“I know you do, honey.” She wraps an arm around my shoulders.
Rachel and I continue our walk in silence, our bare feet sinking into the sand, our hands gripping to our warm cups of coffee. It’s blustery for January, and we’re both bundled up with polar fleeces. The beach is quiet. Only a few surfers are out in the water. The surf is icy cold on my toes, but it feels good.
“And you’re sure Jake is okay?” I say, glancing over.
“Honestly, he seems thrilled about it all.”
I raise a brow, flicking a windswept curl out of my face. “Why?”
“Because now he gets PDA from us as we smooth this over,” she replies with a grin. “He already planned a date night over at Top Golf for Caleb on Tuesday. And unless I can talk him out of it, I think he’s gonna make me try indoor skydiving. So, thanks for that,” she adds.
I laugh out loud at the mental image of Rachel floating in one of those wind tube things. “Oh god, I want pictures of you fake skydiving so bad. Give those to the paps. They’ll be frame-worthy for sure. I’m thinking entryway.”
“We’ll blow them up and hang them over the bed,” she adds with a laugh.
I cackle, grabbing her arm. “Ohmygod, and Mars will have to see Jake’s stupid wind tunnel face every time he does you doggy style.”
I make the face, and then we’re both dying, laughing so hard we’re crying.
“Tess!”
As if laughing about him is a summons, we both turn to see Ilmari marching down the sand towards us. He’s got his blond hair pulled up in his characteristic messy bun. And while he’s wearing workout pants and shoes, the man is only in a Rays tech T-shirt. It’s 50 degrees outside.
“Does he even own a jacket?”
“I don’t think so,” Rachel replies. “Kulta?” she calls. “What’s wrong, baby?”
He ignores his wife, glaring at me. In his hand is an envelope, and I think I know exactly what this is about. I square off at him, one hand on my hip as I casually take a sip of my coffee.
“Morning, Mars Attack.”
“What is this?” He holds up the envelope.
Rachel’s eyes go wide as she glances between us. “What’s going on?”
“I assume you’re referring to the invitation I sent you?” I say with a fake smile. “So glad you got it.”
“It’s an invitation to me from me,” he barks.
“So, you’ll be RSVPing ‘yes’ then, right? And you’ll notice, I gave you a ‘plus three.’ So, Rach, you can come too,” I add, flashing her a wink.
“Tess, what is this?” he says again. “I told you to keep me out of it—”
“No. You very specifically told me to keep you out of the decision-making process, which I did.”
Rachel glances between us. “What the hell is happening?”
“This is a punishment for the way I behaved at the office,” he says, not looking at her. “You know I’m sorry for that. I apologized, and you accepted. I thought we moved on.”
“Wait—what behavior? What apology?” Rachel says, eyes wide.
He’s not lying. He did send me an apology email. A stiff, formal apology of three sentences. I was about to call him and chew him out when a delivery person arrived at the office with an edible arrangement of chocolate covered fruits and a massage gift card—both from Mars.
I square my shoulders at him. “Yeah, and don’t for one second think I don’t know you went to Jake to help you make that apology,” I counter. “That’s the reason I forgave you, Mars. Because you showed yourself a big enough person to lean on your partners and ask them for help when you’re clearly out of your depth.”
His anger softens, the muscles in his shoulders relaxing slightly.
“You’re out here giving me all this sage advice about being myself and taking control? Well, congratulations, the lesson stuck,” I say, waving my hand at the envelope.
He bristles again. “This is not what I meant!”
“It’s perfect,” I shout back.
“Well, I’m not doing it. Get Jake to do it. He loves being the center of attention.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Everything has already been arranged. You can’t back out now, Mars Mission.”
“Back out of what?” Rachel cries. “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on.”
Slowly, Mars holds up the envelope. She snatches it from his hand, pulling out the supercute invitation I designed. It’s got a watercolor motif of sea turtles and coral at the top. She reads it over quickly, her panic fading to confusion, which gives way to a smile.