CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“It was terrible,” I groaned for the fifth time, adjusting the refrigerated under-eye masks.
Georgie tossed me a raised eyebrow over her shoulder. Half her hair piled on top of her head, a mud mask streaked across her face, and she perched on a floor pillow scrolling on my laptop. “Really, he can’t be that bad if Serena’s marrying him.”
“You won’t get it until you meet him,” I muttered and flopped back onto a pile of pillows on the couch.
She hummed in response, her version of, “I think you’re wrong, but I won’t say it.”
“Do you think this is cabernet?” Georgie asked, tilting the screen toward me.
I propped up on an elbow and peered at the gown in question.
Serena, unsurprisingly, had opinions on nothing but the attire.
She apologized profusely for not being able to design our gowns—a task I thought was ridiculous for a bride to even consider—before providing a long list of qualities we needed in a dress.
Floor-length, silk or chiffon, no high leg slits or sleeves, and not maroon, or purple, or burgundy: the shade of cabernet.
Admittedly, even I was a little stumped.
Were all fashion designers this high maintenance as brides?
“I dunno,” I said with a shrug. “Have any red wine laying around?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I don’t hate myself.”
I shouldn’t have even asked the queen of all things sweet. To her, coffee and alcohol were best consumed when no longer identifiable by anyone sane.
However, her aversion to wine stood in the way between me and a perfect evening.
Easton groaned in his sleep and stretched, but came up against a wall of Margot. He opened one eye and stretched again. I poked him with a toe and said, “Stick to your cushion, buddy.”
“Oh, what about this one?” Georgie pointed to a gorgeous silk gown. “Please tell me this is the right color.”
I peered over her shoulder. “It just might be.”
She sucked in a sharp breath and dropped her head in her hands. “Never mind—it’s eight hundred dollars.”
“Aren’t you all flush with pottery cash now?”
Georgie’s eyebrows flew up. “Not that flush! Plus, I’m working on paying off all my debt from the last few years.” She shuddered.
“Let me pay for it,” I said, swinging my legs off the couch. “The firm owned my apartment—I’ve had almost no living expenses for two years. Someone’s gotta burn all this cash.”
She hesitated. “Shouldn’t you… save it?”
Our faces scrunched simultaneously.
“Gross, does that make us adults?” I asked, sliding onto the floor beside her. “That’s no fun.”
We sighed in tandem and promptly redirected our search to all the sales across the internet. My phone buzzed against the coffee table. I ignored it and pointed to an off-the-shoulder number on the screen. When my phone vibrated again, I groaned and picked it up in order to turn the thing off.
My breath caught in my throat.
Teddy Bowman: Look outside
Then:
Teddy Bowman: Don’t ignore me
Georgie, always too curious for her own good, peeked over my arm and gasped. She was already up and running toward the door before I could get a grip on an appendage—I’d never seen her move so fast in my life.
“Georgie!” I all but shrieked, scrambling to the foyer and lunging at her.
My arms were already around her shoulders when I remembered her rather frequent and notorious arguments with gravity. It was too late. One of her feet caught in the rug, sending us both plummeting to the floor with a resounding thud.
“Georgie,” I mumbled through a mop of curls. “You’re suffocating me.”
She rolled off with a laugh and pushed her hair from her eyes, leaving a streak of bare skin in the mud mask. “You can’t be mad,” she said as I glared at her and rubbed my hip. “You should know better than to tackle me and think I’ll remain standing.”
I untwisted my sock and sat up. “I can’t help it when you put me in fight or flight mode.”
As if remembering her original mission, George crawled to the sidelight and pushed the blinds apart. Stomach twisting, I nearly grabbed her ankle and dragged her back into the living room.
“Oh my—”
“What?” I whisper-yelled, lurching forward and wedging my own face into the sidelight.
Illuminated by the auburn glow of the porch light, looking like a door-to-door salesman that I’d very much prefer to avoid, was Teddy.
And, somewhat less importantly, Georgie’s boyfriend.
She hopped to her feet in record time, and when her hand touched the door knob, I held back the urge to ask how much caffeine she’d had that day.
