16. Our Predicament
16
OUR PREDICAMENT
Gage
Elodie just goes for it. I shouldn’t be surprised. She’s always been bold. Upfront. Gutsy.
I appreciate that in a woman. In a person. It’s worlds better than the style of living I saw growing up—with the jabs, and the pokes, and the prods from my father.
I take a thoughtful sip of coffee and give her an honest answer since she deserves to know who she’s getting into business with. “My dad’s a hard-ass. He was always really hard on Zane and me. Try harder, get better grades, throw faster, hit better. But he did that to our mom too. He got on her case about everything from how she folded laundry, to how she stacked the dishwasher, to how she brushed her teeth.”
“I take it they’re not together?”
I shake my head, so damn grateful Mom got out of that situation. “Nope. She finally left him after I graduated from high school. Wish it were sooner, but thank fuck she did it.” I take a sip of my coffee—black, as she’d suspected. “It took her a while to meet someone new. She married again recently and now she’s traveling the world with her new guy. Zane’s traveling, too, with his partner. They’re both ridiculously happy,” I say with a smile I feel deep in my soul. I’m truly happy for my brother and for my mom. “They deserve all the good things.”
She smiles softly. “They do.” For a second, I fear she’s about to ask but do you , and I’m not sure I want to answer that. After a pause, she says, “But you’re hard on yourself, aren’t you?”
The caring tone unlocks a part of me. The part that doesn’t always share. That hasn’t really shared since I was in therapy several years ago. “Sure. I guess I’m always asking myself if I’ve done enough—at work, with Eliza, with coaching, with friends.” I force out a laugh at my own expense. “Probably the only time I don’t is when I’m making soap.”
“You make soap?”
“Handmade.”
She shakes her head with a big smile on her face. “That’s too much.”
“Why?”
“You have tattoos. You go all out. You’re gallant and pay for Lyfts even when a date ends. You return a damsel’s vibrator. And…you make soap.”
I’m not sure why she likes that, but I’ll take it. “It’s good soap. But it could be better.”
She laughs now. “That’s my point exactly.”
Owning my flaw, I shrug, then take a sip. “A lot of times I feel like I haven’t tried hard enough.”
She takes a drink too, then sets down the latte mug. “Do you have trouble sleeping?”
That’s an odd question. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I just wonder if all these questions you ask yourself—have you done enough—keep you up late at night.”
I sink back in the chair, feeling seen, feeling too seen. But not entirely minding. There’s something about Elodie’s easy intuitiveness that soothes me. There’s no judgment in how she reads a situation. Just curiosity. It feels different than Kylie, who was harder to get to know, who held pieces of herself back. “Yes. It takes me a long time to fall asleep. What about you?”
“I do worry about a lot of things, but honestly, I let them go at night.”
“Jealous. How the hell do you pull that off?” I ask, leaning closer, feeling a bit like we’re all alone in the back of the coffee shop as “Unforgettable” plays faintly overhead. Reminds me of the names of her chocolates, the old standards.
But I’m too interested in the convo to go off on that tangent, especially when she says, “Don’t laugh” like a warning.
“That’s almost a guarantee that I will.”
She wags a finger, the red polish on her nails gleaming. But my ring on her finger shines even brighter. “No teasing either.”
“Now I have to know. What’s the trick?”
With a smile like she has a secret, she lifts two fingers together and moves them in a come-hither motion.
Oh, fuck me. That’s hot. I’m pretty sure the temperature in this coffee shop shot through the roof. “Seriously? You’re going to be the death of me.”
“Self-care,” she says, smugly. Then earnestly, she adds, “Look, it works. It takes the edge off the day.”
“Now I want to watch you go to bed. Grab a chair in the corner of your bedroom. Enjoy the show,” I tell her, painting the picture I’m dying to see.
“You want that? Tickets to the show?”
“I want the only ticket,” I say.
