by Lauren Layne
Brit looked up from where she was riffling through a pile of cardigans, her eyes taking in the matching mom-and-daughter outfits her friend held out. Her lips pressed together to stifle a laugh and then, in silent amusement, she looked toward her other best friend.
This should be good.
Taylor Ballantine’s long black hair whipped around as she glanced over her shoulder at Daisy, then her gray-blue eyes bugged out comically. “What are those?”
“Matching outfits!” Daisy said, holding them out to her sides to admire them lovingly. “Are they not the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?”
Taylor was already shaking her head, plucking the items out of Daisy’s hands, and hanging them back on the rack. “How did you even find this section?” she said, taking in the display of matching mother-daughter clothes in dismay.
“You said you wanted help picking out post-pregnancy clothes,” Daisy pointed out.
“I meant I wanted to celebrate not having to wear maternity clothes any longer, not that I wanted to start dressing up like an extra in a creepy horror movie.”
Daisy reached out and pulled another set of matching outfits from the rack, this one a rust-colored jumpsuit for Mom and a matching one for Baby, with a bunch of ruffles where the baby’s butt would be. “To accentuate the cute diaper poof,” Daisy said fondly, shaking the outfit in front of a glaring Taylor.
Brit couldn’t help it anymore. Letting out a laugh, she went to rescue Taylor, pulling the hideous outfits out of Daisy’s hands and hanging them back up. “Sweetie. You do remember that Aidan’s a boy?”
Daisy’s nose scrunched. “I know. But they just don’t seem to make matching mommy–son clothes, which is a shame. Though that little romper I just picked out could be co-ed—”
“No,” Taylor said, shaking her head. “No matching. Ever.”
“Not even for Christmas cards?” Daisy sulked.
“Especially not then,” Taylor said emphatically. “I refuse to be that sort of mother.”
“Fair enough,” Daisy said agreeably. Too agreeably. “Let’s find the men’s section, see if we can find matching father-son outfits for Nick and Aidan.”
That gave Taylor pause, and she tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully. “Hmm. Now, that could be the perfect revenge for Nick drinking the last cup of coffee this morning after I was the one up all night with a screaming infant. I wonder if they make one of those ruffle-butt styles for six-foot-two men. Could make for interesting—”
“Nope,” Brit interrupted, linking arms with her friends and pulling them away from the racks. “I don’t know what’s worse, Daisy trying to dress your son up in an orange jumper with a lace butt, or you contemplating dressing your husband in the same.”
“Hers is creepier, no contest,” Daisy said.
“Where are you taking us?” Taylor asked Brit, digging in her heels slightly, like a stubborn child. “I still haven’t bought any clothes.”
Taylor Ballantine, née Carr, was taller, but Brit was more determined, and she hauled both friends toward the front door of Bloomingdale’s.
“We made a huge error in judgment by not having lunch before shopping,” Brit said.
Daisy brushed a strand of blond hair out of her face as they stepped out of Bloomingdale’s and onto Third Avenue. “Actually, I don’t think anyone would suggest that eating before trying on clothes is a good idea. Even with Taylor’s perfect figure, which, by the way, is super annoying for a woman who gave birth just a couple months ago.”
“Okay, I’ll grant you that eating isn’t always beneficial before shopping,” Brit admitted, releasing their linked arms and adjusting her purse higher on her shoulder. “But wine sure as heck is.”
She wiggled her eyebrows enticingly and waited.
Taylor checked her watch, then looked up at Daisy. “It’s eleven forty-five. . . .”
“Perfect,” Daisy pronounced. “Where shall we go?”
Ten minutes later, they were settled into a corner table at a nearby Italian restaurant with a bottle of Gavi, an Italian white wine varietal recommended by the waiter, chilling beside them. Taylor lifted her glass in a toast. “To the best damn shopping expedition I’ve had in ages.”
“You didn’t buy anything,” Daisy reminded her.
“We’ll fix that later,” Taylor said, clinking her glass to Brit’s and then taking a long sip. She pulled the glass away from her lips and gave it a loving glance. “God, am I glad I pumped today.”
