Chapter Twelve
My favourite part about Monday mornings was meeting Quinn in the lunchroom for an early coffee while she told me about her weekend. Quinn was like I used to be, in a sense. She dated a lot; she was on every online dating app. But whereas I had only been on the apps for hook-ups, she truly wanted to find a partner. And, no matter what happened, she never gave up on her dream of becoming a character in one of the romances she was always reading.
“Ladies.” Ethan walked in just as Quinn finished telling me she’d deleted her Tinder account. Again. “How were your weekends?”
Quinn sipped her coffee and gave him the thumbs up.
“Mine was good,” I said, lifting Marty up and placing him on my lap. “How about you?”
“Good.” Ethan sat down beside me. “Hit the gym, crushed a run; you know, the usual.” He looked at me and grinned, his blue eyes flashing. A faint flutter in my stomach surprised me. Man, he was attractive; in another time, in another world, I would have definitely swiped right. I looked down at my mug as I tried to force away my impure thoughts. I was taking care of myself right now. And besides, he had a girlfriend.
“How’s the artwork for the new digital ad campaign looking?” Quinn asked.
“Oh, man, super sexy,” he said, sitting back and linking his hands behind his head, his pecs straining against the thin material of his cotton golf shirt.
Stop looking at his chest. Stop looking at his chest.
“Sexy?” I said, trying to be flippant, hoping I didn’t sound like a breathless teenager.
“You know,” Ethan said. “Cool, trending, interesting. That’s what sexy means in the advertising world.”
“Oh, I know what it means,” I said, my eyes twinkling, back in control. “I just haven’t heard someone use that phrase since the early 2000s.”
“Burn!” Quinn squealed, her finger in Ethan’s face.
“No one says ‘burn’ anymore, Grandma.” Ethan brushed her finger away and laughed.
“I say it.” Quinn stood from her chair and mimed a mic drop. She looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Kids these days,” she scoffed.
“I’m only, like, a year younger than you!” Ethan called as Quinn walked out the door. He sighed. “Look what you did,” he said to me.
I laughed and gently placed Marty on the floor before getting up to put my mug in the dishwasher. “That’s what you get for using the word ‘sexy’ in a sentence where it doesn’t belong.”
“And where does it belong?” He walked over to the sink and stood in front of me, eyes flickering to my lips.
“Nowhere.” I forced myself to hold his gaze. “It’s a degrading description.” I refused to show any signs of being flustered.
“So, what if I thought a person was sexy?” His eyebrow rose and the side of his mouth followed in a sly half grin.
“You would keep it to yourself.” I closed the dishwasher and spun on my heel, ready to leave the conversation.
Didn’t he have a girlfriend? He hadn’t mentioned her lately, but that didn’t mean anything. Was this just harmless flirting or did it mean something? If he did still have a girlfriend, flirting with another woman was not cool. If he didn’t, I guess I would find out soon enough. Gossip had a way of moving around this place at the speed of light. Either way, I had a promise to myself to keep. And getting involved with someone, especially someone I worked with, would only lead to trouble.
Hanging out with Luke was, unexpectedly, turning out to be something I started to look forward to every week.
After almost three months of wedding planning, Luke and I had become—dare I say it—friends. I’d had my doubts; his cheery personality was in direct contrast to my “everything exists to make me miserable” attitude, but his idea to shake things up by doing activities was a good one. I’d actually started to have fun. And I hadn’t had fun in a long time.
“So, how did you get into project management?” I asked one Wednesday after a lengthy evening searching for the perfect wedding guest book.
“Why can’t we just use a regular notebook?” I’d asked, turning over yet another white, satin-covered, encyclopedia-sized, overly priced, bound bundle of perfectly normal notebook paper.
Luke had gasped, half serious. “Don’t even joke about that.” He snatched the book from my hands and held it in front of me. “Do you know how many times Ben and Kate are going to read this?”
“Once?” I guessed.
He scoffed. “Many more times than once. It will hold all the words and memories of their family and dearest friends. We need it to be beautiful.”
Now, leaving the final store with a fifty-dollar guest book in hand, I couldn’t help but smile thinking of how seriously he was taking this and, because of how much I needed a win with this wedding, how much I appreciated it.
