Chapter 40 – Sidney
CHAPTER FORTY
SIDNEY
“So, let me get this straight. The Malone guy—the contestant from your hometown who you kind of remember from high school but don’t—is the one you’ve been sleeping with?” Zoey asks. We are at a small table in the back of the Greer Vineyard’s tasting room, and even though there aren’t many people around, I’m tempted to shush her.
“For the fifth time, yes, yes, and more yes.” I take another sip of wine, hoping this will be the end of it but knowing this is only the beginning.
“But you neglected to tell me the man you were sleeping with and hot pilot boy were one and the same. Why?”
“It slipped my mind.”
“Ha.” She laughs. “More like he slipped into you and you forgot your mind.”
“Well . . . can you blame me?”
“But you’re sneaking around doing the whole clandestine lovers thing why?”
My mind goes back to last week. To the naughty texts and the sexcapade at The Cottage. And then I realize how much I’ve missed him since he started back to working his twenty-four-hour shifts.
Texting is fun, but it definitely isn’t the real thing.
“Work. My dad. The appearance of impropriety that I’m sleeping with the contestant who is currently winning the contest,” I finally say when I realize I haven’t responded.
She gives me a sour look and lifts her brows. “So, the small-town gossip you told people was a total lie really wasn’t?”
“No. Some of it is a lie. Do you see a ring on this finger? Do you see me engaged?”
“You know I’d kick your ass if you were hiding that from me, right?” she asks as I avert my eyes and look around again. “Wait. You don’t want that, do you?” The expression on her face—raised brows, lax jaw, wide eyes—looks just like the shock in her tone.
“No! Of course not,” I say and shake my head like she’s crazy. “We’ve only been seeing each other a couple of months and?—”
“And your parents dated for what? Three months before they got married and are now going on forty years of wedded bliss.”
“You’re crazy.” I laugh and take a sip of wine to quell the mini panic attack her words just brought on as I envisioned Grayson in a tuxedo, standing at the end of an aisle, waiting for me to walk to him.
“Okay, so then why are you being so secretive about him with me? Why did I not even know there was a thing? And more importantly, why are you overthinking this? If he’s a wham-bam, oh-hot-damn type of guy, then enjoy the bam and the wham and scream hot damn before walking away when it’s done.”
“God, it’s good to see you, Zoey.” I missed her hard-hitting, no-nonsense, I’m-going-to-call-you-on-your-bullshit attitude.
I need it to clear the fog in my mind and stop the things in my heart that I don’t want to feel but do.
“I know. I’ve missed the hell out of you. I feel like I’ve lost my left arm without you near, and being one handed is kind of hard, which is why I came here to surprise you. I’m also the one who keeps you honest, so give me answers or else I’ll ply you with more wine to get you drunk so you’ll talk.”
“Funny.”
“It isn’t like I haven’t done it before,” she says and takes a sip of her merlot.
I know she’s serious, so I sigh, take a sip of my wine, and then glance around to see who’s nearby.
She angles her head to the side and stares at me. “Your hesitation speaks volumes here, Sid.”
“I’m not hesitating on shit.”
She clears her throat. “And I’m the Virgin Mary.”
“You didn’t ask me anything to answer.”
“Exactly. Normally, you talk a million miles a minute, and right now, you’re zipped up tighter than a whore in church. What is it? Talk to me.”
“Nothing,” I murmur, when it’s actually everything. She knows me well enough to read my mind and ask the questions that need to be asked when I don’t want her asking any of them. I just might have to face the truth if I answer them.
“You really like this guy, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” There’s no shame in admitting that, right?
“ But ?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and wonder how this conversation, which was supposed to be light and fun because we were celebrating my friend being in town, turned real and serious.
“Where do I start? He has commitment issues, and that bothers me even though I don’t want a commitment. He has a kid, and I’ve never been good with children. He lives here, and I’m leaving as soon as the contest is over. The list goes on and on . . .”
“Everyone has commitment issues until they don’t. That’s just a fact of life. Sometimes it takes the right person to make you see through your fear. He has a kid.” She shrugs. “Lots of people have kids.”
“You know me. I’m unstable. I like to flit around from place to place on my time off. I never really have a steady guy because that comes with strings and strings tie you down.”
“And sometimes strings are meant to hold you back from running in the wrong direction.” She takes another sip of her wine and eyes me above the rim. “And the fact that you’ll be leaving town soon . . . I can’t help you with that one. What does he say about it?” I just stare at her. “You haven’t told him, have you?”
I hesitate. “It didn’t really matter because we weren’t really anything . . . and then, all the sudden, it feels like we are something, but now that it does, I don’t know how to say it.”
Her eyes warm with compassion as she shakes her head. “You need to tell him.”
“I know.”
We both fall silent as she angles her head and studies me. “He makes you happy. It’s written all over your face.”
“How do you know it’s because of him?” I play devil’s advocate, never wanting my happiness to be solely dependent upon a man.
“Fine. I’ll rephrase. You’re different—in a good way—and I know it isn’t this Podunk town doing it to you, so it has to be him doing you in this Podunk town.”
I know I’m beet-red by the time she finally shuts up, and I wave a hand at her. “Will you please stop being so loud? The natives will chase you with pitchforks if you talk ill of their beloved town like that.”
“It isn’t San Francisco, but is it really that terrible?”
I twist my lips as I stare at her, and then smile as I realize that it isn’t. With as much as I’ve complained to myself about the lack of nightlife, this town has grown on me. More than I expected it to. “You know what? It really isn’t. It’s quaint and other than the gossip column that I can’t seem to keep my name out of, the people are nice, the atmosphere is laid back?—”
“And there is wine. Lots and lots of wine.” She laughs and then drains her glass as my own lips pull into a small frown. We’re talking about this—about me—as if I’m staying here, which isn’t an option. What’s worse is that we are talking about it and I’m not freaking out about it. “The upside is you’re still you in every other sense. Still as fashion-forward as ever in your Louboutins. I was a little afraid I was going to find you in mom jeans and Crocs.”
“What?” I laugh, drawing some attention from those around us. No doubt, some of those people are actually wearing mom jeans and Crocs.
“I’m happy to report that we are both the most stylish people in this joint,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about it rubbing off on me, because this? My being here? Is not a long-term thing.”
And why does saying that cause my chest to constrict?
I think of the lunch delivered to my office anonymously. The unexpected knock on my door one night when Luke stayed over at a friend’s house. A surprise invite to go hunt for tadpoles with them for Luke’s school project that I swore was gross but ended up laughing until my sides hurt. Late nights on the phone until we fell asleep with the connection still open. The two bouquets of dried daisies that each of the Malones gave me, which are well past dead but I can’t bring myself to throw out.
“Uh-huh.” She draws the word out as if she doesn’t believe it. “You just keep telling yourself that, and maybe you’ll start to believe it.”