“Excuse me?” Brit said, biting off a piece of bread.
“Breast-pump business,” Taylor said. “I filled up Aidan’s bottles ahead of time so that Mommy can enjoy this bottle.” She tapped the wine with her nail.
Brit chewed her bread and studied her friend with a smile. Taylor could pretend for all the world that she missed her old life of drinking wine whenever she wanted, of shopping once a week instead of once a month, but Brit knew better. Taylor loved being a mom. It might be a cliché, but the glow Taylor had while she was pregnant turned into full-on beaming once Aidan had made his noisy way into the world. The fact that Taylor shared her parental duties with Nick Ballantine added to her sparkle.
Once upon a time, Nick and Taylor had been all-out enemies, far more inclined to war than love. But thanks to a timely breakup with other people and a mutual need for a roommate, love had blossomed among all the bickering.
Baby and marriage had quickly followed. Very quickly.
Brit was happy for her friend. Both her friends, since she counted Nick as a close friend as well. But amid all that happiness, there was maybe a tiny twinge of jealousy.
She wanted that. She wanted what Taylor had with Nick, and what Daisy had found with Lincoln Mathis, the most handsome man on the planet and another Oxford employee with Brit, Taylor, and Hunter.
Heck, for that matter, most of Brit’s social circle these days seemed wrapped up in Oxford. Nick was a sometimes freelancer for the magazine, and even Daisy had worked for the magazine as a temp, until she discovered her true calling as a wedding planner.
Brit was grateful. Grateful to have a job that she loved, a friend group that was there for one another through all of life’s ups and downs.
It just seemed that one area of Brit’s life—the romantic part—had been down more often than not.
She didn’t get it. As she pointed out to Hunter yesterday, Brit tried. Not in the desperate, I’ll date just about anyone kind of way, but she put herself out there. She said yes to any guy who asked her out who didn’t seem like he had someone chained up in a basement somewhere.
She was open to dating men shorter than her, balding men, men with man buns, though she hated man buns. Beards, no beards, sports fans, chess fans . . . She was open, damn it.
She made it a point of being available.
And yet time and time again, she got the talk.
You’re a great girl, Brit, I’m just not feeling it. . . .
It. What the hell was it?
What was she lacking? Or missing altogether?
“When do you think she’s going to tell us?” Daisy said, casually glancing at Taylor over her menu.
Taylor reached for the bread basket. “Oh, you mean what she’s musing over? I give her another sip of wine or two, and she’ll explain why she dragged us out of Bloomingdale’s, which she loves, to have lunch even though she said an hour ago that she had a breakfast so big she could barf.”
“Fine,” Brit said, setting her arms on the table and leaning forward. “But remember, you invited the conversation.”
“Oh dear,” Daisy said mildly, sipping her wine. “Is it worse than discussing breast pumps?”
“Or rompers with ruffles on the butt,” Taylor said with a pointed look at Daisy.
“Lenny and I broke up,” Brit announced.
Daisy and Taylor’s responses came at the same time but were nothing alike.
“Oh, honey,” Daisy said sympathetically, at the exact moment Taylor declared, “Thank God.”
“He dumped me,” Brit said with a little shrug.
“What?” Taylor spat. “How is that even possible? That man was the physical form of halitosis.”
Brit blinked. “What does that even—never mind. But yeah, he broke up with me. It was the usual speech. He liked me but not in that way. I’m going to make some guy very happy, but he’s not that guy. He enjoys spending time with me, but we’re missing the spark. . . . Sound familiar?”
Her friends both winced, and Brit knew what they were thinking.
It was familiar because it was almost verbatim what Brit’s last three boyfriends had said to her.
Not that she’d ever thought any of them was the love of her life, but she’d been willing to give the relationship a chance to grow into something more. Apparently, the men hadn’t felt the same.
“Okay, you guys have to be perfectly honest with me,” Brit said, pinning them both with a look, “because Hunter was no help.”
