Chapter 30
STEPHANIE
WHAT THE BURNT PIECRUST?
It’s early in the morning, and I’m in Pam’s kitchen rereading a note that was left on the kitchen counter. On top of a box of shoes.
“Stephanie, sorry about your shoes. Hope these help soften the blow.”
No matter how many times I turn the card over, I still can’t find a signature anywhere.
Inside the box is a tan pair of Jimmy Choo shoes!
Jimmy Choos!
Between last night and very early this morning, someone got me a pair of shoes, wrote me a note, and left them in the kitchen for me.
Where does one get Jimmy Choos in the middle of the night?
There are only two people who know I lost my shoes. I’m stunned beyond words, and tension mounts in my shoulders: Which of the two are these from, and more importantly, what do they want from me?
Melodie and Kaylee walk through the back door wearing leggings and sports tanks, each with a yoga mat tucked under her arm.
Words completely abandon me, so I simply raise the note toward them, as if to say, Are these from you? I try to arrange my face to be more inquisitive and less confrontational—which is how I actually feel.
Kaylee’s brows pinch in confusion until she sees the shoes. “Jimmy Choos! Wow, those are fantastic.” She takes the note in my hand and quickly reads it. “The late-night call from Cooper makes sense now.” She looks back up at me. “He called last night and asked me what shoe size I thought you were.”
I involuntarily choke as my face asks the question my voice still can’t: Mallory got these for me?
She nods her head as she takes a long drink from her water bottle. She’s acting so calm—like he bought me a pack of gum and not a thousand-dollar pair of shoes.
The first question that races to mind is why, but I can’t worry about that right now, so I move to my second question—which is when I actually speak. “How?”
“I never know how he pulls stuff like this off.” Melodie walks over to the fridge and opens it.
I stand frozen while she drags food out of the fridge.
“We did yoga this morning with Mom. I tried to call you to see if you wanted to join us, but you didn’t answer.
” And with that proclamation, Pam walks into the kitchen, also holding a yoga mat and water bottle and sporting a light sheen on her face.
“Good morning, Stephanie. How did you sleep?” I still have no words. None.
“Cooper bought her shoes.” Melodie gets a piece of bread out and puts it in the toaster.
“Good. It’s about time that boy bought her something.” She says this to Melodie like I’m not in the room. Then she turns to me. “I told him to buy you something,” she points her water bottle at the box, “but I told him it needed to be nice. Are they nice?”
I nod, still unable to speak.
“Good boy.” She says this quietly to herself, but I still hear it.
Too-pricey gifts set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head—but the last time I jumped to conclusions about Mallory, I was wrong, so I’m trying very hard to withhold judgement until gathering further information.
However, between memories of my mother and of Chase, this proves difficult; I’m, once again, fighting muscle memory.
My phone starts to vibrate, and I look down to see that Cheryl is calling. I simply point to my phone, wave goodbye, and excuse myself to go outside.
“Let me know if those shoes fit,” Pam calls after me as I walk out the door. “Because if they don’t, I’ll make him take them back and get you the right size!”
I take several seconds to collect myself before answering. “Is Sam in labor?” These days, that’s the first thing I ask when she or Sam calls. Her due date is still a few weeks away, but you never know when a baby will decide to show up.
“Not yet. You’ll be the first person to know when she is.”
As I climb into my vehicle and leave for our meeting at the venue, I find a little more of my voice—but even I can hear the distress in it. “Cheryl, I need you!”
“I was calling to see how you’re doing, and I guess I got my answer. You sound positively shaken.”
“That’s actually a good word for it.” Cheryl has an amazing ability to read situations and see what others don’t. She’s exactly who I need to be talking to.
I catch Cheryl up on baby steps in kayaks and Jimmy Choos.
“That tracks.” There’s no hint of shock in her voice. “It’s a very Cooper thing to do.”
“What? You say that like the man buys people designer shoes all the time!”
“Shoes, medical bills, home repairs, whatever.” She ticks each item on the list off like they’re nothing.
“If he thinks people need something, he gets it for them. How do you not know this?” Her tone carries total disbelief.
“He’s Deke’s best friend, and you’ve known him for over a year.
” I say nothing, an increasingly common response from me this morning.
“Honestly, he might be the nicest man on the planet. You’ve really never noticed this before? ”
“No.” I sound defensive, but really I’m embarrassed. Apparently I am the last person on earth to know that Mallory is actually a nice guy. “I was occupied with other aspects of his character! The ones I thought were slimy!”
“Well, that’s another can of worms—which, by the way, makes sense of the way you’ve always treated him.”
“Makes sense? How does it do that?”
She then proceeds to psychoanalyze me, something Cheryl is incredibly good at.
“Here is what I’m thinking: When you met Cooper, you were still reeling from everything that happened with Chase.
Your wounds were fresh, and when most people are hurting, they look for the fastest route to stop the pain.
