Chapter 30
Vanessa
thirty
. . .
On the third Thursday of every month, we have book club. It’s the highlight of my month.
The dusty bookstore is warm and filled with laughter and good cheer. When I show up with a bottle of bourbon and a tray of holiday cookies Jacky foisted on me as I left the office, a raucous cheer goes through the assembled crowd.
I stop in and say hi to Ceci, who’s wearing a floor-length crimson velvet dress and chandelier earrings — I’m not entirely sure why she’s so dressed up, just that it doesn’t surprise me. Arielle has brought Asher, Johanna came with Sullivan. I make a mental note to introduce them to Sven. I think the six of us could have a fun time.
Bex and Elsy are chatting with Rachel. Madison is lounging in the recliner with his eyes closed, enjoying a rare night off from parenting his five younger siblings. Nikki and Sofia are pouring drinks as people come in. Kiley, the youngest of our group at nineteen, runs in looking like her hair is on fire.
“What’s wrong?” three or four people immediately ask her.
“Gotta pee!” She darts toward the back room.
Shaking my head, I check my watch again. Sven has a team dinner—Scott is coordinating, giving me the night off.
The bell over the door chimes.
Robby steps through the door, brushing the light snow off his dark hair. He cuts an impressive figure in his dark gray coat, with his wide shoulders and broad stature.
“You made it!” I smile as he heads toward me.
“Thanks for inviting me,” he says, bumping my shoulder with his.
Bex breaks off her conversation, making her way over to us.
“Hey, Robby,” she says evenly. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah. It has,” he says quietly. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You two are good?” She looks between us.
Robby nods. “I’m guessing you know,” he says awkwardly. “About me.”
Bex bites her lip. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to out you. I didn’t think you would hang out again,” I admit.
To my surprise, Robby smiles. “I’m not out at work. I don’t care if my friends know.” He meets her eyes. “And I hope I can count you a friend again, Bex.”
She swallows. “Yeah. You can.”
“Come on, let’s mingle,” I tell them. “We can introduce you to some people.”
The place is packed. People are still shopping for holiday presents. There’s a constant onslaught of the door chiming every time it opens.
But when the place empties out and Sadie flips the closed sign on the door, it’s just the core book club in the back of the shop.
Arielle raises her eyebrows at me. “And who is this?”
“This is Robby,” I introduce him to the group.
Johanna frowns. “I thought you were dating Sven.”
“I am. Robby’s my ex.” I blow out a breath. “We’re working on being friends again. He just moved to town.”
“Hey, dude,” Sullivan says, nodding across the circle at him. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sully, this is Asher. We’ll introduce you to some people around here.”
Lying back in the recliner, Madison cracks open his eyes and studies him carefully. “Yeah, you can hang.”
Robby exhales a heavy breath. “Thanks. I’d like that.”
Ceci grins. “I thought you don’t like second chances?”
Robby winks at me.
“Turns out… sometimes, we all need a second chance. I messed things up with Sven, but he still gave me another shot.”
“Hell,” Bex says, “The two of you getting together in the first place is already your second chance.”
Nodding, I accept that. “So the least I can do is offer Robby a fresh start. As friends,” I’m quick to add, when Madison opens his mouth. “This is not a poly/menage/why choose situation.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t going to presume.”
Sadie laughs. “Yeah, you were.”
Madison sighs. “Okay, so maybe I was already envisioning this epic scene where—you know what? I’ll just write it instead.”
She pats his arm. “Okay, babe. Sounds good.”
We go around the circle with introductions. Several people have brought their partner with them for our holiday party. It’s nice to meet these people we’ve heard so much about from our friends.
There’s a knock on the door.
“We’re closed,” half a dozen people call out.
The person is undeterred, knocking again.
“It’s Elijah,” Asher says with a broad grin, and Sadie rolls her eyes at her best friend’s fiancé and his joke about Passover.
“Wrong holiday.” She musses his curls as she moves toward the door. “Oh, hello there.”
“I’m here with Vanessa,” a crisp Swedish accent says.
My stomach flutters. It’s Sven.
What’s he doing here?
There’s a click as the door locks again, and then Sadie appears with my boyfriend behind her, holding two loaves of sourdough bread he made this morning.
“You’re not at the dinner?”
Tonight we were supposed to stay apart, each at our own place for the first time in a week. I haven’t spent nearly enough time with my roommates lately. I’ve missed them.
As I’m half-rising out of my seat, he cuts through the circle and kisses me softly, a simple peck, before he takes my hand and sits in the empty chair beside my own.
Without me noticing, everyone moved over so we could sit together.
“I wanted to see you. Meet your friends.”
A few of them sigh.
“Guys, this is Sven,” I introduce, waving at the group. “These are my friends.”
He nods at the crowd of people, their eyes focused on him. “Hello. I brought bread.”
“Excellent,” Johanna says. “We love a good carb.”
“Tell us about yourself,” Ceci cuts in. She leans forward, her dark eyes bright.
“Well, I play hockey.”
Madison raises an eyebrow. “A sports romance?”
“Workplace and forced proximity,” Sadie adds. “What else?”
“Um…” I bite my lip.
“Second chance,” Bex chimes in.
Ceci grins at me. “Second chance isn’t so bad after all, is it?”
I have to shake my head. “Okay, fine. It’s not the worst trope in the world.”
Robby turns to look at me. “You know, I don’t think I ever did hear the story of how you two got together.”
My face goes red. “That’s because… well…”
“We met nine years ago,” Sven says. “I didn’t see her again until four years ago, and as soon as we met, I knew.”
“You’ve been together for four years?” Robby looks between us. “That’s a long time to keep things from the team.”
“No, uh…” I swallow. Why am I so nervous? It’s not like I have any reason to be embarrassed here. “We’ve been dating since your first day.”
He frowns. “Huh?”
“We were pretend dating. Fake dating,” I elaborate awkwardly.
“It wasn’t fake for me,” Sven says quietly, and I squeeze his hand.
“Right. I refused to date any hockey players, especially the ones on my team. But then… well, you were there, and I didn’t know what to do, so…” I take a breath. “I asked Sven to be my fake boyfriend because I didn’t want you to think… I don’t know. It was ridiculous.”
Robby looks between us. “So, let me get this straight: you decided that seeing me again was so awful, the easiest thing was to pretend to date someone else?”
I pause. “Yes.”
He howls with laughter, slapping his knee. “Oh, Nessie, I love you.” He squeezes my shoulder. “I’m totally going to take credit for the two of you getting together now, I hope you know that.”
My boyfriend wraps his arm around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I’m okay with that,” he says. “It means we get to be together.”
Twisting in his embrace, I meet him halfway for a kiss and echo his words from the other day. “We’ll start our own family.”
Sven grins at me. “I can’t wait.”