Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Sophie
Honestly. Jake is so much prettier in person than he is in his photo.
Tall and broad—and that smile . He could stop traffic with that smile. He’s wearing jeans and a nice button down over a white henley, the buttons at the top revealing a nice triangle of tan skin. I bet the nurses love it when Dr. Jake is on rotation.
Which is why I should have been disappointed when the flower didn’t bloom.
I tried. Really tried. Gave him a complete tour of the garden, visited every planter and spent five solid minutes standing next to the Japanese maple, my mystery flower climbing the trunk, just to make sure it knew we were there.
But it didn’t so much as tremble in the breeze.
Not when Jake complimented my garden or told me a story about one of his patients or showed me a picture of his puppy. I even tried touching him, thinking that might trigger something, but nothing happened.
Except the realization that touching Jake wasn’t even a little bit thrilling. No spark. No thrill. No flutters. I knew right then that the flower was right, and Jake is not the man for me.
Telling him wasn’t fun.
He seemed too nice to lie, so I went for the truth and just told him I tend to trust my gut and first impressions are huge, and I didn’t think we had any chemistry.
I could tell he was surprised, but then he surprised me.
“Okay. What about this?” he said. “Just have dinner with me. My treat. If you still feel the same way after we eat, I won’t ask any questions.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, a woman has to eat, right? Worst case, we get a nice meal out of the deal, and we’ve each made a new friend.”
I did need to eat. And since I’m desperately in need of groceries, I would have had to order takeout had I just gone home. Or mooched off of Peter, which a girl can only do that so many times.
So here we are.
At dinner.
Talking and joking with a very easy vibe between us, and I feel like I really have made a new friend. This guy is amazing. A gentleman in every way. I want to start having kids just so he can be their doctor.
But I really don’t feel that spark—something I feel empowered to acknowledge now that I have a little bit of magic to back me up.
“So, plants—that’s your job, right? Landscape architecture?” Jake asks as he spoons up a bite of his dessert.
“A little,” I say. “I’m more on the computer design side of landscape architecture. I talk about plants at work a lot, but I don’t usually see them go in the ground. I guess that’s why I love having the rooftop garden. It’s like therapy.”
“I love that,” Jake says. “You turned it into a beautiful space.”
“Thanks.”
“And your friend, Peter?” he says next, and I lift my eyes to his. “He’s just a friend?”
I smile and huff out a little laugh. “I know it seems weird that he hovered in the stairwell, but you were a stranger. He just wanted to make sure I was safe.”
“No, I liked that about him,” Jake says. “I would have done the same thing. It was more just the way he looked at you.”
I wrinkle my eyebrows. “How did he look at me?”
Jake’s expression turns wry. “Come on, Sophie. You know what I mean.”
I sigh because how many people are going to try to convince me that Peter likes me? “It’s definitely not like that,” I say, like it’s a reflex. It is a reflex because I’ve been saying it for years. “We’ve just known each other for a long time. Since high school.”
“Yeah, he told me,” Jake says. “And I get it. I had a best friend like that, too.”
“Had?” I ask, and Jake winces.
“Uh, yeah. We finally got together after our freshman year of college, and it didn’t work out.”
I frown. “And now you’re not friends?”
He shrugs. “We tried to be. And we’re still nice when we see each other. But it’s hard to go back, you know?”
“This is what I keep telling people,” I say, emphatic enough that Jake jolts a little at my sudden response. “Sorry,” I say, dialing it back just a bit. “It’s just that so many people keep telling me we’re perfect for each other and we should date already, but I don’t want to screw up our friendship. Why is that so hard for people to understand?”
“I get it,” Jake says. “We got a lot of the same pressure.” He shrugs easily. “Sometimes it works out though. It would suck to miss out on something amazing just because you want to protect something slightly less amazing.”
I shove a huge bite of crème br?lée into my mouth. “How do I know though? How do I know a relationship would be more amazing?”
“Come on,” he says. “How could it not be? If you have good physical chemistry, and you’re both committed, why wouldn’t a relationship be better? It’s just friendship with more perks, right?”
When the night is finally over, Jake walks me back to The Serendipity, pausing once we reach the front door.
“I’d ask you if I changed your mind about another date, but I think I already know the answer to that question.”
I grimace. “You’re amazing, Jake. Truly. But…”
“I get it,” he says as he pushes his hands into his pockets. “But for the record, I think you should go for it with Peter.”