“What are you guys doing here?” she squealed with little bunny hops as they filed inside.
Inside, where I sat on the floor beside a crumpled rug, ponytail askew and one under-eye mask perilously close to falling off my chin.
I watched as they both scanned the foyer wearing nearly identical looks of confusion.
Easton, to his credit, came barreling over to them, tongue wagging and slobber dripping.
“Have you been burglarized?” Rhett asked, pulling Georgie under an arm.
Teddy crouched and allowed Easton to assault him with an onslaught of rather aggressive kisses. I tried not to linger too long on his goofy smile or the way he let Easton flop into his otherwise expensive-looking coat.
Instead of a response, Georgie peered into the brown paper bag under his other arm. “Got any doughnuts?”
“That is not why we came,” Rhett replied, fighting a grin as he pulled it away from her. He quickly turned into the kitchen and flicked a light on, a perpetually hungry Georgie in tow. Easton followed almost immediately. The dog knew his priorities.
Leaving me alone with Teddy.
He made a futile attempt at patting some dog hair from his coat before rising and offering me a hand. Of course he looked so natural there, backlit by Georgie’s sconces, playing with the dog he hadn’t seen in seven years. He never needed to be told to relax.
Teddy wasn’t really afraid of anything.
I slipped my hand into his and let him pull me to my feet, if only to feel his warmth one last time. Letting go, I cleared my throat and quickly readjusted the under-eye mask I’d nearly forgotten in all the commotion.
“So, why are you here?” I asked as I retightened my ponytail, probably a lost cause at that point. “And with Rhett, too?”
He shrugged off his coat and hung it next to mine. “Ran into him at the diner, we got to talking, and well… here we are.”
Any normal person would’ve required a longer explanation. I knew Teddy better than most, though. Elected to Homecoming court every year of high school and voted “most likely to brighten your day” in our senior yearbook, he’d never met a social mountain he couldn’t climb.
“That doesn’t really explain anything,” I mused, flattening the rug with my feet.
“You’re right,” he replied with a smile. “We, uh—thought we’d make you both dinner.”
I narrowed my eyes as he dipped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Teddy looked particularly uncomfortable. “Okay…” I drawled, moving past him to lean on the entryway to the kitchen.
Georgie had flicked on the portable radio Rhett gifted her a couple weeks ago, a lazy Ella Fitzgerald tune drifting from its speakers.
She’d evidently overlooked the mud mask streaked and cracking on her face, instead swaying beside Rhett and nudging him with her hips as he diligently chopped a bounty of vegetables.
I wasn’t too sure what she contributed to dinner—but it clearly, he didn’t mind in the least.
Teddy braced his back against the jamb, opting to watch me instead.
I cast him a sidelong glance. “This is the real thing, huh?”
“Looks like it,” Teddy replied. The corner of his lips tilted but his gaze didn’t falter.
I adjusted the oversized sweater I borrowed from Georgie, the air having grown to a stifling degree in the last several minutes.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping?” I asked. “Seeing as this was your idea and all.”
He laughed and tossed his chin in their direction. “And interrupt that?”
“Uh-uh,” Rhett interrupted without moving from the cutting board. “I need you prepping the steaks.” I watched, mildly amused, as Rhett kissed Georgie on top of the head and shooed her away.
For whatever reason, Teddy hesitated for a second before sending me a grin and venturing into the kitchen.
“C’mon, you need to wash your face,” I told Georgie.
She gasped and touched her cheek. “How long was this supposed to be on? Will my eyebrows be burned off?”
“It’s not even on your eyebrows,” I quipped, pushing her toward the downstairs bathroom.
After dinner, we found ourselves sprawled across the couch while Teddy and Rhett crumpled themselves onto floor cushions.
Georgie insisted we watch When Harry Met Sally—I put up a valiant fight, but she hardly waited for anyone’s approval before sliding the disc into her DVD player.
I didn’t imagine the wink she sent me when Meg Ryan appeared on screen.
My new copy of Emma that I gifted her earlier that day stared at me from the shelf, its gilded spine smirking in the TV glow each time Sally continued to fruitlessly yearn for Harry. I shifted so often on the couch that, eventually, all three of them separately mumbled at me to stop.
