18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Theo spent most of the morning and afternoon ruminating on Talia’s words.
They hounded him through the night, and replayed in his head while he went to the gym the next morning, as he stood in line for a coffee and a bagel at The Works Café, and for the whole two-mile walk home he’d forced himself to take.
Even as he unlocked his front door and discarded the wrapper from his bagel, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Had everyone been able to see something he hadn’t with Effie?
It was worrisome, to say the least, given how much journaling and self-reflection he was prone to.
Talia’s warning also made him itch. Was she worried Effie was actually a virgin?
Did that even matter? He supposed it did because physicality was one of the first things he explored in a new relationship.
He enjoyed flinging himself into new situations and experiences seeing if he’d sink or float.
But the implication that following his emotions was equivalent to fucking around , had him questioning his methods.
He guessed that was his admission that there were things he felt for Effie .
Theo drained the last sips of coffee from the paper travel cup and chucked it in the trash with a sigh.
He brought his diffuser that rested on the counter to life with the press of a button.
The scent of frankincense filled the air around him like a bubble of calm.
He took long, deep breaths as he poured himself a glass of water from the filtered jug in his refrigerator.
He drank greedily, then filled it to the brim again before carrying it to the meditation cushion that sat in the far corner of the room beside the console table that housed his collection of DVDs and his television.
Theo settled onto the cushion, surprisingly flexible despite the bulk of muscles beneath his track pants. Folding his legs into a pretzel, he closed his eyes.
Theo had been meditating on and off since college, solidifying the practice in the last three years.
The habit became a morning ritual that he felt the deep absence of when he missed a session, so he did his best not to.
Even when it was delayed like it was that morning—a need to move and release energy superseding the practice.
Now with his limbs happily exhausted, he could settle in.
It was the one time of day when he could connect with that great unknown force.
The one that had him believing in soulmates.
That told him fate, destiny, and manifestations were real.
It was the force he prayed to to make his life mean something, and the one he convinced himself daily would show him his life could be better than fiction.
Theo inhaled deeply, letting the breath circle all the way to his toes, before exhaling it back along the same path.
His mind cleared as he deliberately settled into his flesh and bones and blood.
He let himself be present with only his breath and the subtle hum of the diffuser across the room.
The frankincense already worked magic on his senses, imbuing his energy with a tangible kind of hope and optimism.
After twenty short minutes of breathing and focus, Theo opened his eyes.
He reached for an oracle deck he kept shelved beside his cushion.
His sister had bought it for him for his last birthday with plants, flowers, and vegetables depicted on its seventy-two different cards.
It was meant to be a joke gift after a particularly lengthy debate about signs and their meaning.
Theo had argued that there was meaning and symbolism anywhere you looked for it.
His sister had scoffed and said that that was impossible.
When she’d gifted him the deck, she said, I guess they can make meaning out of everything .
He hadn’t used it yet, preferring his traditional tarot deck and another built around moon phases, but intuition had him grabbing for the unopened box that morning.
Theo removed the cards and spread them out before him. He enjoyed the pattern of garden beds and hedgerows that decorated the back of the cards. Theo closed his eyes again and hovered his hands over the spread of cards, then asked aloud, “What do I need to know today?”
He waved his hands over the cards until he felt the familiar prickle that worked its way from the tip of his ring finger up to his shoulder indicating the card he needed beckoned from immediately below.
He planted his finger on the card and edged it away from the rest of the deck.
A tingling—like when a song hits just right—covered him in goose bumps as he turned the card over to reveal an illustration.
It was sketched in colored pencil shades like images on the front of heirloom seed packets—a perfectly ripe, seductively purple eggplant .
Theo puttered down Hanover Street in his black Jeep Wrangler, the sun setting behind him in tangerine hues. He itched to drive with the top off, but there’d be a few more threats of frost and rainstorms before he could shed the hard shell and bask in the summer sun.
He pulled to a stop in front of Glitter & Glue.
A plump eggplant sat in the passenger seat alongside a box of chocolates.
