Chapter 20
You’d think sitting in a spa lounge with a limoncello in hand and a fuzzy white bathrobe on my body would help me to relax from the stress of being the sole planner for my sister’s wedding, but it’s not.
Instead, my foot is tapping in the plastic sandals they gave all of us and my thoughts are spiraling so fast I can’t even get my brain to focus on the Enya playing in the background.
“I’m just saying you can’t have the same nails as the bride,” Kate continues, still holding onto the pale pink polish Lydia had tried to grab for her pedicure.
The stress must really be eating at Kate, because the closer we get to the wedding, the more she’s acting like a bridezilla.
Everyone is walking on eggshells around her more than usual, afraid they’ll be the ones to set her off and either cause a fight or tears.
“It’s just going on my toes. No one will even see it,” Lydia argues. I swear her lip quivers, and I’m momentarily surprised to see her have any sort of emotion toward Kate aside from adoration.
“There are a thousand other pinks you can choose from,” Kate says.
“Kate, it’s nail polish. She’s not wearing your wedding dress,” I try to intervene. Kate turns to me with a sharp glare that might’ve once caused me to shrink. Today, though, I simply raise a challenging brow. And that feels really empowering.
“Mom,” Kate whines.
“Lydia, this is Kate’s wedding. Please just choose another color.”
Lydia’s snaps her mouth shut, drawing her lips into a hard line as she stomps back to the shelf of nail polish colors, Jessica trailing behind her.
Mom turns to me now, a hand on her hip. “And you.”
“Me?” I squeak.
“Yes, you. Quit stirring the pot. We’re going to get to the end of this wedding without any more tears, unless they’re happy ones.”
I sigh, lifting the glass to my lips, all the fight suddenly drained from my body.
“Yes, mom,” I mutter. Mom turns back to comfort a near-tears Kate, who is either milking the situation or legitimately emotional over nail polish, and I pull my phone out of the robe pocket for literally anything else to do.
My heart flutters—flutters, the traitorous organ—when I see Reid’s name on my screen.
Reid: how’s the spa day?
Jane: so relaxing. I’ve already broken up two fights
Reid: still not your battles to be fighting
Jane: I’m just feeling feisty today
Reid: well, save the feistiness for someone your own caliber of fighting
Jane: do you mean you? Because we both know I never lose a battle with you
Reid: who says I don’t let you win?
Jane: yeah right. Why would you let me win?
Reid: to give you false confidence so you’ll keep bickering with me
Reid: because it makes my day when you bicker with me
Reid: and because it makes my day when you get that little victorious smile on your face when you think you’ve won
Jane: oh
Jane: well now I demand that you don’t let me win
Jane: I want a fair fight
Reid: As you wish, my Jane
“Who has you smiling like that?”
I jump, stifling a startled shriek so I don’t disturb the rest of the people with their heads tipped back and eyes shut actually enjoying the spa. Elise smiles slightly as she settles into the faux-leather chair beside me.
“You snuck up on me,” I say quietly.
“The goal is typically to be moderately quiet in a spa.”
“Not that quiet.” I press my hand to my chest, my heart racing from both Elise startling me and Reid’s last text replaying in my mind.
As you wish, my Jane.
“So?” Elise pries. “The smile? Is it on account of a certain handsome chef who looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars?”
“He does?” I blurt out, embarrassed at how giddy my voice sounded. Elise smirks. I clear my throat. “I mean, yeah he does. I’m a delight.”
Elise chuckles softly, tipping her own head back against the chair and shutting her eyes. “He’s completely enamored with you. Even Charlie says so.”
“Well, if Charlie says so it simply must be true.”
“I know you’re teasing, but he’s never once commented on anyone else’s love life, and we’re in Italy for Kate’s wedding.”
I draw in a breath, the words weighing on my mind. Then I ask, “Has he said anything about me? Reid, I mean. To Charlie. They’re kind of friends now, right?”
Her lips purse together in an amused smile. “They are.”
“So . . .” I say, waving my hands in the air in a let’s hash it out movement.
Elise cracks an eye open and smirks at me. “He has,” she says, drawing out the words with an amusement that lets me know she’s very much enjoying toying with me about this. I never wear my heart on my sleeve like this, especially not about men. So she must really be relishing in this moment.
“Elise, I am actually begging you to tell me.”
She chuckles again, sitting up in her chair and resting an arm on the armrest to face me.
“I don’t want to spill all of Reid’s secrets because I think he’s a secret romantic and I don’t want to spoil that for you, but just know he talks about you every chance he gets.
To the point that Charlie is nauseated.”
I realize I’m clutching the chair, leaning towards her as I wait for more of what he’s said about me. “Tell me more.”
She huffs another laugh. “He thinks you’re funny and gorgeous, obviously, and he’s happy that he said no to Kate all those years ago, even if she glares daggers at him every time he gets caught staring at you. And that’s it, that’s all the intel I’m giving you.”
I let out a wistful sight, leaning back in my chair with a smile on my face.
“I think I’m in love with him,” I say softly.
I thought the admission would be scary. Vulnerable.
I thought it would be putting a piece of myself into the universe that could be stolen and shattered and leave me with a crumpled heart in my chest. But it feels liberating and exciting.
I feel like I want to drive to that mountain top in The Sound of Music and spin in circles just like Julie Andrews.