She leans closer now, her hair falling and hiding the side of her face, adding to the privacy. “I’d do that. For you.”
I tug at my shirt collar. “Elodie,” I warn.
“Gage,” she fires back.
“Stupid fucking rules,” I mumble, wanting nothing more right now than to grab her beautiful face and kiss those lush lips, hard. “You’re making me want to finish what we started.”
“I’ve finished it a few times already,” she whispers. Her voice is feathery, full of lust.
“Same here.”
“Yeah?” I swear her dirty brain lights up. Her blue eyes flicker. “How? Do I suck you off? Or do you bend me over the bed? Or do you reach into my nightstand and take out one of my toys, then use it on me?”
My skin crackles. My cells burn. My muscles are strung tight with restraint. “You get on your knees, but I don’t finish that way. I haul you up in my arms, kiss those sexy lips, and then spin you around. And use one of your toys on you while I fuck you to countless orgasms.”
“You use my toys,” she says with filthy awe in her voice.
“Cupcake, we went on a date because of a toy. You better believe I’d make you come the way you want—with toys. Lots and lots of toys.”
She shudders and it’s a sight to behold, the way her desire moves like a wave through her body. Her eyes flutter closed. For a few heady seconds, she seems to be watching a filthy movie in her mind—the one we just wrote together.
Then, she opens her eyes. “I’ll sleep well tonight.” She blows out a long breath and flaps a hand in front of her face. “All right. We need a different topic. Something that won’t make me want to sit on your lap right now.”
I laugh, leaning back in my chair. “We could discuss the menu for our first night at Special Edition.”
She scoffs. “Right. Because cocktails and chocolate don’t turn me on.”
“Woman, you picked our business over pillow talk. You picked it because it’s sexy.”
“My point exactly. I can’t talk business with you to get rid of my hard nips.”
A laugh bursts from me. I’ve never heard someone speak so directly.
She gestures to her fantastic chest and goddammit, to the outline of her nipples in her red short-sleeve sweater. “Well, it’s your fault.”
I groan, a little in misery, a little in admiration. “I accept full responsibility. And damn, I do approve. And I’d really like to show them some well-deserved attention.”
She growls at me. “Not helping.”
I gesture to my hard-on, practically punching its way out of my jeans. “You’re not helping here either!”
Then, we burst into laughter over, clearly, our predicament.
Soon though, we collect ourselves, and we do discuss the offerings for our first night, devising a plan, and, miraculously, steering the ship out of I want to watch you get off waters.
Once we’re back on chaste shores, I return to the topic we never finished, because I genuinely want to understand her. “You said you worry but you let it go. What stresses you out?”
She draws a deep breath, perhaps a fortifying one. “It wasn’t easy for me to suddenly become a mom out of nowhere.” Then, like it’s hard for her to say, but important too, she adds, “Amanda’s seventeen years younger and our parents died in a car crash two years ago. I’m her guardian. Her mom. Her sister. It’s complicated. Sometimes I feel like both. Sometimes I feel like a failure. It’s extra hard because they were very different with me than they were with her.”
“How so?”
“They were…uninvolved with me. They were too interested in drinking, partying, going out, having a good time. I was left to my own devices. Which seemed fun at the time, but wasn’t really.”
My heart squeezes painfully. “I get that. Kids might say they want to be left alone, but they really don’t. They want us. They need us.”
“They do.” She nods sadly, then hesitates some before she adds, “We grieved them in very different ways. It was…much harder for her. I didn’t feel as close to them.” There’s some guilt in her tone but not for long. It’s mostly replaced by relief when she says, “With Amanda, they’d stopped drinking. Become sobriety coaches. Put all their money into that new line of work—sober houses and so on. They were walking the walk and talking the talk and helping others and being super parents. And I’m truly glad she had that. Really, I am. I’m glad she had the parents I never had. But maybe that’s part of what makes me feel like a failure too.”
“You’re not a failure,” I say instantly, reaching for her hand.