The bold move would be to go in there and offer a vegetable.
It could also be construed as weird if he wasn’t able to get out the greater meaning before she passed judgment.
Weird might also be the deduction if she did hear his full explanation about how cosmically aligned his calling her eggplant now felt given the card he’d pulled and the meaning it was assigned in the realms of the mystical.
It would be a safer move to bring in the chocolates. When had he become so pathetically indecisive? Yes, chocolates were better.
He’d use the other offering to make eggplant parmesan for dinner instead. Maybe once they knew each other better, when he’d sussed out if the other half of his bed belonged to her, he’d tell her the intricate implications of the nightshade produce.
His eyes narrowed on the shiny purple flesh of the eggplant. The belated realization that the eggplant meant a whole lot of dirty things to the emoji generation left him queasy. How had he not made that connection before now?
Here he was calling this ethereal, quiet, sweetly seductive woman eggplant for weeks and she hadn’t even batted an eye.
Her self-restraint was admirable. If the shoe was on the other foot, he’s not sure he could have left the opportunity to turn her twenty shades of red with the obvious innuendo on the table.
So either she was as removed from emojis as he was or she was far kinder than he realized .
Another explanation hammered him in the head. Maybe she thought he’d been teasing her, and pride had her grinning through it. Theo raked his hands over his face. For fuck’s sake, had he ruined this before it even started?
He refused to believe that the sharp-tongued woman he met wouldn’t have said something if the nickname offended her that way.
They had jested about it, but she seemed like the kind to let you know if you crossed a line with her.
At least, that’s what he told himself so his fingers would unbuckle his seatbelt and his feet would carry him to the door, box of chocolates in hand.
He stepped up to the cheerful craft shop, open for another ten minutes.
Theo paused at the glass door where he had a clear view of Effie mopping.
She’d already turned off half of the overhead lights in favor of the warm lamp on the register desk.
Backlit as she was, Theo noticed the alluring dip between her chest and her full hips, and the flawless curve of her neck as she dragged the mop side to side in unhurried motions.
Maybe his preconceived ideas of who he’d end up with muddied his vision.
Maybe her indignation had gotten in the way of him truly seeing her at first meeting, but now, when she thought no one stood watching, she was downright beguiling.
Theo stepped through the door before he teetered into creepy territory. The chime of the bell signaled his arrival and snagged Effie’s attention away from her chore.
“Hi,” she chirped, her puzzled brow at odds with the airy smile that parted her plump, rosy lips.
Her brunette waves were swept into a bun atop her head that left wild tendrils floating around the near angelic curve of her face.
Theo hadn’t let himself look at her too long before now, but something in his meditation unlocked the desire he’d kept tucked away after their first meeting.
She was radiant, beautiful. Like a dew drop on rose petals or a rustle of leaves in the wind. She stirred the very air he breathed in a way that had his heart hammering in his chest. “Hi,” he finally purred.
“What brings you by?”
Theo perused the turnstile of leather-bound journals, plucking one from its resting place. “Need a new journal,” he half lied. He admired them the last time he came in and thought it would be a good choice for his next collection of poems—whatever those ended up being.
He followed Effie to the register with his selection and a new fountain tip pen. He placed them on the counter as she rang him up.
“I also came to thank you,” he said.
“What for?”
“Talking with Schilling. As much as he’s still reeling over the fact that Chloe found a way to insert herself with your cousin, he’s grateful to know why Hope was spooked.”
“Happy to have helped,” Effie said, and he noted the way her teeth clenched.
“But you didn’t tell him everything? Why not?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Call it a hunch,” Theo said, because it was the truth.
Effie gave him a once-over. He felt under a microscope beneath her gaze.
Her eyes floated over his round spectacles and lingered on the stubble he wore just long enough to look roguish.
Her eyes swept to his veined hands that rested on the counter and back to meet his stare.
“I can’t help but feel like this is some kind of a test? ”
Theo laughed in spite of himself. It wasn’t a test exactly, but he’d met few people who could resist the urge to meddle.
