To Sir, with Love

by Lauren Layne

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Actually, yes. Wish me luck that I’m not too late.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  Ooooh, sorry. I’m going to be needing all the luck in the universe that night to make sure that my guy doesn’t have any weird collections or fetishes.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Some friend you are. But you’re right, you DO need all the luck. At least I know what Ms. Complicated looks like. YOUR guy could be super into face paint.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  With that kind of attitude, you’re never going to get an invitation to the wedding.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Wedding? You move fast.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  Cinderella knew in one night.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Cinderella also wore shoes made of glass.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  Good idea! I’ve got just the dress to pair them with.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Are you nervous?

  Gracie to Sebastian

  About cutting up my feet? A little.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Gracie.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  Heck yes, I’m nervous. I’ve been so worried about him not living up to my expectations that I’m only now starting to realize something far worse: What if I don’t live up to HIS?

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Impossible.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  … But in case he seems less than enthralled, you could always cook for him. I’ve heard you make a mean crab cake.

  Gracie to Sebastian

  Hilarious. I think I liked you better when we were enemies.

  Sebastian to Gracie

  Ah-ha! But you admit that you DO like me…

  Twenty-Five

  “Okay, I think the fact that Mystery Man signed it Yours means something,” Keva says, handing my phone back and rummaging in her makeup bag. “That’s the first time he’s signed it that way?”

  “No, he always signs it Yours, but it’s usually sort of playful. Like Yours in something relevant to the conversation… ice cream, understanding, constipation—”

  “I’m sure he’s never signed it yours in constipation,” a male voice interjects from across the room. “If he has, you should seriously reconsider this meeting.”

  “You said if you were going to stay, you wouldn’t interrupt girl talk,” I tell Sebastian with a scowl from my kitchen table where Keva is putting finishing touches on my makeup for the gallery opening in an hour.

  “No, you said I couldn’t interrupt girl talk. I never agreed,” Sebastian says with a grin.

  “Remind me again what he’s doing here?” Keva asks, using the eyeliner to gesture over her shoulder at Sebastian.

  “I brought her congratulatory flowers since I can’t go to her big night,” Sebastian says, pointing at the gorgeous assortment of pink blooms. “We’re friends now.”

  “A status I’ll have to revoke if you keep eating my emergency stash of chocolate chips,” I tell him.

  Keva taps her eyeliner on her palm. “Sebastian, you’re a dude. What do you think this guy meant with the Yours. That is some intimate shit, right?”

  “Sure,” he says, taking a sip of water.

  “I’m still iffy on this plan,” Keva says. “I’m all for bold moves, but if he’s a real weirdo, that could put a major damper on the evening. Don’t worry though, Grady agreed to keep an eye out tonight.”

  “Oh, is that why Grady’s your plus one?” I tease gently.

  “Hush, unless you want to leave this chair looking like an eighties workout instructor,” Keva replies. But she’s smiling a little, and it’s the glowing, secret smile of a woman about to spend the evening with a man she’s been into for a long time.

  “I hope Mystery Man’s got a gap between his teeth,” Keva says. “I’ve got a lot riding on this.”

  “You have a lot riding on it?” I ask incredulously. “What about me?”

  “Fair enough. I meant financially I have a lot riding on this.”

  I narrow my eyes, and she gives me a guilty grin. “There may or may not be a wager.”

  “What?”

  “Most popular theory so far is that he’s middle-aged and lonely, though there’s some debate on whether he’ll have fake hair or a comb-over.”

  “A toupee could be nice,” Sebastian says.

  I glare at him, then turn back to Keva.

  “Who’s in on the wager?” I demand.

  “Pretty much everyone,” Keva says with a grin. “It was my idea.” She bows. “But your sister, her husband. Robyn, May, Rachel, your brother, even Josh, though that little sweetie thinks your guy’s big secret is that he’s a vegan Navy SEAL.”

  Sebastian snorts.

  “All right, all right, all right,” I say, nodding thoughtfully. “I can be a good sport about this, but I want in on the wager.”

