I only understood about half of what he said, but his spirit was contagious. “Totally.”
Caroline’s whirlwind romance with Felix read like a Harlequin novel, but I worried marrying a virtual stranger wasn’t the most infallible way to ensure a happily ever after. Still, as conversation halted while the waiter took our dinner orders, I observed Caroline and Felix and couldn’t deny the color in their cheeks and the width of their grins. Even if their relationship lasted the length of a novella rather than an epic novel, nothing could take this moment away from them.
While Bridget was busy telling the waitress she wanted the tuna nicoise medium, I stole a glance in her direction. She delivered her order, all the while holding Jonathan’s hand. When he gave it a squeeze, she looked up at him in surprise and beamed as he bent down to kiss her nose. Despite her own long-term boyfriend’s disinterest in ever making their relationship legal, Bridget didn’t appear to be envious that mere moments earlier, her close friend announced her spontaneous marriage to a guy she practically just met. Perhaps her claim of not caring about getting married wasn’t a lie or self-delusion after all. I observed them affectionately with a smile playing on my lips until her eyes met mine, and her head jerked back in surprise. Embarrassed to have forgotten we were in a fight, I quickly shifted my chair closer to Caroline to better examine her solitaire-shaped diamond ring.
“It’s so sparkly,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“What did your parents say?” Bridget asked.
Caroline smirked. “My dad has no business saying anything considering he’s married to a woman my age. My mother wasn’t pleased.” She dropped her gaze and fiddled with a roll.
Felix placed his arm around her and drew her close. “She thinks we’re both barmy, but I’ll win her over. You’ll see.”
Laughing, Jonathan said, “You sure don’t sound like you’ve lived here for ten years.” I was glad he said it and not me.
“If I have anything to do with it, he’ll never lose his accent. I love all of the British slang. It’s so sexy,” Caroline said, her cheeks flushed.
Once again, I was glad she said it and not me. Felix was my close friend’s boyfriend—correction, husband—but I could certainly appreciate his appeal from a no-touching distance. Bridget and I would have so much fun dishing about his adorable accent, chiseled jaw, and ease with which he sported colored jeans later—if only we were speaking.
For the remainder of the meal, I made it a point to focus the conversation on Caroline and Felix—details about their wedding, observations from their travels, et cetera. Bridget did the same. Even while in a feud, it was as if we made a silent agreement to work together for a common goal—not to let our contention get in the way of Caroline’s big night. Under normal circumstances, Caroline would have seen through it, but she was so preoccupied with Felix and under their love spell, she didn’t seem to notice Bridget and I never spoke to each other directly.
At the end of the night, we huddled outside the entrance to say our goodbyes. “Take lots of pictures of the pyramids,” I demanded, after giving Caroline a tight hug. They were jetting to Egypt the following day.
“I promise to post on Facebook and Instagram,” Caroline said.
“Perfect.” I gave her a thumbs-up. “So nice to meet you, Felix, and congratulations. Take care of our girl or I’ll hunt you down and—”
“What? Punch him in the knees?” Jonathan interrupted, laughing.
Playfully shoving him in retribution, I said, “I own a stepladder, and I know how to use it.”
Felix crossed his heart. “On my John Thomas, I promise to treat her like a princess.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re a brilliant friend.”
As I stepped aside to give Bridget room to bid her farewell, Jonathan edged closer to me.
I gave him a halfhearted shrug.
He tilted his head to the side. “What are you going to do about your little situation?” he asked, gesticulating between Bridget and me.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “I don’t plan to do anything about it.” With a darting gaze toward Bridget, who was still saying her goodbyes, I whispered through my teeth, “I tried to make peace, and she got nasty with me. I’m done.” My brain ordered me to stand strong even as my heart ached for my best friend.
Jonathan’s lips pressed together in a slight grimace. “She’d never admit to it, but she misses you like crazy. She keeps trying to make me act more like you. I love the girl, but I’m not watching real housewives of anywhere, and I don’t care about her damn period.”