“Boys never are with this sort of thing,” Daisy said, dragging a piece of bread through the dish of olive oil and vinegar on the table. “Even the very best ones are clueless about love.”
“Well, I don’t think love pertained to Lenny and me,” Brit admitted. “But I’d be lying if I wasn’t a little . . . baffled by the breakup.”
“You should be baffled. You’re hotter than him,” Taylor said emphatically. “And smarter. You have a good job, a great apartment, excellent shoe selection, and he practically lives with his mom and brings his coin collection to cocktail parties.”
“I swear I didn’t know he was going to do that,” Brit said, looking over at Daisy in apology. Daisy and Lincoln had hosted a New Year’s Eve party, and Brit had thought a night full of booze would be as good a time as any to introduce her new boyfriend to all her friends.
Not only had Lenny stashed the velvet-lined travel case carrying his collection of rare coins in his jacket pocket, but he’d also attempted to read the palms of several people at the party, including Alex Cassidy—the editor in chief of Oxford, the boss of most of the people in the room, Daisy’s brother-in-law, and so not the type of man to have his palm read. Ever.
“Honey, this is all just more proof that you’re better off without him,” Daisy said.
“I know,” Brit said. “I’m not all brokenhearted or anything. I’m not even that upset; it’s just . . . You guys, this is the third time in a few months, and it’s always the same. It’s like I’m sprayed in man-repellent.”
“You are not,” Taylor said. “And if you say anything like that again, I’ll take your wine away.”
Brit clutched the glass protectively against her chest. “Don’t you dare. But really, I need help. After Hunter, you guys are my best friends.”
“And you’re ours. What do you need? Name it,” Daisy said.
Brit set her glass on the table and spread her arms to the sides. “Be brutally honest. Am I giving off some sort of weird vibe? Does it say platonic across my forehead? Or do I have an unremarkable label on my boobs?”
Taylor leaned in and studied Brit’s chest. “Nope, all good there. Solid rack.”
Brit rolled her eyes. “Thanks. But I’m sort of serious. I really can’t figure out why they keep bailing on me, all of them claiming lack of spark.”
“Do you feel a spark?” Daisy asked. “With them?”
Brit pressed her lips inward and considered. “Not really? I mean . . . none of them made me pant or anything. But I’d at least thought there was the option for an eventual spark. Instead, they all look at me like Hunter looks at me. Like I’m one of the guys. Except I’m not, nor have I ever been a tomboy. I don’t watch sports with any sort of enthusiasm, unless it’s that cute golfer. I shave my legs every day. I know my way around an eyeshadow palette. I love high heels.”
“Cheers to that,” Taylor said, sticking her foot out from beneath the table to wiggle a bright-blue stiletto.
The server started to come their way, but he halted in his tracks and backed away. Probably due to the combination of Taylor’s lethal stiletto waggling and the kill the men vibe Brit suspected she might be putting out at the moment.
“Maybe men are just . . . comfortable with you,” Daisy mused. “Perhaps they don’t know what to do about it.”
“You are really good at putting people at ease,” Taylor chimed in. “The first day I met you at Oxford, you made me feel like we were instant best friends.”
“Same here,” Daisy said in agreement. “When I was new to New York and didn’t know anyone besides Emma and Cassidy, you seriously made all the difference. I was nervous as heck my first days at Oxford, convinced that I didn’t fit in. You made me feel like I did. You acted like we’d known each other forever, and it was . . . nice.”
Brit tapped her nails on the table as she considered this. Though she’d never really thought about it in that light, she supposed it was sort of her MO. From grade school all through high school, she’d been the one whom the principal had asked to show the new kids around. In college at the University of Michigan, she’d been asked to lead the freshman orientation.
Heck, even at Oxford, Cassidy was forever bringing the newbies to her, asking her to show them the ropes. She didn’t become best friends with all of them, but . . . well, that was how she’d met Hunter, Daisy, and Taylor.
She was friendly. She made people feel comfortable. That was an asset, wasn’t it?