  “Ooh, twist!” Keva says in delight. “Hold on, let me pull up the spreadsheet.”

  “There’s a spreadsheet?” I lift up my hands. “Nope, that’s fine. Love it. Okay, so I already know who he is.”

  Sebastian’s been idly inspecting the paintbrushes I’ve set in a cup on my counter to dry, but he looks up abruptly. “You do?”

  “Yup,” I say confidently. “Well, no. But I know exactly what he looks like.”

  “I’m ready. Shoot,” Keva says.

  I give her a look. “You already know this.”

  “Right, right, the guy,” she says, her thumbs already working.

  “What guy?” Sebastian asks.

  “Her dream guy,” Keva explains, turning toward him, fingers still flying over her iPhone. “Long brown hair, not too tall, not too fit. Musician.”

  “Lives in Brooklyn. Maybe Alphabet City,” I say. “I’m unclear on that. But his smile’s perfectly imperfect. That, I’m definitely clear on. He’s got a tiny chip from a baseball incident—”

  “He’s a musician and plays baseball?” Sebastian asks.

  “It’s her fantasy. Don’t take this away from her,” Keva says with a smile.

  For the first time since he’s shown up, a shadow cuts through Sebastian’s cocky playfulness, and he looks almost vulnerable.

  Then he straightens up and extends a hand for Keva’s phone. “My turn.”

  “For what?” I demand, even as Keva hands him her cell without hesitation.

  “I want in on the wager,” he says.

  I roll my eyes and obediently pucker so Keva can apply a glittery light pink gloss, then adds something sparkly to my cheeks and brow bones.

  “Perfect,” Keva says, stepping back and surveying my face. “Damn, I’m good. Bastian, look at my genius.”

  Sebastian looks up, momentarily startled at the nickname, then glances over at me. His mouth tilts in the corner. “She looks a bit like…”

  “Sexy Tinker Bell,” Keva says. “All those glittery, whimsical paintings of hers come to life.”

  “They’re not all glittery and whimsical,” I mutter, reaching for a hand mirror. “Oh. Oh.”

  “See?” Keva says, a little bit smug.

  “It’s perfect,” I admit. She’s added just the right amount of shimmer so I don’t look like a preteen movie princess, but sort of like a fairy, a sexy fairy, with all the dark smudging she added beneath my eyes.

  Sebastian hands Keva her phone back, and she glances down at what he’s entered before giving him a speculative look. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  “What?” I say, extending my palm. “Let me see.”

  Sebastian opens his mouth, but Keva’s already shaking her head and tucking her phone into her back pocket. “Nope. We’ll see who won the wager at the end of the evening, and for now, I want you”—she points at me—“to focus on getting dressed. And I—Holy moly, is that the time? I need to go get myself fancy.”

  She gathers the rest of her makeup and tucks it under her arm. “We still taking a car
together?” she asks. “They’re not like sending you a limo or something?”

  I laugh. “I don’t think I’m quite to limo level yet.”

  “Soon though,” Keva says, wagging a finger. “Very soon you’re going to take the art world by storm, and I’ll be making food for all the celebrities paying thousands for a ticket to fight for the chance to buy your pieces.”

  “I’d be happy if a noncelebrity bought one of my pieces,” I say, letting the nerves I’ve been battling all day slip out.

  Keva rolls her head over to Sebastian. “Bastian, I’m assigning you pep talk duty. I’ve got to get ready.”

  “On it,” he says.

  “Perfect,” Keva says. “Gracie, see you in—crap, twenty-two minutes?” My front door slams, and I hear thuds as Keva takes the stairs two at a time.

  “I don’t need a pep talk,” I tell him.

  “You sure?” he asks.

  No. I pick up the vase of flowers he brought me and inhale.

  “Every piece will sell,” Sebastian says with quiet confidence.

  I look up in surprise. “You can’t know that.”

  He smiles innocently. “As you know, I have excellent business sense.”

  “You know what fails. I’ve yet to see your chops when it comes to sensing when something will succeed.”

