Chapter 10 Now
Now
I sip the last of my coffee as I watch Sebastian parallel park his Jeep on the street outside my apartment, hating myself for thinking of the older, beat-up version of that same car that used to pull in my parents’ driveway before a shift.
I wonder if, after spending enough time together this week, I’ll get to a point when every interaction doesn’t dredge up a parallel memory from the past.
Maren and I had a jam-packed weekend. Dinner with her parents Friday night.
Brunch with mine Saturday morning. Back-to-back beach days.
Rum buckets on the pier with David and his fiancé, Henry, who first met Maren last summer (and who I’m now convinced like her even more than they like me). It was fun and restorative and perfect.
But now it’s Monday morning. Back to work—and on this particular Monday work involves running wedding errands with Sebastian Nikolaou.
“Morning,” he says as I climb into the passenger seat.
He’s dressed casually again, in a local brewery tee, shorts and Vans.
Most of his hair is hidden beneath a backward baseball cap, but I notice a few unruly curls peeking out from under the band.
I definitely don’t think about running my fingers through them.
The car smells like coffee. I smile when I trace it to the Yeti tumbler in his cup holder. Adult Sebastian drinks coffee. A big step up from ninety-nine-cent iced tea cans.
“Dentist said I had to kick the Arnold Palmer habit,” he quips, reading my mind.
He switches the gear into drive, and I switch the subject back to the present. “What’s first on the agenda?”
“I need to drop off the florist deposit. That will just take a minute, but he said he’s happy to show you sketches of the bouquets and centerpieces if it’s helpful for your article.”
“That’s great. Thanks.”
“We’ll pick up the invitations after that. Then around lunch my mom and Omar should be ready for us.”
“To run through the menu?”
He laughs. “If by ‘run through’ you mean serve us a full-blown tasting.”
Now, that I’m looking forward to. My stomach practically growls in anticipation.
“And the last thing is my tux fitting.”
I suck in a deep breath as quietly as I can. Maybe I can fabricate a reason for him to drop me off before that last one.
According to the GPS we’ve got a ten-minute drive, so I pull out my notebook.
“So how did you and Claire first meet?”
“We met my junior year of college, in a business class,” he says. He drives the same way he did back in high school. Seat pushed back to accommodate his long legs. One arm stretched straight toward the wheel, hand at twelve o’clock. The other resting along the window.
“And then?” I ask when he doesn’t elaborate.
He checks his mirrors, then changes lanes. “She asked me to a sorority formal. I asked her to be my girlfriend a couple weeks later.” He shrugs. “Pretty typical college story.”
I close my notebook. Clearly I don’t need it for this conversation.
“Sorry,” he says. A muscle in his jaw flexes, which accomplishes the unfortunate task of reminding me how compelling his jawline is.
Jesus, I’ve got to just keep my eyes on the road.
“I know I’m probably not being very helpful.
Claire’s better at telling these stories.
” He glances sidelong at me. “What about you? Seeing anyone?”
I can practically feel my face redden. I bet Sebastian is smirking at my discomfort, but I don’t allow myself to check.
“I go on dates here and there,” I reply.
“Nothing too serious at the moment.” This, I’ll admit, is somewhat of an exaggeration.
I’ve been on exactly two dates in the last year.
One was a college acquaintance who slid into my DMs and asked me out to dinner, then proceeded to spend most of said dinner pitching his podcast idea to me.
The other was with a guy I matched with on Hinge who ordered a glass of milk at the bar.
Definitely nothing serious.
“I’m focused on my job right now anyway,” I add. I wiggle my notebook, hoping he’ll take the hint and change the subject back to my article.
“I don’t blame you. It’s awesome,” he says. For a second I actually wonder if he’s making fun of me. After all, I learned the hard way that beneath that kind, charming exterior lies an ability to be heartbreakingly cruel. But when I glance over, his expression seems sincere.
“It’s not exactly groundbreaking journalism, but it’s a solid job,” I say. “I like it, for the most part.”
“Seems like a great job to me. You’re a writer, just like you said you would be. And I’m not surprised at all, by the way.”
I try to resist the swell of gratitude forming in my chest, but it crashes through me anyway.
Back when I’d told Sebastian about my career dreams, I’d been envisioning myself writing sweeping travel features or long-form human interest stories—the stuff of magazine covers and awards.