“For real?” I say. “You too? Even after you lost a friendship in the same kind of scenario?”
He lifts his hands and chuckles. “You do you,” he says. “But I feel like it’s worth noting that I mostly lost my friendship with Sarah because she got married, and it was no longer cool for us to hang out all the time. That might be something else for you to think about. If you like hanging out with Peter, you might have to marry him to keep things the way they are.”
My mouth drops. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now. Can no one leave my friendship in peace?”
“Okay, okay. I won’t say another word,” Jake says. He pulls me into a friendly hug. “I’m glad I got to meet you, Sophie.”
As he walks down the sidewalk, it occurs to me that Jake would be perfect for Allison. If only she wasn’t moving in a couple of weeks.
Peter is sitting at my kitchen table when I enter my apartment.
In the dark.
Doing nothing.
“Peter?” I ask as I turn on the light. “Are you okay?”
He looks up, a blank expression on his face. “Hey. You’re back,” he says. His words are a little slow, a little soft around the edges.
“Yeah, I am. Have you been drinking?”
He holds up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Tiny bit.” He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down.
I drop into the chair across from him. I’ve actually never seen Peter drunk or even tipsy, so this version of him is a little foreign. “Were you drinking alone?”
He shakes his head. “With Archer. That man has good bourbon.”
I huff out a tiny laugh. “Yeah. I bet. Have you eaten?” I slide my leftovers across the table. “I have some pasta.”
He reaches for the container and lifts the lid. “What kind?”
“You’ll like it. Chicken, sundried tomatoes, lots of parmesan.” I stand and grab him a fork, then fill a glass of water and set it down next to the open to-go container. “Why were you drinking with Archer?”
Peter shrugs as he digs into my leftovers. “No reason. Just that he offered.” He chews slowly, keeping his eyes down as he asks, “So, do you want to tell me about it? About meeting him?”
I furrow my brow. “About meeting Jake? I guess I can. What do you want to know?”
He looks at me like I’m missing something important.
“You don’t want to tell me about it? If this guy is your soulmate, I figured you’d be eager to fill me in on all the details.”
Understanding finally dawns.
Of course Peter thinks Jake is my soulmate. Because I went to dinner. And that was only supposed to happen if the flower bloomed.
“Peter, Jake’s not my soulmate,” I say quickly. “The flower didn’t bloom.”
He pauses, hand frozen over the pasta for a few seconds before he puts his fork down with slow, deliberate movements.
“Then why did you go to dinner?”
“Because Jake was nice, and he asked me to. When I saw that the flower wasn’t going to bloom, I told him I didn’t think we had any chemistry, but he asked if he could buy me dinner anyway.”
Peter blows out a breath. “Wow. Nice guy.” There’s a lightness to his tone that wasn’t there before, and I get the distinct impression that he’s relieved.
I let out a little laugh. “Honestly, he’s the nicest. Had I not flower-checked him, I definitely would have agreed to go out with him again. He’s basically perfect.”
“So why don’t you?” Peter asks. “What if the flower is wrong?”
I lift my shoulders. “It wasn’t wrong. We had good energy, but it was total friend energy. I meant what I said about not feeling much chemistry.”
Peter takes another huge bite of pasta, and I wait for him to finish chewing before asking, “Why were you relieved to know the flower didn’t bloom?”
“I wasn’t relieved.”
“Yes, you were, Peter. I know you too well.”
He breathes out a sigh. “Just because…” His words trail off, and his jaw clenches. “I guess because I know things will change once it does.”
“No, they won’t,” I say. “Of course they won’t.” But I just had this conversation with Jake, and he warned me of the same thing.
“I’m not saying we won’t still be friends,” Peter says. “But things will be different. They’ll have to be. You can’t sit on the couch and snuggle with me, then go home to your boyfriend and snuggle with him. ”
He’s right.
I know he’s right.
I just don’t know what to do about it.
“Do you want brownies?” I suddenly ask.
When in doubt, eat chocolate. One of life’s many mottos.
“Oh! And some caramel sauce!” I add. “I have vanilla ice cream in the freezer. We could have brownie sundaes while we watch a little more Ted Lasso ?”
I already had crème br?lée at the restaurant, and I don’t need a second dessert. But I do need to feed my denial. And what better way to do that than brownies?