He wanted to know why she’d stayed as neutral as possible in her conversation with Schilling.
He didn’t even want to think about what she assumed the night was.
If she’d been disappointed that Schilling wasn’t on the market.
He swallowed that curiosity and said, “It’s not. Just wondering.”
“It’s not any of my business. As much as I might want them to work it out, it’s not my decision. And whatever I didn’t tell Brayden is not mine to tell. A sentiment you seemed to mirror at the Tipsy Moose?”
“I think it’s classy of you, that’s all. Even if I too want them to work it out. I’ve never seen him so happy, even with the divorce nonsense. And Hope seems great—”
“You met?”
“Only in passing,” Theo confessed, and he somehow felt like sharing that truth was not the right thing based on the hurt behind Effie’s cornflower-blue eyes.
“She didn’t want me to meet him,” Effie uttered, her words laced with disappointment. “That’s why I didn’t know who he was. She never even told me his last name.”
That added up. Theo wondered how the connection wasn’t made that night at the bar, but if Hope kept her relationship with Schilling secret, even from Effie, it was no surprise that Effie had been blindsided.
He hoped it hadn’t hurt too much when she realized that their candle-making wasn’t a date.
That was new, empathy before envy. Maybe the eggplant was as prophetic as he’d read earlier that day.
Effie glanced at the box of chocolates he placed on the counter as she ran his card for his purchases. “They’re for you,” Theo said, feeling way off his game. He slid the box in front of her. She handed him his receipt in return.
“You’re not just giving them to me as some kind of pity offering after the whole Talia, Schilling, Hope debacle?”
She definitely thought her night with Schilling was meant to be a date. Shit. “Believe it or not, I didn’t come here to talk about any of them.”
“Then why did you come? Aside from the journal of course?”
Theo’s palms slicked with sweat. He hadn’t been this nervous to ask someone out in ages. Probably since high school. “I came to ask you out,” he said matter-of-factly.
She said nothing but fought the smile that tugged at her cheeks. Droves of buzzing bees swarmed his chest as he waited for her answer. Something about the way she carried herself, like her identity was hers to keep secret until she deemed him worthy, had him fearing her rejection. “Well?” he asked.
“You haven’t actually asked me anything yet,” Effie cooed, amusement dripping from her tongue.
Theo’s mouth quirked. “Effie, will you go out on a date with me? Saturday night to be exact. Details redacted intentionally so I can woo you with surprises.”
Her smile broke free.
But instead of answering him, she reached for the luxuriously wrapped box of chocolates he’d procured from the local sweet shop that made them in-house.
She took one look at the truffles within, and her cheeks flushed a sensual shade of pink.
He couldn’t help but wonder how else he could elicit that heated flush as he watched Effie pluck one of the bite-sized morsels from the tray and pop it into her mouth.
Her eyes closed as she bit around the soft caramel center. A pleased moan, which she seemed unaware of, rumbled from the back of her throat. Theo’s mouth went dry.
Effie worked the sticky caramel from her teeth, licking the grain of salt from the corner of her mouth that Theo had spotted seconds before.
A nervous laugh tumbled from her lips and Theo thanked God he didn’t opt for the eggplant.
The air charged with Effie’s delight, and he waited eagerly to see what she’d do next. “Do you believe in fate?”
The question nearly knocked him off his feet. Of course, he did, but why did she want to know? “I do. Why?”
“Because these are my favorite kind of chocolates . . .” She hesitated. Theo hung on every word. “And Theo tastes exactly like salted caramel chocolate truffles. So I guess I kind of have to say yes.”
Goddamn, what was the question again? Theo calmed his racing heart enough to say, “I’ll see you Saturday, Effie Thatcher.”
“See you then, Theo.”
Theo collected his things and sauntered out of the store. It gave him no small amount of satisfaction to know that whenever she said his name, whenever she thought it, she’d taste the sweetness that gave her such palpable pleasure.