The Bloom Girls

by Amy Pine

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Amy Pine

  Cover design by Daniela Medina. Cover image© Shutterstock.

  Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  Forever

  Hachette Book Group

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  First Edition: August 2021

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 978-1-5387-1857-5 (trade paperback), 978-1-5387-1856-8 (ebook)

  E3-20210609-NF-DA-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Discover More

  Reading Group Guide Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  Also by Amy Pine writing as A.J. Pine

  For my Blooms

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first and foremost to my agent, Emily, for a chat about books for Jewish women that weren’t necessarily about being Jewish but about simply living their lives with the same conflicts, humor, and love that we all experience—a chat that turned into a brainstorming session, that eventually, after many twists and turns, turned into a book! Thank you to the team at Forever, especially my editor, Madeleine, for helping navigate those twists and turns to get The Bloom Girls where they are today. Lea, Chanel, Jen, Megan, Natalie—your friendship means the world. Sharing the publishing journey with all of you—with all the twists and turns we’ve navigated separately but together—has been more important to me than I can say. Thank you for always being a text or call away. I truly would not want to be on this journey without all of you!

  To my mom for making me a daughter and S and C for making me a mom: Thank you for giving me those identities—both of which mean so much to me—so that I could hopefully do Alissa and Gabi’s story justice. Speaking of Alissa…to one of my oldest and dearest friends, for that spontaneous conversation we had one random Wednesday evening at the library, when I told you about the book I was writing and asked if I could use your name, thank you for saying yes! And finally, thank you readers for letting this Bloom girl get to keep doing what she loves to do.

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  Chapter One

  Gabi Bloom knew she was being silly and over-the-top, but she didn’t care. She was twenty-two, as of two days ago, a college graduate, and she finally had the first stamp in her passport. This was a special occasion, which meant no holding back.

  She stood in the middle of the rain-soaked street, right there in Galway, Ireland, and spun like she was Gene Kelly dancing through puddles in Singin’ in the Rain.

  Her long ponytail swished against her back, but she was avoiding actually splashing in the puddles because then she’d have to dig something dry to wear out of her backpack, which still sat unopened on the bed in her hostel. Plus, she was technically using said spinning to find the best camera angle from which to capture the essence of her new location—the brick-paved streets shining with rainwater, the vibrantly painted storefronts mixed in with the gray stone facades of older buildings, the glow of the streetlights reflected in the puddles, and the locals—and perhaps travelers like herself—pouring in and out of the various pubs, smiling and laughing. However, staying dry was key. Gabi’s whimsy only extended as far as practicality would allow it.

  Sure, after the flight to Shannon and the hour-plus bus ride to Galway, she was jet-lagged beyond comprehension. But sleep could wait—at least, until it was absolutely necessary. Right now her sole desire was to capture the scene on her Nikon D500—the extremely generous graduation/birthday gift from both her mom’s and her dad’s parents, one of the only times in recent history she could remember the ex-in-laws agreeing on something together.

  Still, Gabi had the gorgeous new camera hanging around her neck, which she’d use to capture the equally gorgeous sites throughout her trip, so she certainly wasn’t complaining. All she wanted was to have the most amazing two months of her life without family complications or competition getting in the way.

  She squeezed her eyes shut for one brief moment, willing her home life to stay where it belonged—at home—and backed up toward the curb to survey her surroundings.

  The light rain that had lasted the whole bus ride from Shannon to Galway had miraculously stopped as soon as Gabi arrived. Now, with the sun on the brink of setting, the quaint street looked like a movie set. It felt like a movie set. And she was the heroine in some romantic comedy like Notting Hill or, even better, a movie about female self-discovery like Under the Tuscan Sun.

  Okay, fine, the second was a book before it was a movie, but both were films she’d watched with her mom as a young teen. While her father spent months (sometimes years) in foreign locales helping salvage forests or planting trees, Gabi and her mom traveled across the globe, one movie at a time. She had a running list in her planner of cities and countries she wanted to visit and photos she wanted to take, starting with this one, right here, in the middle of Eyre Square.

  She chose her settings and squared up the shot. The last rays of the sun were hitting a puddle in the middle of the street just right, reflecting the orange banner along the brick building that read HOSTEL. Her finger hovered over the button, ready to press, but then another light entered the frame, an artificial light that was—moving. It weaved back and forth as it drew closer. She was so used to looking at the world through the eyepiece of a camera that it wasn’t until she heard the high-pitched motor that she lowered her DSLR and saw the scoote
r careening toward the curb—and an even bigger puddle than the one in the center of the street.