Teddy firmly pressed himself up against my leg to the point that I could feel the muscles in his back stiffen each time he laughed.
I attempted to focus on Easton’s snore as he reluctantly napped on his bed in the corner, or how Georgie unconsciously ruffled Rhett’s hair each time she sighed at the TV—but that only made me think of Teddy’s hair, and how I very much would’ve liked to reach out and touch it.
Was it as soft as it used to be? Had it grown thicker with age, as his chin widened and his shoulders broadened?
Embarrassingly enough, my thoughts hadn’t ventured far from Teddy’s hair or the warmth of his back by the time Harry launched into his love confession on New Year’s Eve. My chest tightened with something dense and sharp as he pulled her in for a kiss.
Movies were fiction. In reality, unrequited love remained unrequited, and romantic music would never swell at exactly the right time.
Dependability was as rare of a trait as ambidexterity, hard work didn’t guarantee anything, and waiting for a protagonist to fix my smoking heap of a life would prove to be pointless.
No one had truly changed—not my parents, or this town, or even the old Margot. The only person I could depend on was me. Even if I wanted nothing more than someone just as constant as myself.
“I’m going to walk him out,” Georgie was saying, hopping from the couch and dragging Rhett to his feet.
I watched as she shoved her slippers on in the foyer, laughing about something under their breaths as they slid out the door. Teddy turned on his cushion until he faced me, alarmingly close while he peered up at my face with an inscrutable glimmer in his eyes.
Sitting up until I was a comfortable distance, I joked, “Need me to walk you home?”
“How else would you get your coat back?”
I’d almost forgotten that. Quality time in exchange for my favorite trench coat. My quota must’ve been met. “Good point,” I stupidly murmured.
“Although, I think I’ve upped my price,” he said with a grin, drumming his thumb on his knee.
“Huh?”
“The ransom,” he replied matter-of-factly.
Adjusting Georgie’s sweater, I silently vowed to convince her to use the air conditioning more often. “We’ve hung out… three times. Isn’t that enough?”
Not that I was counting.
“I believe the captor sets the terms,” Teddy retorted.
I flushed. He really had no idea how easy it was for him to unravel me—and the thought sent a chill of horror down my spine. Just as I was beginning to wrap myself back onto the spool, was Teddy going to come along and undo it all?
“Whatever you want,” I replied casually. His brows drew together as I unfolded from the couch and sent him an expectant look. “But I think it’s about time to call it a night.”
Teddy seemed to consider his response before standing and following me to the foyer. “Can I walk you home?” he asked, bending over to pull on his shoes.
“No,” I blurted out. Then, calling on the three brain cells I had left, I added, “Georgie and I are having a sleepover.”
Teddy straightened to his full height and gave me a lopsided smile. “Just like old times, huh?”
Heart in my throat, I nodded and wrapped my fingers around the doorknob as he shrugged on his coat. He needed to get out of here before he incurred any further damage. After a full night’s rest, I could safely encounter him again, every layer of steel around my faculties back in place.
His eyes lingered on mine for a split second before I wrenched the door open and awkwardly motioned him outside.
“Right,” Teddy murmured under his breath, stepping into the porch light. I was about to bid him goodbye and close it in his face when he asked, “When can I see you again?”
And just like that, I was thirteen, gazing up at him with all the hope in the world as he promised we’d always stick together. That I could depend on him. That, no matter what, through all the mess and the chaos, he’d be there when it settled.
In the end, though, he successfully proved the one thing my father already had.
“You have my number, Teddy,” I said with a sigh. “You always have.”
His mouth parted, but the sound of Georgie skipping up the creaking porch steps interrupted his response. She froze just behind him, eyes darting from him to me like a baby deer caught in a pair of headlights.
I urged her inside and tossed Teddy a perfunctory goodbye.
“Bye, Teddy!” Georgie called over my shoulder as I slammed the door shut and immediately locked it as if I was worried he’d come barreling back through. She arched an eyebrow at me as I turned to her, back pressed to the wood.
“Can I sleep over?”