“I started building houses with my dad when I was eighteen, so, I guess, twenty-four years ago,” Luke said as he held the door open for me and we walked out into the cool evening. “I worked for a bunch of companies and then realized I liked the coordinating part better than the building part, so I went back to school in the evenings to get my project management certification and started managing the projects instead. I still like the construction side, but I’ve been able to satisfy that part of me by doing projects around the house. You know, building planters and a deck and stuff,” he said as we got into his truck.
“No wonder you want to fix up a house in Cathedral,” I said. “You could actually do it.” I closed the door to his truck and shivered. We were back to the normal, freezing cold, end of October weather, and the vinyl seat was like ice underneath my jeans. “I’m surprised you don’t have a career that has something to do with helping people. Like training therapy dogs or bringing elderly people food in a van.”
Luke smiled. “Are you cold?” he asked as I blew into my un-mittened hands. “Dumb question, of course you are. As soon as the car warms up, I’ll crank up the heat. There’s a blanket in the back if you need it.”
I reached behind me and my hand landed on a colourful fleece blanket, which I pulled onto my lap. “Disney princesses, hey? This suits you.”
“Ha ha,” he said dryly. “Obviously it’s Hannah’s.”
“Obviously.”
He was looking behind him to check before he pulled out of the parking spot when his phone buzzed in the coffee cup holder.
“Speaking of which,” he said as he read the message. “Hannah’s grandma has to go help out a friend and needs me to pick up Hannah early. Would you mind if we did the wedding planning part of the evening at my place instead of a coffee shop?”
“Sure, no problem.” I shrugged. It was no problem, right? Going to his home, meeting his daughter? Nothing weird. Nothing to feel nervous about.
“Aren’t you going to ask how I got into admin work?” I asked as I gazed out the window, saddened by how many shops and restaurants now stood empty since the pandemic. “I actually used to be in HR,” I said. “Before the booze got the better of me.”
“I kind of knew that already,” he said with a sly grin.
“Really? How?” I turned in my seat to face him. “I’m not on social media anymore. Kate or Ben must have told you.”
He looked down, uncharacteristically shy. “We’ve actually met before.”
“What? When? I can’t believe I don’t remember!” But I could believe it. Old Julie always went for pecs and abs over substance. I looked down at my hands as my face flushed. “Was I mean to you?” I asked quietly.
“Meaner to me than you usually are?” He smiled, glancing at me sideways.
“Seriously, was I?”
“Nah.” He shook his head, brushing it off. “It was, like, three or four years ago. We met at a party at your boss’s. I was there with a friend. You didn’t talk to me much.”
A sharp inhale stuck in my throat as I remembered that boss. His breath on my neck as he stepped behind me to help with something on my computer. His hand brushing my thigh under the boardroom table. My inability to make sound decisions after drinking a bottle of wine.
I rubbed my hands on my legs. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you. I wasn’t in the best place back then. And I wasn’t always that nice. I’m still not that nice. You might have noticed.”
“Totally fine,” he said as we pulled into the driveway of a cute little bungalow. Halloween decorations covered every inch of every window, orange-and-black streamers hung from the trees and a big inflatable pumpkin towered over neatly trimmed shrubs. “And, for what it’s worth, I think you’re nice.”
“Wow,” I said as I exited the car, ignoring his compliment. “Someone sure likes Halloween.”
“Daddy!” A tiny voice squealed through the darkness, followed by boots on pavement. Luke strode across the street and a blur of pink clothes and red hair jumped into his arms.
“Hi sweetheart.” He buried his face in her curly mop and kissed her forehead. “Where’s Grandma?”
“She’s watching from the window.” Hannah pointed across the street to where an older lady was smiling and waving, likely much cozier and warmer than I was.
“You live across the street from your…from Hannah’s grandma?” was the only thing I could think of saying.
Luke crossed back over the street holding Hannah’s hand and the three of us walked towards the house. “It was kind of a lucky coincidence.” He pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door, warm air wafting out as he pushed it open. “I had been applying for jobs in a variety of cities, and when I got an offer here in Regina, I decided to take it. Theresa’s mom—her name is Janet, by the way—moved here a few years ago and I already knew Ben, so I figured I’d give it a shot. When the house across the street from Janet went up for sale, I had to grab it. It was kismet.”