  She only had a second to think. She grabbed her camera, whipped the strap over her head, and held it as high in the air as she could reach. She jumped back, but not before the inexperienced—or possibly inebriated—driver sped through the puddle, spraying her from her nose all the way to her feet.

  “Asshole!” she yelled, just as the moped jumped the curb and hit a light post, the vehicle skidding right and the driver pitching left onto the wet ground. “Oh shit!” She placed her camera, which was thankfully dry, into the bag slung across her torso and raced to where the helmeted rider lay motionless against the curb.

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no. Please don’t let the last thing this guy hears be me calling him an asshole.” Even though he sort of was. He could have killed her—and might have just killed himself.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she said softly.

  When she got to him, she dropped down to a squat and was relieved to see his eyes were open. They were really good eyes, too—bright blue with thick, dark lashes and Ohmigod, FOCUS, Gabi!

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “I mean, you’re breathing, right? I just saw your chest move, so you’re not dead. Please don’t be dead. Or the only way I’m going to remember this trip will be as the graduation trip where I talked to a dead guy who had gorgeous eyes.”

  He blinked, and she wondered if he was in shock.

  “Should I call nine-one-one? Wait. Do they even have nine-one-one here?”

  She hadn’t anticipated near-death encounters with motorists, which meant that in all she’d read about the places she wanted to travel, she skipped the chapters that dealt with situations such as this—if said chapters even existed.

  “You…” His voice was hoarse.

  Maybe he needed water. Maybe these were his last words, and he was going to tell her something really important that she’d have to pass on to a family member.

  “Should I call someone?” In case he wasn’t a native English speaker, she slowed her cadence and increased her enunciation. “Do you have an emergency number in your phone?”

  He shook his head, then coughed.

  “Oh God!” Gabi said. “You are dying.”

  He held up a finger, asking her to wait, so she bit her lip and held her breath, hoping the first day of her trip wasn’t about to end in unforeseen tragedy.

  “Not…dying,” he said, then sucked in a huge breath. “Wind—knocked out of me.”

  She allowed herself to exhale. “Oh thank goodness. I mean—not thank goodness that the air got knocked out of your lungs but thank goodness you’re not dying. That would have been a bummer.”

  His breathing seemed to be returning to normal, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “You—think my eyes are gorgeous? Because yours aren’t so bad either,” he said, his accent definitely American.

  Gabi gasped and fell backward onto her butt so she was now sufficiently soaked on both sides.

  The victim—if he even was one—rose up onto his elbows and grinned, and she backhanded him on the shoulder. Gently, of course. Even if he was okay, that had been a pretty nasty crash.

  “I’m here freaking out that you’re dead, and you’re flirting with me?” she asked.

  “I’m pretty sure you flirted fir—”

  But he was cut off by a car honking as it approached the two of them and the crashed scooter. The stranger scrambled to his feet, grabbing Gabi by the hand and pulling her up with him before yanking the small vehicle out of the way.

  Gabi’s stomach did a cartwheel, which she chalked up to the adrenaline at having almost been run down not once but twice. It had nothing to do with his hand wrapped firmly around hers.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded, and despite her stomach settling when he released his grip so he could put both hands on the bike, she held steady on the adrenaline explanation.

  A handful of pub-goers had gathered, lining the pavement behind them, but he waved them off.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Just don’t tell Colin before I do, okay?”

  “Ay, Ethan,” a young woman said to him with a smile. “See you in the pub.”

  Ethan. His name was Ethan. What was the tiny pang in Gabi’s gut at the other woman already knowing it, speaking it so freely with such a familiar grin?

  He—Ethan—parked the moped successfully against the same post he’d hit. Somehow, other than a flat tire and tiny but visible dent in the frame, it didn’t look too worse for wear. When he turned back to face her and stepped forward, though, Gabi realized he was limping.

  He was a head taller than her five-foot-three-inch frame, and she had to look up to make eye contact with him.

  “You are hurt,” she said. “We should call an ambulance or something. Though I’m not quite sure how that works overseas. Do you know? I’ve read tons of travel books and blogs, but no one says anything about what to do if you see a reckless driver get taken out by a lamppost.”

  So much for flirting. Not that that was what they were doing.

  He unclasped his helmet and pulled it off, running his hand through thick, dark brown waves.

