Chapter Thirty-One
The Truth Tastes Like Bourbon
Dean
Sullivan’s looks exactly like it did in law school. The same sticky floors, the same bartender who pours heavily, and the same lies I tell myself about why I keep coming back.
“You look like shit,” Nate says, sliding into the booth across from me.
“Thanks. Really needed that,” I reply, tipping my chin at him.
He grins, the same stupid grin that got us through Torts. Except now there are crow’s feet, a wedding ring, and probably some spit-up on his shirt.
“Amelia sends her love.” He pulls out his phone. “And approximately four thousand photos of Rosie’s first attempt at sweet potatoes.”
“Thrilling.”
But he’s already swiping through the photos. Baby in a high chair, orange goop everywhere, Amelia laughing in the background with her hair in a messy bun, looking exhausted yet radiant—everything I pretended I’d never want.
When Emily left, I told myself that was it—focus on work, make partner, and don’t get hurt again. Lock it down.
“She’s basically a tiny dictator,” Nate says, pure worship in his voice, his eyes still glued to his phone. “Yesterday she screamed for forty minutes because I gave her the wrong spoon. The. Wrong. Spoon.”
I take a long pull of bourbon. “Sounds awful.”
“It’s the best.”
He means it. The bastard actually means it. I can read it all over his face.
More photos flash by—a baby in a bathtub, a baby asleep on his chest, and a baby giving the camera a gummy smile.
“This one’s my favorite.” He shows me a video of Amelia dancing in their kitchen, baby on her hip, both of them covered in what looks like applesauce. She’s singing off-key while the baby shrieks with laughter.
Something cracks in my chest.
“She’s cute,” I manage to say.
“She’s perfect. Even when she’s demonic. Which is often.” He pockets his phone and finally looks at me directly. “How’s the firm?”
I take another sip, the bourbon warming my throat. “Great.”
“And the house?” He’s watching me too closely now, reading between the lines.
“Still standing.” I shift in my seat, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.
“That wedding planner Mason mentioned?” He leans forward slightly, and I know this is what he’s been working up to.
Dammit, Mason.
I signal for another bourbon and rub my temple. “In Italy.”
“Ah.” He leans back, nodding as if that explains everything. “Is that why you look like someone killed your dog?”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“Right. Just borrowing the neighbor’s emotional support animal.”
“It’s not—” I stop and take a breath. Why is everyone against me? Tonight was supposed to be about moving on—grabbing drinks and dinner with an old law school buddy. Not whatever this hell is. “How’s work?” I manage, gritting my teeth.
Nice deflection, asshole.
“Good. Boring. Exactly how I like it.” He steals a fry from the basket between us. “Nine to five. Home for dinner. Bedtime stories. The whole suburban nightmare you always mocked.”
“I didn’t mock it.”
“You literally called it ‘death by minivan.’“
“That was—”
“Last year. At my birthday.” He grins. “Right before you gave that whole speech about freedom and choices and not being tied down.”
The bourbon burns. Good.
“Things change,” I mutter.
“Do they?” He studies me, that lawyer look we perfected in mock trial, checking for weaknesses. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re still doing the exact same thing. Big cases. Empty house. Pretending you’re too evolved for basic human connection.”
“Screw off.”
“She must’ve been something.”
I don’t answer.
“Mason said she handled his entire wedding solo. Said she charmed everyone. Even you.”
“She was… competent.” The word feels wrong. Of course she was competent. But she was so much more.
Nate laughs. Actually laughs. “Competent. Damn, Dean. You’re thirty-five, not dead.”
“Thirty-six.”
“Whatever. Point is, when are you going to stop this?”
My fingers tighten around the glass. “This?”
“The whole tortured genius routine. It’s getting old.” He says it gently, but it still lands like a punch.
I want to argue. Want to tell him he doesn’t understand. That some of us are built differently. That not everyone needs the house and the baby and the—love of his life.
His phone buzzes, and his face softens.
“Amelia?” I guess.
“Rosie’s bedtime.” He shows me the screen, it’s a FaceTime request. “You mind?”
Yes.
A lot, actually.
“Go ahead.”
He answers. The screen fills with a baby—droopy eyes, clutching a stuffed elephant, with Amelia’s voice in the background saying, “Show Daddy your new trick.”
The baby blows a raspberry.
Nate acts like she just solved world hunger. “That’s my girl! Can you do it again?”
She does. With more spit.
“Genius,” he declares. Then to me, “Want to say hi?”
“I’m good.”
But the phone’s already turned. The baby stares at me through the screen, huge eyes and a suspicious expression, as if she knows I’m full of shit.
“That’s Uncle Dean,” Nate tells her. “He’s pretending he doesn’t want one of you.”
“I’m not—”
The baby raspberries at me.
“See? Even she knows.”
I flip him off below the camera line.
Five minutes later, after a bedtime song, promises to be home soon, and more kisses than seem necessary, he hangs up.
“Sorry,” he says, the dopey grin on his face suggesting he’s not really sorry at all.
“It’s fine.”
“You know what your problem is?”
I curl my fingers around my glass. “Please, enlighten me.”
“You think wanting something normal makes you weak.”
I finish my bourbon. “I don’t think that.”
“No? Then why are you sitting here looking like death while some wedding planner in Italy is probably wondering why you let her go?”
“I didn’t let her—she was always going. It was temporary.”
“Everything’s temporary if you decide it is.”
“That’s not—”
“I used to be you,” he interrupts. “Remember? Same speeches, same bullshit about freedom and not needing anyone. Then Amelia happened.”
