by Lisa Lace
I keep hold of her arm and pull her toward me. She stumbles slightly, her body pressing against mine. Her head twists and tilts upward toward me. Her eyes are full of so many emotions; I see regret and longing.
“Let go.”
“Listen to me: I was wrong. I should never have let you meet me without knowing who it was you’d been talking to. I should never have said that nothing had changed for you when I came by yesterday. I never meant to make you feel small. I made so many mistakes when we were young, and now I’m making them all again.”
I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb. Her hand feels small in my palm. Her body leans away from me, but she doesn’t pull away her hand. She looks back at me over her shoulder, her eyebrows drawn together and her chin trembling. I release her, and she quickly steps back. Her face is flushed.
I continue. “My assistant tells me I have an ego, and I think he’s right. It’s not fair of me to assume that you’re going to want me simply because I’m here. I know that you have your own life that doesn’t involve me, and I have no right to any of your time or your feelings anymore. But I’d like the chance to try again. This time, we would be equal. It wouldn’t be a rerun of ‘The Cole Show.’ So much has changed.
“Since you’ve come back into my life, all I can think about is how things used to be before I got the job at the paper and let you become my last priority. I was an idiot. Please, give me a chance to show you that I’m different now.
“I should never have taken it for granted that you’d want to pick up where we left off, but I got so caught up in the idea that fate brought us back together. I broke up with my girlfriend as soon as we saw each other again. Nobody compares, Soph. Please, please, let me take you to dinner tonight.”
Finally, Sophie turns her body toward me, her anger dissipating. “Why do you want to start this again? We made each other miserable.”
“Not at first. Getting married was the mistake we made. Before we started setting all those expectations for each other, we were happy. You can’t say we were never good together. You can’t say that our adventures weren’t out of this world. Those memories are the best of my life.”
She bows her head and nods. “Mine too.”
“It could be like that again. Maybe our time for globetrotting is over, but we could still make each other laugh like we used to.”
Sophie bites down on her lip. I can see how excruciating the decision is.
I won’t give up.
“I don’t want all those good memories marred by some stupid things I said because my ego was bruised. If nothing else, I want to walk away on good terms. Let’s go to dinner, maybe see what’s left. If there’s nothing there, I’ll walk away for good. I swear.”
Her resolve weakens. She nods and folds her arms sternly across her chest. “Fine. I’ll go to dinner, but it’s not a date. It’s a reunion.”
“A reunion.” I grin. “Let’s meet at Monty’s at eight.”
“Okay.”
I step back and gesture that she’s free to go. “Then I’ll see you later.”
She steps across my path to pass me with an awkward smile. “I’m actually parked this way.” She presses her key fob and the headlights of a nearby compact car blink with a beep.
“I’ll see you later.”
“Eight o’clock.”
Sophie
I don’t know why I agreed to meet Cole. Maybe it was all his talk of fate. Maybe it’s because, despite my strong objections, he’s completely right. Nothing has changed in my life since he left. In a way, it feels like I never let him go. I never stopped loving him, but I couldn’t live with being last on his list.
But things are different now.
Even if I keep telling myself that this is not a date, I still get dressed in a little number intended to make Cole look twice. It’s a ribbed crimson bodycon dress. I pair it with sheer black pantyhose and a pair of black ankle boots. I wear a dark red lipstick. I never used to wear makeup. I brush my hair until it shines and examine my reflection. Not bad for thirty-one.
I take a cab to Monty’s. It’s a small, hole-in-the-wall kind of establishment downtown. From the outside, it looks like nothing special. The paneled wood door is coated in a chipped green paint, and the bronze italic font above the door is tarnished. It seems tired and forgotten.
Inside, it’s a hidden treasure. The walls are bare stone, and floral arrangements hang from exposed wood beams across the ceiling. There’s an ornamental fire pit in the center of the restaurant, casting a dim, flickering glow over the cushioned chairs and low, round tables. There’s a soft buzz of conversation and the smell of wine and fresh food, lending the place a relaxed, warm vibe. It feels like I’ve stepped into a rustic Italian ristorante in the countryside.
I glance across the bistro and can see Cole waiting for me at a table. I take a moment to simply look at him. He’s as handsome as ever. Ten years have passed, but I’d recognize him anywhere. He’s clean-shaven, sharpening that beautiful jawline. His hair looks perfectly styled, although I know for a fact that Cole has never touched a hairbrush in his life.
He was always gorgeous, but now he’s sexier than ever. The years have given a maturity to his good looks that would make any woman look twice.
There’s a glass feature behind the bar. I take a look at my reflection. My hair is still shining, my lips are still red, but I don’t feel the same confidence as when I left my apartment. I almost wish I was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. It feels like I’m trying too hard. Why do you want to impress him, Sophie?
I walk across the restaurant and stand in front of Cole. His eyes travel up my body, toward my face. I see him wet his lips, his eyes widening slightly. He clears his throat, rising to pull out a chair for me. “Hi, Soph. You look great.”
My heart flutters when he says that. I haven’t heard him speak those words for such a long time, but the feelings surge back.
I never really let Cole go.
