Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
“It’s normal to feel this nervous, right?” Cadence asked. “Like, am I crazy?”
“You are not crazy,” June assured her. “The other night, Eleanor and I went out for, uh, dinner, and I was at least this nervous about my outfit.”
Cadence paused looking through her closet to give June a suspicious look. “Okay, so that’s obviously a lie, but I don’t have time right now to figure out how you’re lying. But just know that I know.”
“Noted,” June agreed. “But my larger point here is that you are normal.”
Cadence let out a wordless groan as she pressed her face into the doorjamb. “Don’t you guys have someplace better to be?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“Nope,” said June, popping the P. “Your kid is downstairs distracting my kid, so this is literally the best place in the world to me right now.”
“Hm, compelling argument,” Cadence said. The cool wood felt good on her forehead. Why did she feel so sweaty? “What do you got for me, Eleanor?”
Eleanor let out a grumble that rivaled Cadence’s.
“I,” she said snappishly, “am at an impasse on this house nonsense. If I try to go work on something, I just know that I will end up tracking down that Winnie Burnett and giving her a piece of my mind.” She sniffed.
“Garrett, who is a spoilsport, argued that this is a good way to get myself arrested.”
“I don’t know that yelling at people is illegal,” June observed, “but I think Garrett is still right on this one.”
“Yeah, that’s what makes it annoying,” Eleanor complained. “And I wouldn’t yell. I’m a lady. I would… speak sternly.”
“But, like, loud?” June teased.
“Cadence,” Eleanor said pointedly, “do you want to know what June was lying about before?”
Cadence knew that Eleanor wouldn’t actually reveal June’s secrets, but June just laughed and rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” June said. “Go on, tell her about my embarrassing moment. She needs the distraction.”
“It wasn’t embarrassing,” Eleanor said, playfully swatting June with one of Cadence’s throw pillows. “You just had a little nerves attack, that’s all.”
“You make it sound like I’m the annoying mother character in a Regency novel,” June grumbled.
“A lot of my book recommendations have been coming from Miriam recently,” Eleanor said, with an acknowledging nod. “But, to put it in more modern language, you got nervous. It happens.”
Cadence had been listening to their playful banter with only half an ear, the kind of listening she did when Izzy was playing by herself but still needed some low-level supervision. But something suddenly clicked in her brain, and she moved away from the problem of her wardrobe.
There was only one thing she could think of that made June nervous…
“Wait, did you go sing?” she demanded, hands on her hips.
June wobbled her hand in a so-so gesture. “Well, I went. But we didn’t make it as far as the singing. Everyone else was too good! I couldn’t follow that kind of performance.”
“You weren’t ready to follow that performance,” Eleanor corrected gently.
June shot Cadence an amused look. “Eleanor has appointed herself my self-confidence fairy godmother,” she confided.
“Somebody’s gotta do it,” Eleanor said cheerfully.
Eleanor and June explained the full story to Cadence with a kind of rapport that would have made for a great two-man show… or two-woman show, Cadence supposed. By the end, she was cracking up and even June was smiling sheepishly.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “I might have let my nerves get the best of me.”
“No!” Eleanor gasped, feigning shock. June took this opportunity to make her own throw pillow missile, which Eleanor caught with a laugh.
“Listen,” Cadence said. “I cannot say anything about getting nerves, given my current state of…”
“Dithering?” June supplied.
“Yeah, let’s call it that,” Cadence agreed with a chuckle. “But my point is that I know as a point of fact that you are a stellar singer and that nobody would have anything but good things to say if they heard you sing.”
June gave a grumbly sort of face that said she didn’t want to agree but had run out of arguments.
“I love having an ally,” Eleanor said contentedly.
“Okay,” June said pointedly, “I think we have now officially crossed into stalling territory. Pick something to wear.”
As if in direct defiance of this order, Cadence chose that moment to toss aside an airy, summery dress that she loved and wore all the time.
“I don’t know why I’m acting like this,” she admitted with a sigh. “It’s just a meeting.”
She could not miss the glance that her two friends exchanged.
“What?” she demanded.
“A meeting?” June echoed skeptically.
“It does seem that the two of you have… been more understanding of one another during your last few exchanges,” Eleanor said a bit more gently. “Perhaps this isn’t a meeting and more like…”
Cadence’s wince said she knew what Eleanor had left off.