I chuckled despite myself, even as my chin trembled dangerously. I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a fleeting smile. “I need to get out of here.” Raising my voice to get Caroline and Felix’s attention once more, I said, “Safe travels, guys. Congrats again,” all the while avoiding eye contact with Bridget.
“Cheerio,” said Felix as the two of them waved goodbye. Before the onset of tears could give me away, I turned on my heel and flagged down an oncoming taxi.
Chapter 30
“Thank you! You won’t regret this!”
As Pia’s screeching voice attacked my eardrums, I winced and put the phone on speaker. One would think she was nominated for a Golden Globe award as opposed to being made a permanent reviewer on Pastel Is the New Black, but my lips turned up at how charged she was. I had planned to wait at least a month before making a decision, but after reading Pia’s first two probationary reviews, I was convinced she was the closest I was going to get to cloning myself. “You’re very welcome. I’m so grateful for the help.”
“So many books, so little time, right?” she said.
“Exactly.” With a dishrag in hand, I did a sweep of my living room to see what else could use a good dusting. I was attempting to keep myself busy to avoid obsessing over Bridget, Nicholas, or my revised manuscript sitting in Felicia’s inbox.
“I was shocked by your latest blog post. I had no idea.”
I had published a post making my writing aspirations public for the first time ever. I assured my readers I would not be abandoning my role as a book reviewer/blogger, but would be doing double duty as a blogger and an aspiring novelist. I also told them my author website would be launched in the upcoming future. It remained to be seen whether it would be the stunning website of Bridget’s creation or if I would be forced to find a new web designer. I refused to acknowledge my desire for the former since I was on a mission not to obsess over Bridget. “I haven’t wanted to talk about the writing gig so early in its gestation,” I confessed.
“Well, I can’t wait to review your book. I’m sure I’ll give it five pink champagne flutes.”
“Ha. It might be a bit of a conflict of interest for you to review it on Pastel Is the New Black. But feel free to do so on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes and Noble. If I ever get to that point.”
“For sure. So exciting. Do you have an agent? Do you want to publish traditionally or self-publish? The book is chick lit, right?”
I swallowed hard, debating how much to share with her. Even though I was bursting to announce I had already signed with Harrison & Gold, I kept my blog post very vague, wanting to discuss it with Felicia first. What if she preferred I keep the title a secret until the book was sold? What if she insisted I change the title before the novel went on submission? What if she lost patience with my multiple rounds of rewrites and dumped me as her client?
“The book is chick lit,” I said, hoping she’d be satisfied with the answer to just one of her many questions, or at least take the hint I didn’t want to answer the others.
“I’ll take your vagueness as a sign you don’t want to talk about this,” Pia said with a chuckle.
I let out a huge breath of relief. “Thanks.” Hoping to keep the conversation going, albeit in a different direction, I said, “So, what are all the cool gr
aduate students at University of Michigan doing tonight?”
I felt a wave of sadness as I realized how desperate I was for a friend—someone to talk to. My circle of close friends had always been limited—a logical result of having such a long-standing relationship with Bridget. From the age of thirteen, we had relied almost entirely on each other for female companionship. As I stood between the walls of my 700-square-foot apartment, desperate to keep Pia—someone I would likely never meet face to face—from ending our call, I wondered if it was karma’s way of kicking my butt for engaging in such an exclusionary clique of two.
“Going to the Jolly Pumpkin. A bit more upscale than some of the college bars.”
I removed my phone from the coffee table and headed to the bedroom. Stripping the bed without another set of sheets on deck meant I’d be forced to do laundry later, but it needed to be done. “Sounds fun. Tell me about it.”
As Pia rambled off a description of the Jolly Pumpkin—it was a bar and brewery combined into one—I continued cleaning my bedroom. I removed various items of Nicholas’s clothing from the floor and straightened the pile of Mad Magazines on the top of his dresser.