“How do you know?” she asks, quietly, taking my palm in hers.
“Because you’re trying. Because I can tell how much she matters to you. Because I already know how important she is to you. You are not a failure, and I’m so sorry about your loss.”
“Thank you. Every day feels like it has a new challenge. Every day I feel like I’m just making it up as I go along.” She takes a sip of her latte—with extra foam, as I’d predicted. “I really want this shop to work, Gage. I had this offer from a chain,” she says, then tells me more about The Chocolate Connoisseur and the low-ball deal she turned down.
“Good. I’m glad you turned it down. Elodie’s is the best chocolate in the whole damn city, and I should know. I’ve eaten most of it.”
She smiles. “Big spender.”
“Seriously. Your chocolate is amazing and your brand kills it. You don’t need anyone else but you. We’re going to make this work,” I say, since it’s so much easier to feel certain on her behalf than my own.
“I hope so. I want to take care of Amanda. Be there for her…in a way my parents weren’t when I was young.” A pang digs into my heart. It aches a little harder for her as she gives a one-shoulder shrug and adds, “Like chocolate was for me.”
“What do you mean?” I’m careful because that could mean sweets were her comfort, her addiction, or something else entirely.
“Just that it was reliable. It was—don’t laugh this time—like a lighthouse. It was steady, reliable, and always there. And since I was good at chemistry, it made sense to me. I started experimenting with making chocolate in the kitchen when my parents were out. And then it became…my companion.” It’s said with such affection, such fondness that it’s clear chocolate isn’t simply what she sells. It’s part of who she is.
“It felt like home?”
She’s wistful as she nods. “Yes. In a way, it was home. Maybe like baseball for you?”
That’s a damn good assessment. Baseball was my constant. Until it wasn’t. “That sounds about right. But not as tasty as chocolate.”
“Maybe Sticks and Stones is that for you now. Something steady and reliable. A ballast?”
“Yes. We’re going to make this work,” I say with more certainty than I feel, but I need to give this strength to her.
She smiles, full of a hope that matches mine.
The moment ends when her phone buzzes. She looks down at it, perplexed. “It’s a video from your grandmother.”
“It must be of the proposal. Open it,” I say, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it, truth be told. The other morning already feels like a blur. And I don’t want to forget it.
She hits play and turns the phone for us both to see. But the video’s not the proposal. It’s me at the bar last week as I removed a purple dick from a pink envelope. “How did this get here? Is it yours?” I’m asking Grams, off-screen.
And Elodie is dying. She’s laughing over the remains of her latte.
When the video ends, I shake my head in admiration. “Grandma two. Gage, zero.”
“I’ll say,” Elodie says.
“She will never not get my goat.”
“You two have quite the bond, don’t you?”
“Yeah, we really do.”
“I’m glad she’s in on it then. I wouldn’t want to lie to her. Or to your daughter,” she says.
That means a lot to me. That she feels the same. “Me too. I’m glad they are as well. I’m glad we agree a little bit on how to be honest within our false romance.”
Somehow, that makes me feel a little closer to her.
* * *
When we leave, heading toward her store, we pass The Chocolate Connoisseur, not too far from her shop. It’s black and silver, all sleek and modern, with a red sale sign on the window and a chocolate sculpture of a horse in the center of the store. It’s teeming with customers.
She slows her pace, checking out the shop as she whispers to me. “That’s him.”
“The horse?”
“No, I’m sure the horse is the patriarchy. But that’s Sebastian next to it. He likes to interact with customers when he’s in his flagship store,” she says, nodding subtly to a man in a newsboy hat chatting animatedly to a group checking out the horse. He has one of those vaguely charming faces. Fair skin, straight teeth, probably a one-time frat boy.
Without thinking twice, I wrap an arm around my fiancée. I get to touch her like this. Me. Just me. “He won’t ever get his hands on your shop.”
“Good.”