  “Ah, but the More part of your store didn’t fail,” he says lightly. “The fact that tonight is happening is proof that while there may not be a market for a niche champagne shop in Midtown, there is a market for Gracie Cooper paintings.”

  “I’d never thought of it that way,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Our gazes hold for a moment, and I forget that I’m supposed to have moved him to the friend column.

  That he has someone else, and that as of tonight, I might too.

  He straightens and steps nearer so I have to tilt my head up to meet his eyes. “I wish you could be there,” I whisper before I can stop myself.

  Sebastian reaches for my hand and squeezes. “It’ll work out the way that it should. Trust me.”

  His hand drops, and he steps back and turns away. I bite back a protest. This feels wrong.

  “Sebastian.” He turns back around, his eyes bright with something I don’t recognize.

  “Why?” I ask softly. “Why did you tell me to pursue the other guy?”

  He steps closer, lifting a hand to rest his fingertips lightly against my cheek. “Because you said you loved him. Because you deserve your fairy-tale ending. And because I’d do anything for you, Gracie Cooper. Even if it means letting you go.”

  Twenty-Six

  I don’t have time to dwell, and maybe that’s a good thing—I’m afraid I would cry and never stop. Or abort the whole evening altogether out of sheer overwhelming panic. But somehow I manage a smile and let Keva distract me on the way to the studio.

  From then on, it’s been a blur.

  May cries when she sees me, then proceeds to take about a hundred photos. Myron comes over and starts to tell her there’s no photography in the gallery but backs off when she compliments his velvet boots. Or maybe because her earrings tonight are a grenade and a machete. In case your guy is a dud and needs to be taught a lesson.

  “May,” Lily says in laughing exasperation as May motions for Caleb, Lily, and me to stand side by side. Again. “What are you going to do with these pictures?”

  “Take them to Heaven to show your mom and dad,” May says in all seriousness, clearly irked that she even has to explain this.

  “I don’t know what’s more ballsy,” Caleb says out of the corner of his mouth as he puts his arm around my shoulder. Lily’s arm slips around my waist from the other side. “That she thinks Heaven allows cell phones or that she thinks she’s going there.”

  “You mind your tongue, Caleb Cooper,” May says as she snaps the photo. “Or I’ll be telling your lady friend here all about the way you once had to ask your dad why your underwear had an open flap in the front and your sisters’ didn’t.”

  “You weren’t even there for that!” Caleb says as Michelle, his girlfriend, laughs beside May.

  “Yes, but your father was, and you never forget a story like that.” May looks down at her phone and, finally satisfied, drops it into her shark-shaped clutch.

  “He was fourteen,” I whisper loudly.

  He swats the back of my head.

  Alec appears carrying an impressive amount of champagne flutes, which he hands around.

  Lily takes the tiniest sip of Alec’s since she can’t have her own. “Ooh. That’s excellent!”

  “Of course it is, I picked it,” Robyn says, appearing from nowhere with a wide grin, dressed to kill in a red dress that matches the lipstick Keva bought for her.

  “Well done,” May says, clinking her glass to Robyn’s, all smiles for her now that they no longer have to work together and bicker over how long May’s sushi lunch break went. “It’s delicious.”

  “Quick toast to our lady of the night,” Alec says.

  “Well, that makes her sound like a prostitute, but sure,” Lily says, earning what I’m pretty sure is a quick pinch on the butt from her husband. She giggles. Actually giggles, and it’s the best thing I’ve heard in forever. It’s like a front-row seat to happily ever after after.

  “To Gracie,” Alec continues, his arm around Lily’s waist as he smiles at me.

  We all lift our glasses, and my eyes water a little at the near perfection of the moment.

  “You’re a hit,” Rachel says, coming up behind me. “I’ve been doing regular laps of the room, and the Sold signs are going up like crazy.”

  “My personal favorite painting was sold before we even got here,” Lily says with a little pout.

  “Which one?” I ask in surprise. From the moment I’d arrived, Myron and Hugh swept me into a flurry of introductions and who’s who and heaps of praise, the latter of which had made me feel like flying, even as I try not to think about the one person who won’t be here—and the one person who will.