“Maybe I’ll meet a mature twenty-five-year-old man instead of the usual frat boy who considers chugging beer after beer followed by sloppy drunk sex an ideal Saturday night,” Pia continued.
Laughing quietly, I said, “You might want to aim for older than twenty-five if you’re seeking maturity.” I bent down in front of Nicholas’s dresser to return some of his items to their rightful place.
“Maybe twenty-eight. Thirty is way too old.”
Remembering when I too thought thirty was over the hill, I rolled my eyes in amusement as I opened Nicholas’s top drawer. Expecting to see folded pairs of boxer shorts and undershirts, my stomach clenched at the sight of the revised copy I had given Nicholas of A Blogger’s Life and I gasped out loud.
“What’s wrong?” Pia asked, a catch in her voice.
The messed-up part was it wouldn’t have upset me to see the book sitting untouched in his dresser if Nicholas hadn’t mentioned his intention to read it on the plane. But knowing he cast it aside in favor of, what, another pair of shoes, prickled my skin.
“Kim? You there?”
“Sorry. I’m still here.” My breath caught in my throat, and I longed to confide in someone. I needed someone to assure me it was okay to want more from Nicholas than he was currently giving me, to remind me of how supportive I’d always been of his career and understanding of his late hours, and to confirm I wasn’t imagining Nicholas’s distance over the last few months. I wished more than anything that someone was Bridget, but Pia would have to do since she was currently my only source of female comradery, or at least the most convenient seeing as we were already on the phone. I gave her the short version of the facts, concluding with finding the manuscript in his dresser after he’d told me he planned to take it to Florida.
“I’m sorry, Kim. You should talk to him.”
“Bridget said the same thing.”
“Who’s Bridget?”
“My best friend.” My stomach dropped. I couldn’t bring myself to clarify the statement with the word ex before best friend. “I’ve tried, but he’s either been too focused on work to give me his full attention, or I lose my nerve. And he’s in Miami at a trial anyway.”
“Maybe simply talking isn’t the answer. Why not go big?”
“Like a grand gesture?” I recalled Caroline’s words from the year before: pretend you’re a heroine in a chick lit novel, and write your own happy ending.
“Yeah. Something dramatic to get his attention.”
I sighed. “I did that already.” But even as I pouted over the injustice of once again being responsible for turning our relationship around, an idea was brewing. My eyes spotted the framed photograph on the wall of me, Erin, and my parents. It was taken when my folks first moved to Florida, and it was the only time my sister and I visited them together. “I suppose flying to Miami would be too dramatic, right?” I snorted.
Pia clapped. “Genius. Genius,” she repeated, sounding like the curator at the museum in Paris when Aleksandr Petrovsky revealed his light installation in Sex and the City. “You must do it.”
I laughed. “I wasn’t serious.”
“Why not?”
I opened my mouth to provide a credible reason and snapped it shut. Why not, indeed? It wouldn’t be the first time I impulsively flew to Florida. I had done it the year before after finally acknowledging my dream to be a writer and escaping to my parents’ house and the warmth of Boca Raton to complete the paranormal young adult novel I had started in high school.
“I’ll do it,” I said, logging onto Expedia to hunt down flights. The last time I took a day off was when Ginny Webber rejected my query, and Rob always preferred when my absentee days from work coincided with the days he wasn’t in the office anyway. He wouldn’t mind. I hoped Nicholas would appreciate I was digging into my barely there savings to rescue our floundering relationship. I wouldn’t expect him to reimburse me or buy me jewelry, but some groveling and assurances to never take me for granted again would be appreciated.
“Yay,” Pia said, clapping again. “You need a plan.”
I frowned. “What sort of plan?”
“Do you know where he’s staying? Are you going to tell him you’re coming or surprise him?”