I sit down. “Thank you.”
Cole takes his place opposite me, his hands folded on the table. For a moment, neither of us say a thing. We merely look at each other. I see him drinking in the new me. As his eyes roam over my face, I’m self-conscious—and not the eighteen-year-old he met in Pisa.
“You’re wearing lipstick.”
I brush my fingertip across my mouth. “Yes.”
“It suits you.”
“Thank you.”
“You look older.”
I let out a sad laugh. “Tell me about it.”
He reaches out and takes hold of my hand. “In a good way. There’s something different about you now. You look sophisticated. Amazing.”
I think of all the sexts we sent before we knew who it was we were flirting with. All the things he said he wanted to do to me. Fantasies of our bodies intertwined, half memory and half desire, dance across my mind’s eye.
“You look different, too. That boyishness has gone.”
“A few wrinkles have crept in, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know you look great.”
“I’m glad you came tonight, Sophie. I really want us to salvage a friendship if nothing else.”
There is a lump in my throat. I swallow, then pour a glass of water from the pitcher on the table and take a sip. I lift my shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. “We’re both mature adults. There’s no reason to hold onto old grudges. You were right. We tried to do it all too young before we’d figured out who we were, and who we wanted to be.”
The waiter arrives and Cole orders for us both. “A gin and tonic for me, please, and she’ll have a vodka cranberry.”
I hold up my hand, catching the waiter’s eyes. “Actually, I’ll have a white wine.”
The waiter nods and vanishes. Cole looks across at me, surprised.
I raise my eyebrows. “I always hated it when you ordered for me.”
“You did? I thought you liked it.”
“Actually, I always thought it was pretty rude.
”
“Then why did you let me do it?”
I shrug. “You seemed to like being in command.”
He smiles, a gleam of self-awareness alighting in his eyes. “And I always thought you liked being led. I guess I misread a lot in our time together.”
“Not always. Sometimes you were pretty intuitive.”
“I was?”
“Yes. Remember when we were trying to find time to see everything in Thailand, and we couldn’t fit everything in? I said I would be okay with missing Khao Yai National Park, but you booked tickets for us anyway. It meant you missed Sukhothai, which you’d been dying to see.”
“I’d never let you leave Thailand without seeing your elephants. It was all you talked about on the plane.”
“And all you talked about was the Old City. You were dying to take pictures there.”
“I didn’t want you to miss out on something that I knew you’d adore.”
“Sometimes you lead us in the perfect direction.” The waiter brings us our drinks as I finish the sentence, and I add, “Sometimes you kept ordering me food and drinks I hated.”
“I thought you liked vodka cranberry?”
I shrug. “I ordered it one time, and you ordered it for me every time we went out after.”
“I wish you’d told me. There was me, thinking I was being so suave and charming.”
I laugh. “I didn’t mind so much at the time.”
“So, it’s hindsight making you pick apart all the things I ever did?”
“Something like that.”
He laughs. “I deserve that, I guess.”
I’m picking Cole apart, but he’s taking well. “I bet there were hundreds of things that I did to annoy you, too?”
He catches my eyes, suddenly looking nostalgic. “Nothing comes to mind. You were the perfect travel partner.”
“But not the perfect wife?”
Cole smiles. “We were young.”
I raise my glass. “To being young and stupid.”
He grins and taps his glass against mine. We drink.
As the alcohol begins to seep through me, my initial nerves fade, making me feel warm and relaxed. The atmosphere of the dim, cozy restaurant has a similar effect. The flicker of the flames seems to blunt the edges of everything. Everything seems soft.
We order our food, and it arrives soon after. As we eat and drink, we slowly reconnect. When we talk, it’s clear that we’re both older. The things we talk about and how we talk about them shows we’re not teens anymore, but, at the same time, I recognize the old Cole—that slight overconfidence, a dry sense of humor, and a unique ability to focus on a conversation partner. I feel like the only woman in the world.
“I can’t believe I’m here with you,” Cole says. His eyes are fixed on my face, his tumbler of gin and tonic held loosely in one hand. I have his full attention, and it makes my heart skip a beat. “It feels like I’m meeting you all over again: Sophie Ellis, thirty-something banker.”
“Cole Tanner, wedding photographer.”
Cole pulls a face. “That never did have a ring to it.”
“I don’t know. I bet it’s a lot of fun to go to all those weddings.”
“The novelty wears off quickly, trust me.”
I laugh. “It’s got to be better than all those riots and war zones.”
“It’s steady, safe work, but it doesn’t get my blood pumping. You know me. I was always a thrill-seeker. Something about being in the heat of the moment like that always made me feel alive.”
“What happened, Cole? Your star was rising so quickly. You were passionate about your work. Devoted to the point of obsession, and talented, too. Why aren’t you working for the paper anymore?”
Cole lays down his glass and leans back, his arm over the back of his chair. He rolls his neck slowly, and takes a deep breath, then leans forward again with his elbows on the table. He frowns. “I was injured.”
“How?”
