Chapter 5
CHAPTER
FIVE
He made it home in time for Sunday dinner by five minutes after wandering around Paris with his head in the clouds. A beautiful woman and a large dose of hope did something to a guy.
“Sorry I’m so late.”
Everyone looked over as he stood in the kitchen doorway, his friends and now the Plus Ones, as he and his roommates called them—not just Jean Luc, Jacqueline, and Axel, but Brooke’s father, Carl, who was engaged to Nanine.
The restaurant was closed on Sundays, so all of his friends were present, including Madison and Nanine, who’d insisted on making them a roast chicken for family dinner.
They were standing under the industrial rack of gleaming copper pots hanging above the massive kitchen island.
His heart turned over in his chest. God, he loved these people.
Finding them had made him believe in things like fate and destiny.
The good kind. Damn, but he wanted more of it.
“You have much on your mind, chéri.” Nanine finished cutting the last of her famous roast chicken.
“Not too much.” He pushed his gold-rimmed spectacles up higher on his nose as the scent of roasting meat and potatoes made his stomach rumble. “Only my entire life.”
“Someone get that man an apéro,” Dean called out, standing with his arm around Jacqueline, a glass of champagne in hand. “That’s heavy stuff.”
“Cognac, Doc?” Kyle asked, gesturing to his favorite bottle on the countertop alongside their usual fare. Open champagne was chilling in a sweating ice bucket. A selection of red and white wine, chosen by Jacqueline, their resident sommelier.
“You must think I really need something strong since we usually leave the cognac for a digestif,” he replied, walking into the room. “You’re not wrong.”
Hell, is this where he told everyone? Yeah, because that’s what they did. They were honest with each other.
“Ah…I not only met a gallery person after I talked to Jean Luc and Thea, but I have a date with her.”
“Holy shit, Sawyer!” Dean burst out laughing as Thea let out a delighted squeal. “You are so going with the flow. A date! I am so proud of you.”
“Who is she, Sawyer?” Madison asked, her eyes immediately narrowing. “Because we’re totally checking her out.”
“We can run a background check on her,” Brooke said, patting Madison on the back as she rose from where she’d been sitting on a barstool beside her. “Sawyer, when I told you not to go at a snail’s pace, I didn’t mean jumping to warp speed like the Millennium Falcon.”
“A Star Wars reference, Brooke?” Dean bobbled his champagne, the golden liquid sloshing on the sides. “You?”
“I find myself equally amazed,” Axel replied, studying his friend as he stood next to an equally serious Kyle.
“Hey, I love Harrison Ford,” Brooke shot back, crossing until she stood in front of him. “Now, let’s hear how you met her.”
“At the dining room table, my loves,” Nanine instructed. “Dinner is ready.”
People rose and picked up steaming dishes of chicken, roasted potatoes, and a mountain of sauteed wild mushrooms dotted with parsley. Sawyer grabbed the curved glass Kyle handed him and took a drink as he followed everyone into the newly decorated dining room.
Carl seated Nanine at the head of the table, a place they’d all agreed she would grace from that first meal. He sat beside her, and everyone else took their seats too and began to pass around the food.
“I met her at the bouquinistes,” Sawyer began, shoveling roast potatoes onto the fancy china Brooke had bought for the house. “She had this obscure book in her hand…”
He finally stopped arranging food on his plate and started telling the story.
Halfway through, Dean blurted out, “Wait! You asked her out only to learn that the chick was following you? Okay, I’m not so sure about that.”
“Shut up, Dean,” Brooke said from across the table as she set her fork aside so she could give Sawyer her full attention. “Continue, Sawyer.”
His stomach was filling with dread as he finished the remainder of the story. It was like the second listening to a record album you’d thought brilliant the first time—you wondered if you’d imagined the magic.
“You still haven’t told us her name, Sawyer,” Madison noted, looking a little scary as she cut her chicken with her knife.
He took another sip of cognac. “It’s Phoebe Anderson.”
“Of course it is.” Madison gave a near growl. “I met her at the restaurant yesterday. Bold little number. Showing up at the back door, wanting to see Sawyer’s work and then asking if I could find her a reservation—”
“From the moment I met all of you, I admired your protectiveness of each other,” Axel broke in, a massive presence with his giantlike size, sitting between Brooke and Madison.