  “I just love the one of the couple in Central Park at night. I don’t know what it is, but it gave me goose bumps,” my sister is saying, giving a little shiver. “It’s so romantic.”

  “My favorite is the one of the woman on her phone,” Michelle says. “Am I right in thinking that’s the only self-portrait of the bunch?”

  “Yes, actually,” I say, surprised but not displeased that Caleb’s lovely new girlfriend is so astute. “I mean, it’s stylized. My legs aren’t that long, I never wear heels, the hair’s a bit too glamorous, but yeah. Me!”

  “That one also sold before we got here,” Alec says.

  “Really?” I say, genuinely surprised. Not because I don’t think they’re good—they’re my favorites—but because they’re less flashy than the rest.

  Lily shrugs. “Hugh—or Myron, I didn’t catch who was who during the flurry of introductions—said one of their regulars came by earlier today and offered twice the asking price. They accepted, hoping it would give a sense of urgency to the other potential buyers.”

  “Well, it worked,” Rachel says gleefully. “You’re never going to be able to keep up with the demand now, Gracie.”

  “Of course she will,” May says. “But we’ll figure all that out later. I think what we all want to know is why is he a no-show.”

  All of my friends’ and family’s eyes swing toward me, plainly curious, and I smile even though my heart feels like it’s beating a million miles an hour in anticipation. “Not a no-show,” I explain. “I told him to arrive an hour after this whole thing started. I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to meet everyone Hugh wanted me to. And to spend time with you guys.”

  “Okay, we’ve got—” Lily tilts Alec’s wrist toward her so she can see the time. “Well, any minute now.”

  My stomach flips, and it takes all my self-control not to turn and stare at the front door until he comes through it.

  “Or, he could already be here, mingl
ing among us, planning his move,” Caleb says, rubbing his hands together and peering at the crowd, which has gotten noisier and noisier as the champagne’s been flowing.

  “He’s not.”

  “Well, respectfully, babe, you wouldn’t know,” Rachel points out.

  “We agreed on a visual cue. He knows I’ll be wearing a pink-and-white dress—”

  “Which is stunning on you, by the way.”

  “Thank you,” I say, smiling at Caleb’s girlfriend, who’s obviously looking for brownie points with the family, but I don’t mind it in the least. “And he will have… well I’m not going to tell you; you’ll think it’s corny.”

  “Probably,” Caleb confirms as I continue to scan the room for the agreed-upon signal.

  Me in a pink-and-white dress, him with a single pink rose in his suit pocket.

  It had been Sir’s idea, and at the time it had seemed like a good one—romantic. But now, pink flowers make me think of the bouquet sitting on my kitchen table, which makes me think of Sebastian…

  “Oh, excuse me,” I say in apology to my group as I see Hugh pointedly waving me over to where he is speaking with a white-haired man.

  “Gracie, this is Doug Frey,” Hugh says. “One of our most enthusiastic patrons.”

  The older man shakes my hand with a firm grip and friendly smile. “I was just asking Hugh here if I might be able to commission something like this.”

  He points, and I turn to the Central Park–bench painting Lily had taken a fancy to. The one that was so quick to sell.

  “My grandson proposed to his girl on a bench in Central Park a few weeks ago. I wasn’t there, obviously, but they had a friend take a photo, and it wasn’t too unlike this, though he was on one knee.”

  Hugh’s eyes are wide, and he’s nodding dramatically behind Mr. Frey’s shoulder indicating that I’d be an idiot to say no.

  “Of course,” I say, smiling at the older gentleman. “I’d love to hear more about what you’re looking for. Perhaps we can discuss it next week?”

  “Hugh has my info. Though, damn—you’re sure I can’t sweet-talk you into giving me the name of whoever snatched this one up before I saw it?” he asks, turning to Hugh with a mischievous smile. “The colors would look fantastic in my living room, and the foil wrappers remind me of lunches when I was a paralegal in my twenties over on Fifth and Sixty-Third…”