okay. It sucks. You don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t suck.”
I take a deep breath. “Yeah, it does suck, doesn’t it?”
“So what do you do now?” he says. “Do you still have the journals?”
“I’m sure they’re still at Mom’s,” I say. “Probably in her attic. So I guess that means I get to go see her.”
“When does she get home from her cruise?” Peter asks.
“Any day now, I think,” I say. “She texted yesterday and said she was back in the states.”
Peter gives my shoulders a squeeze. “Let me know if you want me to go with you,” he says. “It’s the least I can do after you came here with me.”
I will let him come with me. Of course I will.
And I will carefully file away any thought or feeling about Peter being more than just my friend.
This, right here, this is why I need him in my life.
This is why I can’t risk losing him.