“You’re pretty.” I looked down to see Hannah gazing up at me with Luke’s green eyes. “I like your hair.”
“Thank you.” I smiled and reached down to, I don’t know, pat her head? I didn’t really know what to do with kids.
“She’s not a dog, she’s a little girl,” Luke whispered loudly as we walked into the house and Hannah giggled. “Hannah, this is my friend, Julie. She and I are going to do some work, okay? Can you go and brush your teeth?”
“Hi, Julie,” Hannah said, poking her head out from behind the security of her dad.
“Hi, Hannah.” I grinned. She really was adorable. I couldn’t tell from the picture Luke had showed me, but she had the most delicate sprinkle of freckles across her nose.
She threw me a shy smile and then turned around and sprinted down the hall.
“She’s a sweetie,” I said.
Luke smiled a smile that said it all. She was indeed his whole world.
He took my coat and cleared some newspapers and a couple of cereal boxes off the kitchen table so we could sit down. With the exception of the table, the kitchen was very neat and tidy. The house wasn’t lavishly furnished by any means, but it was definitely cozy. You could tell Hannah had helped with the decor.
My quick glance around the living room revealed a big, overstuffed beige couch with what looked to be another Disney princess blanket neatly draped over the back. An older-looking bookshelf was wedged between the couch and the wall, stuffed with both adult books and colourful books that could only be Hannah’s.
I sat at one of the wooden chairs in the kitchen and set my purse beside me, pulling out my phone. “I got one of those newfangled spreadsheet apps you told me about.” I smirked. “How on earth did we survive before digital technology?”
“I know, right?” He pulled his laptop out of his bag and flipped up the top. “I noticed you added some ‘dones’ to the task list; the save the date e-cards all went out okay?”
I nodded. “I even got some positive responses.” Luke was not on board with digital invites, but he had agreed to send the save the dates via email. Apparently, as long as we weren’t digitally inviting people to the actual wedding, we were fine. And, more importantly, Kate and Ben thought they were great. As Kate had repeated several times to me over the past few weeks, the less they had to do the better. “I’m in my forties,” she’d said over a recent group Zoom call. “I’ve realized that marrying the man I love is more important than any wedding binder used to be.”
“I really like the design work you chose,” Luke said as he brought the invite up on the screen. “For someone who doesn’t like planning or weddings, you’ve come up with some banging ideas.”
I smiled to myself, secretly touched by his compliment. I should have said “thank you” but instead I said, “I quit that job. Also, please never use the word ‘banging’ in that context again.”
He looked up from his laptop, confused. “I think I missed something. Quit what job? And I reserve the right to use ‘banging’ as an adjective whenever I please.”
I rolled my eyes. “The place where I don’t remember meeting you. I quit after the first time I stopped drinking. It was pretty toxic.”
“Oh, good for you then. Trying to get sober around anything toxic is a losing battle.” He’d stopped clicking around on his laptop and was giving me his full attention. “Do you like working at the agency?”
“For now,” I said. “I don’t really have any other skills at the moment. I honestly haven’t thought about what I want to do long term. Right now, I just want to plan the crap out of this wedding and then hit my year of sobriety. After those milestones I’ll start thinking about something else. Until then, being sober and less of a hot mess is where all my effort is going.”
“You’ll do it,” he said, his eyes warm and sincere. “I’m getting the feeling you’re a very strong person.”
For someone who’d only known me for a few months, he sure had a lot of faith in me achieving my goals. Faith I wasn’t always sure I had.
His eyes left mine and I turned to see Hannah slowly sliding into the kitchen on pink fuzzy socks, hesitant to interrupt.
“Ready for Charlie?” Luke asked.
She beamed and nodded enthusiastically.
Luke slid off the bench and turned to me. “I’m reading her Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sorry, I won’t be long.”
“Take your time.” I smiled, remembering when Ben had read it to me when we were kids, sitting in my childhood bed under mounds of comforters, snug and safe. It would always be my favourite book.
“It was my favourite book when I was a kid,” Luke said at the same time I thought it, taking me by surprise. He took Hannah’s hand and I watched them walk down the hall to her bedroom.
Maybe we had more in common than I thought.