She had more questions than I had answers for, and I rubbed my queasy belly. “He left me his hotel information, so that won’t be a problem, but I hadn’t thought about whether to tell him I was coming.” Considering it had been less than five minutes since I made the decision to meet up with him, I hadn’t thought about much. Thinking out loud, I said, “If I told him I was flying there without an explanation, he’d discourage me. He’s busy with the trial and meetings with the company bigwigs and such. I think simply showing up is the way to go.”
“That’s sexier anyway. Maybe you can knock on his hotel room door wearing a trench coat and nothing else. What better way to corral his undivided attention?”
I grinned. Seducing Nicholas in Florida might present the perfect opening for an honest-to-goodness rap session about the state of our coupledom. I’d wait until he was at his most vulnerable—after we had gone several rounds and he was completed sated. This could work. Then again, the last time I tried to sex things up with Nicholas, he conked out before we even got naked. But what were the chances of a thirty-one-year-old healthy straight man falling asleep during his girlfriend’s seduction twice in the same month? I swallowed hard and then quickly shook off the possibility. This time would be different.
“You’re ingenious,” I said as I visualized how things would go down when I got there. The trench coat idea was hot, but I had to devise something scorching. “Thank you so much, Pia. I should start packing.” A carry-on would be sufficient since I didn’t plan on wearing much clothing while I was there, but I had a lot to do before I went to sleep if I was going to catch an early plane the next day. First things first: book my flight. Then I would leave a voicemail for Rob. I’d thank him profusely for his understanding and insist he not tell Nicholas. Or Daneen. That bitch would love nothing more than to watch me and Nicholas implode.
“Keep me posted,” Pia squealed, her enthusiasm booming through the phone.
High from our girly scheming session, I laughed with her. “You got it.”
Chapter 31
Arriving at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, I paid my cab driver, trying not to worry about the increasing balance I was putting on my credit card, and dragged my pink La Vida vintage carry-on tote behind me into the lobby. Practicing fiscal responsibility, I wisely bypassed the swanky shops and walked directly to the set of elevators that would take me to Nicholas’s room in the Chateau Tower of the hotel. Maintaining a calm and confident gait, with a small smile playing on my lips as if I belonged there, I purpo
sely avoided contact with the porters. Sneaking into one’s boyfriend’s hotel room was a private, covert operation. The last thing I needed was a bellhop offering assistance. Actually, the last thing I needed was to run into a member of the squad, but since I was the one who booked all of their rooms—in a different hotel—it was unlikely they would be here. Rob had told me they won the trial, and in response to subtle prodding on my part via text, Nicholas had informed me his plan for the day involved a jog up Collins Avenue to burn off last night’s victory dinner at Joe’s Stone Crab, followed by a meeting with some executives from his company for most of the afternoon. Rob and crew did not qualify as executives or even employees of his company. By my calculations, Nicholas would be with his colleagues for at least the next hour or two, leaving me time to sneak into his room and set the mood.
The lobby had the energy of a Vegas casino, complete with loud music and long lines to check in and out, and it was quite easy to blend into the crowd and into the elevator. My confidence soared until I couldn’t get the elevator to move no matter how many times I pressed the button for Nicholas’s floor.
With three unsuccessful attempts at getting beyond the lobby under my belt, I offered a pursed-lip smile to a fifty-something-year-old man who stepped into the elevator wearing Bermuda shorts and a bright yellow t-shirt. He acknowledged me with a nod of his head before slipping his room key into the slot and pressing the button for his floor, which was, regrettably, different than Nicholas’s. The door closed.
I gave the man a pleading look. “Um, I hate to ask, but would you mind pressing the tenth floor for me? My boyfriend arrived yesterday and has both of our keys. I caught an earlier flight than planned and wanted to surprise him, but I didn’t realize I needed my room key.” I shifted my feet. “We’re in a long-distance relationship and haven’t seen each other in weeks. I’m sorry to ask. I swear I’m not trying to break in to someone else’s room.” Aside from Nicholas’s.
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