  Gabi’s mouth went dry, but then he narrowed his bright blue eyes at her.

  “Do those books of yours mention anything about how it’s dangerous to stand in the middle of the street in a foreign country? Maybe then you wouldn’t be in the way of supposed reckless drivers,” he said, no sign of that flirty grin.

  “I wasn’t—” she stammered. “I mean, you were the one—” She groaned. “Is it even legal for you to drive here? In a foreign country?” she added, echoing his accusation. “I figured you needed some special license for that.”

  The damp air made his hair curl up above his ears, and Gabi found herself fighting off a grin. She was supposed to be indignant, not thinking about how good-looking he was or how his already too-blue and too-pretty eyes were even more vivid in the glow of the streetlamp.

  She fidgeted with her camera bag, itching—for no explainable reason—to snap a photo of him right here. Right now. But that would be weird, right? Definitely weird.

  He raised a brow. “Ah, something else you missed in your guidebooks.”

  “Huh?” Gabi asked, having lost her train of thought.

  “Driving overseas?”

  “Right!” she said, with more enthusiasm than was necessary. “Driving. Recklessly.” She winced. “You were saying?”

  He shook his head. “If you have a US driver’s license, then you’re qualified to drive in the UK. My buddy Colin who lent me the moped might have a different opinion. And no hospitals. It’s just a previous injury that got a bit of a wake-up call. Happened almost a year ago.”

  “I’m sorry. Sometimes I talk before I think.” She bit her lip, reminding herself to think first, talk second. “Actually, that’s pretty much the norm. But I am glad you’re okay—and that the last thing you ever hear won’t be me calling you an asshole.”

  “You called me an asshole?” He burst out laughing, then winced as he put weight on his left leg.

  She reached for his elbow on instinct, as if she could support him like a crutch, but he braced his palm against the wet lamppost before she made contact, gritting his teeth as he spoke.

  “I’m fine,” he insisted. He was lying, of course, but Gabi wasn’t going to argue. “You were saying? Something about me being an asshole?”

  Gabi threw her hands in the air. Okay, fine. So she was going to argue. “You soaked me and almost my camera too.” She looked at his wet jeans and cargo jacket. “Okay, I guess you’re no better off. Maybe even a little worse. Are you going to be all right? I mean, are you sure there isn’t someone I should call?”

  She wanted to get out of her wet clothes, but at the same time she wanted to stay here, shivering, a little while longer. There was something she liked about him—about Ethan, other than his eyes. For a guy who’d almost bought the farm, he was funny. And charming. An
d he was flirting with her, wasn’t he?

  He nodded toward Darcy’s Bar, the one connected to her hostel.

  “My shift starts in ten minutes. I need to get in there and break the news to Colin about his bike or scooter or whatever it is. And then I need to beg him for another ten minutes so I can change.”

  Her eyes widened. “You work at Darcy’s?”

  He shrugged. “For the time being. I have an open-ended return ticket. Eventually I’ll head back home to start working for my father.” His shoulders lowered, and he blew out a long breath. There was more to that story, but this didn’t feel like the right time or place to ask. He didn’t even know her name.

  He glanced down at his wet clothes and over at the hopefully-not-ruined scooter. “Looks like my night can only get better from here. So you know Darcy’s?”

  She shook her head. “I mean yes. I mean—I haven’t been there yet. I just checked in to the hostel and was going to maybe grab a drink after I put on some dry clothes.”

  He smiled sheepishly. “Which you wouldn’t have to do if I wasn’t such a shitty driver.”

  Her cheeks warmed. “You said it this time. Not me.”

  “Tell you what…If you promise you’re actually coming down for a drink, the first one’s on me.” He held out his right hand. “I’m—”

  “Ethan,” she blurted, and his eyes widened. “I heard that woman say your name. Guess you’re quite the popular guy around here.”

  Now her cheeks were on fire. Stop. Speaking. Before. Thinking.

  Ethan laughed and nodded toward his still-extended hand. “Are you going to leave me hanging, mystery girl? A name for a name is usually how this works.”

  She wrapped her hand around his and shook. And even though she was wet and cold, an inexplicable warmth spread through her.

  “Gabi,” she said. “It’s very unexpected to meet you, Ethan.”

  His dark brows drew together. “It’s very unexpected to meet you too, Gabi.”

  Together they crossed the street in the direction of their destination, Ethan’s limp slowing them down, not that she minded.