But Sebastian’s words don’t carry a hint of judgment.
He sounds genuinely impressed. Proud, even.
“What about you?” I ask. “Do you like your job?”
“I’m not sure it’s what I’m meant to do forever, but I like it for now.
The company I work for helps restaurant owners improve their supply chain strategy.
We review everything about their situation and then advise on inefficiencies that are wasting them time or money.
Usually both. Unreliable vendors, outdated inventory tracking software, that kind of thing. ”
“Sounds like the sort of advice we could have used at Bubba’s back in the day,” I say, thinking of one particularly memorable shift when the snack bar ran out of ketchup packets, Snapple and plastic spoons before noon.
I’d never hated working the register more than I did the moment I had to hand someone a cup of ice cream with a fork.
“Oh, definitely,” Sebastian says, looking thoughtful. “But you know how stubborn my mom is. I think if I ran a model showing she’d save a million dollars a year by switching hamburger bun vendors she’d still insist on using Tony Suppa’s guy.”
“Tony Suppa’s guy!” I cry. “Do you think he ever found out about the detailed mob history we invented for him?”
Sebastian shakes his head, chuckling. “We had way too much time on our hands.”
“Or maybe it was the perfect amount, and we’ve just gotten used to not having anywhere near enough.”
I say it nostalgically, my thoughts momentarily lost to the past. But when I glance back at Sebastian I find him looking a bit sullen.
“Anyway. The job.” He grips the top of the steering wheel with one hand and scrubs the back of his neck with the other. “It’s pretty flexible, which is the main thing I appreciate about it. Very ‘human-oriented.’ I’m grateful they let me take some time off to be out here.”
I clock his tone shift to ponder later and nod, thinking about how inflexible my job is—or at least, that’s how I’ve treated it.
I haven’t taken more than two vacation days in a row since …
ever. Maren and I have been casually planning my London visit for years, but every time she sends me a flight suggestion or a concert date, I picture Mandy reviewing my PTO request, brow furrowed in concern.
I always tell Maren I’ll get back to her. I never do.
“Sounds so California,” I say, detecting a smile in my periphery as he turns into a small parking lot.
Inside the florist’s office, as I flip through sketches of roses and ranunculus, votives and hurricane vases, I think that maybe this day won’t be so difficult to navigate after all. Flowers are flowers. Weddings are weddings.
My confidence briefly wavers at the stationery shop, where a staffer assumes I’m the bride.
“Oh, we’re not—” Alarmed, I look to Sebastian, who’s stifling a laugh, whether at the assumption or my reaction, I’m not sure.
“I’m not the bride.” I think of the paperwork shamefully stuffed in my workbag that suggests otherwise.
I really need to find an opportunity to tell him.
The longer I wait, the bigger a deal it’s going to become.
Sebastian doesn’t bother explaining further, so I nervously rattle off questions about fonts and paper stock, ignoring the names that the letters form. I am a professional who can separate the details of the event from my complicated feelings toward the groom.
“I’m starving,” I say once we’re back in the Jeep.
Sebastian smiles. “You’re heading to the right place, then.”
We drive in silence apart from the Spotify playlist he’s playing via Bluetooth, and it takes every ounce of willpower in me to keep my eyes on the road and not on the subtle cord of muscles that snake along his right arm as he steers.
I find myself noticing that every song lyric these days seems to be about love: finding it, losing it, longing for it.
Or maybe that’s how music has always been—but right now it feels personal.
Sebastian makes the familiar turn into the employee lot at Bubba’s and parks the Jeep.
Then he leads me through the back entrance to the kitchen, which smells incredible.
We find Omar at his usual station, tossing something in a giant basket of sizzling oil and nodding along to whatever Bubba is saying to him.
Three cooks whom I don’t recognize—two men who look to be around my age and a woman who is probably in her fifties—are heads down, engrossed in various prep tasks.
Omar looks up at us, his broad, familiar smile forming. Flecks of gray speckle his once jet-black hair and the lines around his eyes have deepened a bit, but otherwise he looks the same. “Lina Mariano,” he says. “Took you long enough to stop by.”
His words send a pang of guilt through my chest. All these years living around the corner … I should have stopped by. Instead, I’d let certain memories of this place haunt me into staying away from people who had cared so much for me.