You found that in Cooper. It was probably easier to throw your negative energy concerning Chase toward vilifying Cooper.
I think you’ve been around Cooper enough to know that he might not be the villain you made him out to be—but you needed the emotional morphine he provided.
Subconsciously, it’s a great way to move past Chase much quicker than you’d have otherwise been able to.
But it does make for a lot of repressed emotions that will eventually come back and bite you in the butt. ” She takes a breath. “Am I close?”
She doesn’t know about the three phone calls I overheard, but she’s right about a lot of my animosity toward Chase being redirected at Cooper. “I’d say that’s pretty close.”
“Can I assume that bite has happened? Metaphorically speaking, that is.”
“I’ve been living with all of this for over a year and a half, and I only put it together last night. How did you figure it out so quickly?”
“Have you forgotten that I was raised by two psychologists who had me in therapy from a very young age? I’ve learned a few things along the way. The only thing I don’t understand is why you’re upset about the shoes. What am I missing?”
“It all goes back to my mother.” Cheryl doesn’t know all the details of my past, but she knows enough and makes a humph sound of disapproval. “Her weapon of choice was manipulation through buying me expensive things.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at.” In my mind’s eye, I see her nodding her head. “Someone buying you really nice things triggers your protective defenses, because you think you’re about to be manipulated?”
“It sounds so stupid when you say it out loud, but yes. That’s it in a nutshell.” My shoulders sag as I pull into the parking lot. “I got away from my mom, but years later, I ran into the same issues with Chase—someone else trying to manipulate me by buying me nice things.”
“I swear,” Cheryl’s voice is cold and fierce, “if I’m ever in the same room with that man, I will—” She cuts herself off and growls deeply, making me fear for anyone on her bad side.
“He also started cheating on me around the time when the nicer-than-usual gifts started, so maybe he was trying to ease his guilty conscience. I don’t know. But I do know that the Jimmy Choos are messing with my mind—even more so when I found out they were from Mallory.”
“Because you’re attracted to him and worried you’ll walk right into another Chase situation?”
“YES!” I practically yell the word. “Yes, I’m attracted to him!” I cover my eyes with my hand and groan. “I will finally admit that out loud—though it terrifies me! But what’s more terrifying is that Chase was nice and charming once too, and we all know where that ended up.”
“I’ve known Cooper longer than you, and I can promise you he isn’t Chase!” She pauses. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Well,” I lower the hand covering my eyes and let my head drop back against the headrest, “I know I need to talk to Mallory about it. We all know what happened the last time I jumped to conclusions without talking to him. Until I can do that, I think my mind is going to keep coming up with all sorts of reasons why he would buy me shoes—and none of them are good.”
“Look at you being a grown-up and trying to use communication to solve your issues.” She’s teasing me, and it makes me smile—but only a little.
There’s a knock on my window, and I about jump through the roof of my car. “AHHH!” I turn and see Chase, and my heart practically seizes up. “I gotta go,” my voice is a whisper, “Chase just knocked on my window. He’s standing outside my car.”
“You tell that poor excuse of a?—”
I hang up on her as I open the door and step out. “Chase, what are you doing here?” I realize it’s a stupid question, as I have a scheduled meeting with him. “I mean, it’s obvious why you’re here—it’s just earlier than you would usually show up.”
“I took a chance that you hadn’t changed your old habits and would be here early too.
” He smiles, but not his pop-star Smile: the one he gives to the press and fans, and even me toward the end of our relationship.
It’s his Private Smile: the one he gave me when we first started, the one that’s soft, relaxed, and reaches his eyes. “I wanted to see if we could talk.”
My mind is scrambled eggs. I try to remember everything Cheryl and I just talked about, but I can’t focus on anything. “Um, sure. Like, later? For lunch or something, with everyone else?”
“I was hoping for right now, while no one was around, and—if this goes well—maybe later too.” He looks so sweet, so vulnerable. Like he did when we began.
I slip my hand into my pocket and tap my finger against the side of my leg. “Don’t you want to wait till McKay and Alyssa are here? They’re going to have more answers than I will.”
“I don’t want to talk about the concert; I want to talk about . . . us.” His eyes convey his hope that I’ll be okay with this.
I regain in some sense. “There isn’t an us, Chase. You killed that a long time ago.” I start to walk away, but he gently catches me by the arm. I look down to where he’s touching me, and when I look back at him, he lets go immediately.
“I’m sorry—I only want to talk for a few minutes.” His palms meet in front of him as if in prayer. “Please. Just a few minutes.”
I have no idea what the right thing to do is. Is talking to Chase a good idea? Should I meet with him alone? Or make sure someone else is with us?
“Steph,” he pauses for a beat, “Love,” my whispered nickname on his lips makes my skin uncomfortably itchy, “just a few minutes?”
“Yeah, okay. Only a few minutes.” As the words leave my lips, I wonder if I’m going to regret this.