“But I have to intrude. As I noted yesterday when Madison presented Ms. Anderson’s card, her mother’s London gallery is very well respected, and I have no doubt this new branch in Paris will be a success. ”
“With Sawyer being this Phoebe’s new pony,” Madison bantered back. “Look, I’m all for Sawyer’s success—and galleries run by women—but I don’t like her stalking him.”
“Neither do I.” Brooke’s mouth was flat. “Despite the gallery—the London one, I might add—having a good rep. I don’t know it well, but I intend to learn all about it, trust me.”
Sawyer could almost see Brooke mentally adding it to the checklist in her head. They hadn’t done a deep dive on all the interested parties yesterday. He couldn’t have handled it. But she was right about one thing—he needed to. With Phoebe Anderson being his top research topic.
“How is this different than fashion, Brooke?” Axel bandied back. “When a model puts her photos in a magazine editor’s mailbox or an aspiring designer stands outside a fashion head’s private home with his or her portfolio. This is ambition.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but I’m Sawyer’s friend, Axel,” Brooke responded, angrily shoving a lock of caramel-colored hair over her shoulder. “Right now, I am not thinking about this kind of behavior being commonplace.”
“Me either.” Madison set aside her cutlery. “I’m thinking about sharpening my cleaver.”
“Hang on!” Sawyer called out. “I love it when you get like this, Madison, but it’s not necessary.”
“She stalked you, Sawyer,” Madison shot back. “That is not okay.”
A few people nodded. Even Thea’s former happy bubble had burst, and she was frowning.
Axel sat back in his chair. “As I said, I admire everyone’s protectiveness.
But how was this meeting unseemly? That is the word, yes?
When Sawyer was perfectly safe and in fact charmed enough to want to ask her out first?
Before he knew who she was, I might add.
No one has asked Sawyer how he really feels. That is all that matters.”
Sawyer could feel the tension in the room and hated being the cause of it. “I’m sorry. I feel like I’m ruining Sunday dinner.”
Kyle, who was sitting beside him, gave him a nudge with his elbow. “Don’t be ridiculous, Doc.”
“You haven’t ruined anything, mon cher,” Nanine added, bringing everyone’s gaze to her.
He was so relieved she was finally speaking, he straightened in his chair.
“I was once a woman lurking outside the major restaurants in Paris hoping to be hired after one rejection followed another.” She picked up her red wine and took a drink, her gaze locked on him.
“Sawyer knows his own heart. We must trust in that. While reminding ourselves that we are here should he wish counsel.”
Nanine’s emphasis was as clear as the chimes of her magical chandelier. While Sawyer was relieved for it, he said, “Hey, you know I’m glad you guys have my back.”
Kyle nudged him again. “Good, because we’re only worrying because we care. I find myself a little concerned about the aggressiveness of the approach, but Axel is right. You’re your own man. What did you like about her?”
He could feel a sudden awkwardness rush over him, which made him want to flee up to his room and bury himself in a book.
“Well, I liked her boldness, honestly. She wears all these bright colors, but with such confidence, you cannot help but be entranced. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she talked about honor and giving her word—”
“That assures me,” Jean Luc murmured.
He fumbled with the cloth napkin in his lap. “She could also talk theater and quote Shakespeare. Not common passages like O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? or A Rose, by any other name, would Smell as Sweet. She quoted an obscure King John play.”
He went silent, embarrassment making his throat tight. He sounded like a lovesick schoolboy with a crush.
“Go on, Doc,” Dean encouraged.
“Well…I liked the philosophy behind the quote she chose.” He scratched the back of his head, feeling tension at the base of his neck.
“Look, I know the way she approached me is weird. I did a double take too at first. Except we did some research on her and her gallery, and things appeared on the up-and-up. Yes, this is the first gallery she’s run, but she interned at Doray. ”
“Okay, that gallery I know,” Brooke said with one of her dragon breaths. “It’s tony. Everything from the artwork on the walls to the antique parquet floor is the crème of the crop.”
“Plus, her father is River Kennison,” Axel noted.
“He is?” Sawyer almost rose out of his chair.
Brooke gasped. “Point in her favor for not mentioning that.”
Sawyer was still stunned as he fell back onto his chair. “Man, that dude is…the shit. Words fail to do his work justice.”
River Kennison painted on large canvases that needed ladders and scaffoldings, his work conveying the distorted lens through which humans view life and how it limits their perspective.
He was downright philosophical about his work in interviews.
No wonder Phoebe quoted like she had. But no, she hadn’t name-dropped her famous parent to impress him…