“I was shooting in Haiti, 2010, after the earthquake. I was taking shots of the ruins when a building collapsed. My right arm was crushed, three ribs broken, punctured a lung, and had a major concussion. It took me over two years to fully recover, and by that time, Bates was the new golden boy. I tried to claw my way back in, but the door seemed to be closed. I got angry and quit the paper in a rage. I thought I’d walk into another job elsewhere, but my reputation no longer preceded me. In the end, I had no choice but to take up other work to pay the bills. I started my photography company, took on my assistant, Dennis, and I’ve been shooting weddings ever since.”
My eyes widen, and my heart is thumping in my chest. I never even knew Cole had been injured. The thought sends shockwaves running through me.
I reach out instinctively to hold his hands across the table. “I didn’t know. How are you now?”
Cole twists his right arm to show me the long purple scar running up his inner forearm. “I have dozens of pins holding my arm together, but I can hold a camera. I get aches and pains from time to time, but I’m alive. I’m thankful for that.”
I shake my head slowly. When I speak, my voice comes out soft and low. “I can’t believe that happened. I know you lost your career, but maybe it’s for the best that the injury took you out of that life. Sooner or later, you might have been killed.”
“Without my career, it sometimes feels like I’m hardly living.” He glances across the table at me, his eyes wide and sincere. “Then I ran into you again, and I remembered that I was happy before my career ever took off—when I was with you.”
There’s that flutter in my chest again. I’m caught in Cole’s blue, blue gaze, and everything else fades away. When I’m staring into his eyes, I feel like we’re the only two people in the world. It would be so easy for Cole’s words to be empty, but something tells me he’s sincere.
I should feel disdain for his failed career; a result of his selfish choices and decision to leave me, but I don’t. I feel pity for him, and something of an old flame flickering once more.
“I was happy then, too. It broke my heart when it all went wrong.”
Cole nods. “We had something special. And what about you, Sophie? Are you happy now?”
What a question.
I offer a small shrug. “Happier than I thought I’d be. Although I resented working at the bank at first, I’m actually pretty good at it. I’ve made some close friends working there, and I’m up for promotion to branch manager. It might not be what I’d have chosen, but I think I’ve landed on my feet.”
Cole’s smile is warm. “I’m glad. I always hoped you’d be happy.”
“I always hoped you’d be happy, too.”
For the rest of the dinner, the tone of the conversation is less serious. Cole tells me all about his assistant, Dennis, and I fill him in on everything that’s new with Lena. We talk about the apartments we’re living in and our favorite haunts in the city.
Cole is right—it feels like we’re meeting each other for the first time. There’s enough of the old Cole there for a familiar excitement to hover in my stomach every time I catch his eyes, but there’s a whole new side of Cole for me to discover. He’s more mature now, more settled. He seems to have come down from the clouds a bit; this Cole is down-to-earth and a realist. It’s almost enough to make me think twice about the possibility of seeing him again.
By the time we leave the restaurant, I feel comfortable walking close to Cole, and when he threads his arm around my waist, I don’t pull away. I like the way it feels to have his arm around me again. If I close my eyes, I can imagine we’re walking down some foreign street, exactly like we used to do.
And yet—I’m nervous. Cole is the man who broke my heart; the only man I’ve ever loved. I don’t think I’m ready to risk it all again, no matter how much he’s changed.
Cole
We step outside the restaurant, and Sophie scans the street. She’s looking for a cab.
I suddenly realize that I don’t want her to go. After al
l these years apart, a few hours to reconnect doesn’t feel like enough. I want to spend more time getting to know her again, memorizing all the changes in her face, learning all her new ways. She’s fascinating.
“Would you think I was being too presumptuous if I invited you back to my place?”
Sophie looks down at the ground with a shy smile, then looks up at me from under her lashes, biting down on her lip. “It depends—are we just extending the reunion?”
I cross my heart. “I swear.”
She nods. “It does seem too early to call it a night. We have so much to catch up on.”
I hold out my hand to take hers. “Come on, I’ll get us a Lyft.”
I schedule a Lyft and hold open the door for Sophie when it arrives a short while later. I give my address to the driver, and soon, we’re outside my apartment building.
Sophie’s eyes travel up the exterior of the building, and I wonder what she’s thinking. I told everybody I’d be huge by now.
I pay the driver and lead her into the building and to my apartment. We step inside, and I stand back a while to let Sophie explore.
She steps into my living room, and I see her looking at all the framed photographs and papers on my wall. She points to the picture of the child being reunited with her parents in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake under the headline, “Search for survivors continue.”
“Is this when it happened?”
I stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the shot. “I took that only a few hours before the building collapsed on me.” I point to a structure in the background of the picture. “That one there. It was rubble, that same afternoon.”
“Oh, my God,” Sophie breathes. “That’s unbelievable.” She turns around, not realizing how close I’m standing behind her, causing her to turn into me. She presses her hands against my chest and looks up into my face with a pained expression. “I can’t believe you put yourself in so much danger. Thank God you’re home and safe.”
“Thank God.” I pull her away from the wall. I don’t want to look at photographs—I want to look at her. Sophie is the only part of my old life that I want to revisit right now. I lead her to my sofa and invite her to sit. “Wine?”