Maybe. Maybe when it came to friendship, it was. But when it came to romantic relationships . . .
“I make them too comfortable,” she said aloud to her friends.
“Who?” Daisy asked.
“Men,” Brit said, her fingers tapping faster as the thought took hold. “Maybe I put them so at ease that I kill the spark.”
“Or just disguise the spark,” Daisy said. “You know, like you’re almost so great that they freak out because nothing’s going wrong?”
“Right! And because men are dumb and accustomed to relationships being hard, they mistake the easiness of being with you for lack of spark,” Taylor said, visibly warming to the idea as she plucked the bottle out of the chiller and refilled all their glasses.
Brit felt something click at her friends’ assessment. Was that right? It felt right. Because even though her dumping record had been especially brutal these past few months specifically, hadn’t she always felt as if guys didn’t see her like that? Hadn’t she always found herself in the just friends category even when she didn’t want to be?
Yes. The answer was sadly yes.
The question, though, was what to do about it.
Did she even want to do something about it?
“Shouldn’t being comfortable with someone be a good thing?” Brit asked, a little dejected. “You guys are comfortable with Lincoln and Nick.”
“Sure, now. But Nick and I weren’t comfortable at first,” Taylor said. “Anything but.”
“Lincoln and I were comfortable,” Daisy said, nibbling her bottom lip. “But that was sort of . . .”
Brit reached over and patted her arm. “Different. So different. Your and Lincoln’s story is special.”
“It is,” Daisy agreed with a happy, private smile. “But you deserve a special story too.”
Brit made a come on gesture with her fingers. “Bring it. Bring on all the suggestions. Get me out of the friend zone.”
Daisy and Taylor looked at each other for a moment, their gazes speculative. They smiled at the exact same time, as though an idea struck them at the exact same time.
“What?” Brit asked, looking between them. “What am I missing?”
Daisy nodded at Taylor. “You go.”
“Okay,” Taylor said excitedly, turning to face Brit fully. “You said you make guys too comfortable. I think maybe you’re right, at least in the early stages when it’s all about sexual tension and maybe even a good fight now and then to get the blood pumping.”
Brit nodded. “A
nd?”
“And. You need a lesson in how to make a guy uncomfortable!”
“Ah . . .” Brit paused. “I like it in theory, but I can’t imagine that would lead to romance.”
“There are different types of uncomfortable,” Daisy said with an enigmatic smile. “The awkward type, and . . . the sexy type.”
“A sexy type of uncomfortable?” Brit said doubtfully.
“Seduction,” Taylor summed up. “Being seduced is uncomfortable as heck, and oh so good. And you, my dear friend, need a lesson.”
“A lesson in the art of seduction? From who? You guys?”
Both women were already shaking their heads. “We can give you pointers,” Daisy said. “But you need an expert to actually experience it.”
“A guy to experience it with,” Taylor clarified.
“Who the heck would teach me the art of seduction?”
“Gosh, if only you had a best friend who was a guy . . .” Daisy said, picking up her menu and studying it.
Oh. Ohhhhhh.
How silly that she hadn’t seen it first. Brit felt herself give a little smile. Then a wider one.
It was brilliant.
Then she began to laugh. She was about to call in the ultimate friend favor.
Poor Hunter.
Chapter Three
Hunter felt like an idiot. He was in his thirties, for God’s sake. Far too established in the world of women and dating to make such a rookie move, but he had.
His date had been fine. Good, even, in that he hadn’t wanted to shoot himself halfway through dinner. Conversation had been pleasant, if not exactly scintillating. The rib eye he’d had for his meal had been excellent, as had the tiramisu she’d wanted to split for dessert.
It was not, however, by Hunter’s estimation, a date that necessitated or even inspired a repeat. He didn’t see himself marrying or even seriously dating Haley Ferris. She was pretty, kind, and . . . incredibly literal.
Not a bad trait in and of itself, to be sure, but given Hunter’s particularly dry style of sarcasm, their conversational tactics had hardly been compatible for the long haul.