I fell swiftly and furiously in love with him. And what scares me about that admission is that it actually doesn’t scare me at all—he doesn’t scare me at all.
“I know,” Elise says beside me.
“But I don’t want him to break my heart,” I admit.
“I highly doubt he will.”
I tilt my head to look at her. “You don’t?”
She shakes her head. “Like I said, he’s completely enamored with you. I wouldn’t be too afraid to take that leap with him. I think he’ll be there to catch you, even if you fall clumsily on top of him and break his arm or something.”
I scoff. “I would fall daintily, like a lady.”
“Sure, Jane.”
“I would.”
Elise says something else, but I can’t hear her because my mind is already replaying her words on a loop: he’s completely enamored with you.
“It’s awful,” Lydia whines, wiggling her toes with a slightly darker shade of pink polish on them.
“I like it,” I offer.
“You would like it. You used the same color.”
“Yeah, because it’s a good color.”
“No it’s not. I wanted a pale pink.” She pouts and I draw in a breath, already sick of talking about nail polish.
Kate flops in the chair next to me, a fresh limoncello in her hand as we wait in the lounge for mom, Elise, and Jess to finish getting their nails done.
“Are you still upset about your color?” Kate asks with just a hint of satisfaction in her voice.
“Just look at it.” Lydia extends her foot toward Kate who rears back away from it.
“No, thanks.” She looks at me and something about the look on her face has something prickling in my skin—like my fight or flight is preparing just from the sneer on her face. “What were you talking with Elise about before?”
My heart stops. My stomach fills with dread. I can tell by the arch of her brow and the purse of her lips that she heard. That she knows about my feelings for Reid, and she’s going to get to the bottom of them and squash them here and now.
“Nothing.” I say the word too quickly.
“I heard Reid’s name come up,” she pries.
“I . . . I mean he is in the wedding party. It only makes sense to talk about him.”
There. That feels believable.
Kate pokes me in the shoulder hard enough that I’m sure I’ll have a bruise I’ll have to cover up before the wedding. “Does Janey have a little crush on Reid?”
I swallow hard. My thoughts are racing, trying to come up with a way to deny, to change the subject, to sweep this under the rug until the wedding is over and I can talk to her without it becoming a battle.
But maybe now is the right time. She’s getting married to the love of her life in a couple days.
She barely had to lift a finger to plan any of this gorgeous Italian wedding.
She’s supposed to be on the highest of highs, right?
Instead, I swat her hand away and say, “Of course not.”
Which really isn’t a lie because what I feel for him is so much more, so much deeper than a simple little crush.
She smirks. “You liar. I can see the way you look at him”
“I—”
“Don’t worry,” Kate says. “I’ve been there too. I get it. He just has such charisma that it’s easy to get sucked in by him.”
“And his eyes,” Lydia gushes on the other side of me.
“Just be careful, Jane.” Kate reaches a hand out and pats mine in a way that I assume is supposed to be sympathetic. “He’s only going to break your poor, romantic little heart. He doesn’t date. He told me so himself.”
I know I should leave it alone, I really do, but I’m feeling incredibly defensive of Reid now. Especially over the fact that they still believe he doesn’t date, when he just poured his heart out to me on the airplane two days ago.
“Yeah, like five years ago,” I say.
“He told me last fall too,” Lydia chimes in.
I whip my head in her direction. “Why were you talking to him about dating last fall?”
“Sam had just dumped me, so I tried to shoot my shot with Reid at Ricky’s Halloween party.
” She shrugs. Kate scoffs next to me, which is all I needed to hear to know how she felt about Lydia trying to be the Sinclair sister to change Reid’s perpetual bachelorhood. “He said he wasn’t a relationship guy.”
“See?” Kate interjects. “Why would he suddenly want to be a relationship guy for you?”
There is a small part of me that has been worried that maybe we’ve just been swept up in the wedding madness and the idea of being here to celebrate a couple in love. That maybe we’ll fly back home and without the flurry of emotions and romance it’ll all come crashing down around us.
But deep in my heart, I know she’s wrong. They both are.
Right?
“How do you know he’s not just waiting for the right girl?” They both look at me like I’ve sprouted a third arm. “And why is it so crazy that I could be that girl?”
“Jane, I love you, but you don’t date either, so how would you possibly know how to rope him in?” Kate asks.
“I’m not trying to rope him in. I just . . . like his company.”
I like bickering with him. I like spending time with him. I like making him smile and laughing with him. I like that he encourages me and he listens and he sees me. He knows me well enough to file away my favorite drink and food and to make it for me when I’m about to call my therapist.
I like who I am with him, and I think he likes who he is with me too. And maybe this is new territory for him, but I’m willing to take that risk with him. Because isn’t the risk of heartbreak worth it if the journey to love is so spectacular?
“Alright,” Kate says. “Go ahead and try to woo the perpetual bachelor. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
Lydia nods next to her, but I ignore both of them and lean back in my seat.
For once, I don’t care what they say. And for once, I actually can’t wait to leave this sister time so I can go back and see Reid.
I don’t need to stay here and bond with them or seek their approval on a man I know better than either of them do.
I know in my heart I’m ready to take that leap with Reid, even if it ends with him with a broken arm or me with a broken heart.