“And now you’re covered in applesauce.”
“And I’ve never been happier.” He’s serious. Completely serious. I shift in my seat, my jaw tightening, because the certainty in his eyes makes something in my chest ache. “It’s terrifying, yeah. Having someone who could destroy you just by leaving. But Dean… the alternative is this.”
He gestures at me, at my empty glass, at my expensive suit and crooked tie, and at the perfect life that has a hole where something should be.
“I should go.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended.
“You should go to Italy.”
“What?” I blink, my pulse kicking hard, as if he’s just ripped open a thought I’ve been fighting to bury.
“Whatever happened with that wedding planner, fix it.”
My chest tightens, defensive walls slamming up. “There’s nothing to fix.”
“Right.” He stands and throws cash on the table. “That’s why you’ve checked your phone six times since I got here.”
I haven’t. Have I? I glance at my phone anyway, guilt prickling hot under my collar.
“Go home,” he says. “Think about what you actually want. Then maybe, for once in your life, be brave enough to take it.”
He leaves, and I order another bourbon.
I stare at my phone.
She hasn’t texted. Why would she? I told her to be careful, like she was a stranger, like our time together meant nothing.
I’m not sitting here drowning in baby photos and pretending I still believe my own bullshit.
The thought of her meeting someone new and moving on isn’t pleasant. It sits in my stomach like a rock.
I pay and drive home. The estate is dark except for the security lights.
No George. No chaos. No woman in a sundress making everything difficult.
Just quiet.
I head inside, pour a scotch, and sit on the couch.
I get up, pour more scotch, and stare out the window at the guest cottage.
“Damn it.”
Ten minutes later, I’m standing at the cottage door with the spare key.
This is stupid. She’s gone. There’s nothing—
I open the door.
The scent hits me immediately—vanilla, her perfume, that damn cucumber face mask she wore one morning. There’s a physical ache in my chest where my heart used to be.
I should leave.
Instead, I walk in. Everything is exactly as she left it. The bed is made with military corners. One coffee mug sits in the drying rack. Her planning binder is gone, but a sticky note is stuck to the counter—Thank you for everything. Take care of George. And Muffin. And yourself. - P
“Take care of yourself,” I mutter. “Real original.”
I’m pathetic. Standing in an empty cottage, smelling the hint of her leftover perfume.
I turn to go, and that’s when I see it.
There, on the floor by the couch, catching the light.
An earring.
Small. Gold. One that probably has a match somewhere in Italy.
I pick it up and study it like it holds answers.
It doesn’t.
But now I’m thinking about her losing it, taking them off after that first long day, too tired to notice one rolling away. I’m imagining her in Italy, reaching for her earrings, finding only one.
“This is insane,” I tell the empty room.
I pocket the earring anyway.
Back at my house, I pour more scotch and open my laptop.
I type: Is it crazy to fly to Italy to return an earring?
Delete.
I type: Found something that belongs to someone in Italy. Worth returning?
Delete.
I pour more scotch.
I navigate over to Reddit.
I create a new post.
Title: Need Advice pls
Body: Would I be crazy if I flew to Italy to return jewelry to a woman who was only temporarily in my life but left me questioning everything?
I stare at it.
I post it to r/relationships.
The responses come in fast.
[thisdude]: brO. YES. FLY TO ITALY. NOW.
[cottagecore_cynic]: If you don’t go, you’ll regret it forever. Speaking from experience.
[ladyinred]: This is rom-com stuff, and I’m here for it. UPDATE US.
[Bageldad]: Life’s short. Flights are long. But regret lasts forever. Book the ticket.
[cottagecore_cynic]: Dude, asking Reddit means you already know the answer.
[hyperforty]: What’s the worst that could happen? She says thanks, and you see Italy? GO.
[Bageldad]: I flew to Japan for a girl once. Married for 12 years now. YOLO.
[cottagecore_cynic]: The earring is just an excuse, and you know it. Stop being a coward.
That last one stings.
But they’re right. All of them. Even the person who just commented with a bunch of peach emojis and the words GET IT in all caps.
I open a new tab and search for flights to Italy.
There’s one leaving tomorrow afternoon.
My cursor hovers over ‘Book Now.’
This is insane. I have the week off work. But still, I have a life that makes sense without her in it.
Had. I had a life that made sense.
I think about Nate, his baby, his applesauce-covered happiness.
I think about Poppy laughing at George, swaying in my arms under fairy lights, looking at me like maybe I wasn’t a lost cause.
I type in my credit card info and click ‘Book Now.’
The confirmation email comes through immediately.
Flight to Milan. Connection to Genoa. Car to Portofino.
I screenshot it and send it to Nate.
His response is immediate.
NATE: About damn time.
NATE: Rosie says good luck. Attached is a photo of the baby with what might be a thumbs-up but is probably just a fist.
I stare at the earring. Such a small thing. It barely weighs anything.
But maybe that’s the point.
Maybe the big things start small.
Maybe they begin with admitting that your perfect life is perfectly empty.
And maybe they start with a flight to Italy, an earring, and the kind of hope I swore I’d never let myself feel.
“Be careful,” I mutter to myself.
Then I book a rental car for good measure.
Because careful is overrated.
And I’m done pretending I don’t want what everyone else seems to have figured out.
Connection. Chaos. Someone to come home to.
Even if she tells me to get lost in Italian.
At least I’ll know I tried.
The earring rests on my coffee table, catching the light.
Less than twenty-four hours until my flight.
Twenty-four hours to figure out what I’m going to say when I see her.
No pressure.