“I’m going to say yes. I’m going to meet up with Paul.”
When no one responds, I look up from my phone. Sadie has a ring-laden hand over her mouth, her ecstatic smile peeking out from behind it. Thomas is watching me dubiously.
My thumbs fly over my phone screen as I reply:
What a small world! I’d love to meet with Paul. I’m available—
I pause, chewing on my lip. I’m available all the time, but that sounds pathetic, so I pull three times out of thin air.
—This Friday at 10am, Sunday at 2pm, or Monday at 10am. Please let me know the best place to meet.
I keep one eye on my phone for the next twenty minutes. Sadie and Thomas carry the conversation but go silent when I get another alert.
Friday at 10. We’ll meet you at Reveille Coffee on Columbus at one of the tables outside.
“Friday’s the day.” I let out a deep breath, my heart racing. “And looks like Teddy will be there, too.”
Sadie collapses against her seat. “God, I wish I could come with you.”
“I’d go if I didn’t have to work.” Thomas, clearly disappointed, rubs a hand along his scruffy jaw. “Make sure you stay around people the whole time, okay?”
I give him a crisp salute before my eyes wander back to Teddy’s message.
Tell me a secret, I hear Gram whisper to me, and my heart stretches in memory.
I blink up at the sky, wondering where she is.
Someone’s going to tell me one of yours.
* * *
The week moves at a glacial pace. Mom talks me into trying the Peloton, and I last an entire thirty-minute class, then spend the next three hours determining whether I need to go to the hospital.
I also make a halfhearted attempt to look for jobs. The work I’m qualified for doesn’t exactly light a fire under my ass, and I won’t touch any photography-related jobs with a ten-foot pole. I’m not paying rent but am contributing to household expenses, and without an income, my paltry savings is drying up fast. I have an inheritance from Gram sitting in my savings account, but she stipulated in her will I was only to use the money for something that inspired me. Needless to say, it’s untouched.
Also untouched: my camera. It stares balefully at me from my dresser. I haven’t picked it up in six months.
I need to do something, but I’m frozen by my indecision and fear, and it’s starting to eat at me.
Thursday night, Thomas shows up for dinner, and we linger at the table in the backyard long after our parents go inside, talking through scenarios for the next day. I stand with a groan as the conversation wanes, my scratchy eyes alerting me it’s bedtime.
“Hey, listen,” Thomas says. “Don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
I pause mid-stretch. “What do you mean?”
“I know you miss Gram.” His tone is careful. He was heartbroken when she died, too, but our grief isn’t the same, and he knows it. “Just don’t go in expecting this to take that away.”
“I don’t.” My defensive tone gives me away, but he doesn’t call me on it.
He runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Tell me how it goes tomorrow, okay? Call us.”
“Fine,” I say, still annoyed by his hawk-eyed observation. “？‘Night.”
The earnestness of our conversation must have grossed him out—I wake Friday morning to Theo’s Forbes picture staring at me, wedged next to my pillow.
Gah. Disgusting, my rational brain says. Sign me up, my lizard brain counters.
It’s with that irritating thought that I get dressed. I lock up the silent house and drive into the city, my inner monologue moving so quick and loud it sounds like static played at full blast.
It’s not until I’m parked and walking down Columbus Avenue in the heart of North Beach that my mind goes quiet. It’s a power switch flipped off as Reveille comes into view, the black brick building looming ever closer.
I should probably order coffee first, give myself a minute to get my shit together, but my hands are shaking inside the pockets of my jean jacket. Caffeine will shoot me off into the stratosphere. Maybe once I see Paul, the anticipatory anxiety will ebb.
As I get to the café, I wonder if Gram’s hands shook when she met Paul, or when she realized she was in love with him. When she said goodbye. If she ever felt anticipation so thick she thought she’d choke on it.
My mind is darting so quickly from thought to thought as I round the corner toward the outdoor seating that I almost miss them. But it’s Paul seated at the furthest table, no doubt, his hair white, his age-spotted hands wrapped around a coffee mug. His eyes slide past the person he’s talking to across the table—the broad back and dark-haired head facing away from me—and move past mine, then bounce back. Widen.
My heart stutters to a stop along with my legs. I lift my hand, tentative, shocked by his shock, but get distracted by the man sitting across from him.
The shoulders stretching across that broad back straighten, and Paul’s grandson turns in his seat, his hand gripping the back of the turquoise metal chair.
And then my heart stops for real. Theo Spencer, the beautiful, infuriating centerfold of Forbes magazine, is staring right at me.
Three
Is this a joke?”
We say it at the same time. That also has to be a joke.
Theo stands, and I catalog everything about him before I can process how I’m feeling: the worn-in Levi’s with a button fly, goddamn him; the wavy hair rustling poetically in the breeze; his expensive-looking navy sweater, sleeves pushed up his forearms. The material looks so soft I want to rub my cheek on it.
No, I don’t. What the hell.
“What are you doing here?” I demand as his expression cools from its initial shock.
Theo’s eyes skim my body, but not in a sexy way. Like he ordered Wagyu steak, and he got McDonald’s instead. I regret the short corduroy skirt I’m wearing, and especially the Doc Martens. They’re from high school.
When his gaze does a U-turn back down to my feet, one corner of his mouth hooks up, and I know he remembers the damn boots.
“Still wearing those shit kickers, huh, Shep?”
That voice. I hate it. It’s like velvet rubbed the wrong way. There’s a texture to it that crawls up my spine, and a depth that sprinkles goosebumps on the back of my neck. I still remember sitting on stage at graduation, staring daggers at his back while his voice delivered the valedictorian speech instead of mine.
“What are you doing here?” I repeat.
One eyebrow raises, stern as ever. “I think it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
I don’t want it to be true, but the truth is staring at me, wholly unimpressed: my high school adversary is Paul’s grandson, and we’ve been talking all week without realizing it.
What force has brought him back into my life? Satan? No, that doesn’t make sense—the same force brought Paul into my life, too.
My gaze moves up to the sky. What are you doing up there, Gram?
A throat clears and Theo and I turn at the sound. Paul pushes off the table to stand, his eyes—deep blue like Theo’s—bouncing between us.
“I take it you two know each other?” he asks.
“Unfortunately.” I hold up my hands, horrified. Even if it’s true, it’s his grandson I’ve just insulted. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that.”