More like a date.
The thing was… she did feel like she was going on a first date, which was silly! She and Tyler had been on too many dates to count over the years, for one thing.
For another, this wasn’t a date… was it?
“I’m nervous about all of it,” she confided in her friends.
“I’m nervous about us getting closer again, and nervous that we’ll realize that we can’t make that happen.
It just all feels so scary right now, like anything could happen…
and I worry that no matter what does happen, I’m risking my heart again. ”
As one, her friends rose and wrapped her in a hug. It was the perfect response.
It was made even more perfect when Eleanor said, “Okay, so I’m going to give you the June Caldwell treatment, by which I mean I’m just going to pick and you’re going to get dressed. No arguments.”
“She’s really good at it,” June reassured Cadence. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Don’t tell Diana.”
They all laughed at this, as none of them truly thought that their friend would begrudge them their fun.
Cadence had to admit to herself, when she looked in the mirror after her friends had bid her farewell for the evening, June taking Izzy with her for a sleepover, that Eleanor had done a good job.
She’d picked out a flowy sun dress that flattered Cadence’s figure, while the abstract floral pattern helped the garment straddle the line between formality and casualness.
No matter where the evening took them, Cadence would be prepared with her light makeup, thin wrap in case of an evening breeze, and flat but cute sandals.
It was a darn good outfit, and Cadence felt great about herself wearing it.
But how good she felt while looking in the mirror had nothing on the way it felt when she opened the door and Tyler stopped in his tracks.
“Hey, Cadence, how are—”
He paused mid-sentence as he took her in.
“Uh, wow,” he said. “I… wow. Cadence, you look…”
As he stammered, Cadence felt her grin grow and her cheeks heat.
“Amazing,” he finally managed. “You look amazing.”
She felt so bashful that she had to fight the impulse to look at her feet. The real thing that saved her from the temptation was looking at Tyler.
He too, had cleaned up extremely well for their evening.
She’d always enjoyed what she called his ‘electrician look,’ his usual uniform of well-worn blue jeans, a t-shirt with a flannel over top, work boots, sometimes a baseball cap to top it off.
It was a rugged look that suited his broad shoulders and general laid-back attitude.
But this look…
Well, it had been a long time since Cadence had seen Tyler so dressed up, and it made her think with a pang of the way they had both let their marriage fall by the wayside.
Oh, indeed, they’d been focused on their efforts at having another child, sure.
But they hadn’t spent time just enjoying being together.
She pushed aside the stab of guilt that accompanied the thought. Tonight wasn’t for past regrets. Tonight was for…
Well, fine. She still wasn’t positive what tonight was for.
But Tyler was wearing a light summer jacket, a pair of dark wash jeans that struck the same tone between casual and formal as did her dress, and a button-up shirt in the lightest blue.
The top button was undone, revealing a small notch of his throat.
Cadence tried not to stare.
It wasn’t news to her that she was attracted to Tyler, obviously. They’d been in love for years! But now she felt like she was seeing him for the first time.
Or maybe it was just the first time in a long time.
“You look really nice too,” she said, feeling suddenly shy. It had been a long, long time since Cadence had been on a first date, but this really felt like a first date.
She felt comforted that Tyler seemed to be experiencing similar emotions. He was glancing around like he half expected her father to peek out from around the corner and demand that Tyler have his daughter back home at a reasonable hour.
After a beat longer, however, the moment broke, and they both started laughing at the same time.
“We’re being so weird,” Cadence said.
“Yeah, I have the strangest urge to introduce myself?” Tyler said with a self-deprecating shake of his head.
Cadence stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Cadence Meadows.”
“Tyler Meadows,” he responded, shaking her proffered hand. Touching him sent a little shiver through Cadence. “Totally crazy coincidence that we have the same last name, huh?”
“Totally crazy,” she agreed. “Anyway, where are we headed?”
“Right,” he said, blinking to alertness. “Plans. Well, okay, would you think I’m being a total cheeseball if I keep it a surprise?”
“Yes,” she said immediately. “But nobody ever said being a cheeseball was bad.”
He extended his arm to her with a grin. She looped her arm through his and, for a moment, everything between them just felt so right and so easy that it was almost impossible to imagine how they’d ever let things come between them.