Then, to prove my point, I drop a firm kiss to her cheek. Her perfume tickles my nose and fries my brain. “Cherries. You smell like cherries.”
She gazes up at me with that clever smile I adore. “We should have chocolate-covered cherries at our opening.”
“Yes, we should. And we should call it Unforgettable.”
“Like a good chocolate should be.”
We walk, but a second or two later, the door swings open and a booming voice calls out, “Elodie!”
Her shoulders tense, then her whole body. Her expression shifts quickly, as she rearranges her features to false cheer while turning around. “Hello, Sebastian.”
“You walk by and don’t come in? I’ve got some autumn-themed bonbons just for you.”
My neck prickles. That sounds awfully familiar. Didn’t she have bonbons like that in her shop when I asked her out? But I dismiss the thought quickly. They must be a normal thing in the chocolate business.
“They sound wonderful. And of course I’d love to try one,” she says, and maybe it’s me, but she sounds like she’s having a harder time with that falsehood than the ones we spun about us. “Excuse my manners though. This is my fiancé, Gage Archer. Gage, meet Sebastian Roberts, the mastermind behind The Chocolate Connoisseur.”
He hardly seems worthy of the title. But I go with it as I extend a hand. “Nice to meet you. Great shop. Love the horse,” I add, though I don’t, but any man who puts a horse sculpture in the middle of his store clearly wants everyone to admire his equine.
As we shake, his gray eyes darken with, perhaps, confusion. Then, something else I can’t quite read as that inquisitive gaze strays to her hand while he shakes mine, saying, “Nice to meet the lucky man.”
She waves, showing off the ring. “Yes, we’re…recently engaged,” she says, and I wish this weren’t uncomfortable for her. I wish I could save her. But maybe I can.
“Why don’t we get those bonbons? I can take some home to my daughter. And Grandma. They’ll love them,” I say.
“Yes! They’re on the house.” Sebastian gestures grandly to the shopfront.
That seems to defuse the strange tension. Men like him like commerce. After we go inside, I pick up more boxes than I want, then we say goodbye and leave, with the unwanted chocolates in hand.
Once we’re outside, she rolls her shoulders like she’s getting the scent of him off her.
“You okay?” I ask, wrapping an arm around her again.
She hesitates before she answers with a firm nod. “I’m fine. I just feel…oily.”
“For lying to him ?”
“Just the whole thing,” she says, then draws a deep breath, like she needs it to clean away the encounter.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head. “No, but thank you for saving the day.”
“Hardly,” I say because I don’t want to take credit. I’m just glad I helped her when she needed it.
We keep walking and I don’t let go of her. Not when we reach the next block, or the next one, or the next one.
“By the way, the sign looks really good,” I say.
“Good enough?” she asks.
“More than enough.”
Then, because I can’t help myself, rules or no rules, I say, “Text me tonight. Before you fall asleep.”
“I will.”
I want to say send me a video , but I don’t. I’m so fucking behaved I can’t stand it.
* * *
Later, when Eliza’s gone to bed, I’m clutching my phone, pacing like a lion hungry for his meal.
I take a shower. Brush my teeth. Pull on sweatpants. Trudge to bed.
Finally, my phone buzzes.
Elodie: Want to know what I pictured tonight?
Gage: Like you wouldn’t believe.
Elodie: You were standing in front of me. And I was on my knees.
Gage: Bet you’d look beautiful and filthy like that, those red lips parted.
Elodie: Your hand in my hair.
Gage: Your lipstick all over me.
Elodie: You telling me what you liked.
Gage: No, me telling you how fucking much I love it.
Elodie: All those dirty words driving me on.
Gage: Me turning into an inferno.
Elodie: Your groans, your grunts, your shudders.
Gage: Me throwing you on the bed and having you over and over.
Elodie: I’d be a very happy girl.
And I’m a very happy guy as I finish. Though, happy might not be the right word. I want her even more now.
I still can’t have her.