by Piper Lawson
I cut a look at fake-note-making Lex, who discreetly sidled over to whisper in my ear. “Thirty-two is European.”
The woman smiled benevolently and picked a top off the rack. “Why don’t I try this one?”
“OK. There’s a change room right—uh—” Nate glanced around before finding the curtained-off box partway down the room. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Nate shot a cocky look back at us as the woman took her shirt inside. He made a show of walking down the row of hangers, straightening a few until his customer re-emerged.
“What do you think?” She turned a circle in front of the mirror, wearing a top that showed off her body.
“It looks great.”
“Really?” Her voice lifted at the end, and her mouth curved. “You don’t think it’s too tight?”
“Ah—no. Can I help you find anything else?”
The woman’s eyes flicked up and down in a way I knew too well. “I think I’ve found it.”
The last two sweaters Ava had ‘folded’ hit the floor, right before she shoved past me to get to Nate. “He’s not for sale. You can take that top off, and you can leave.” Her hands reached for the woman’s shirt, and Jordan crossed the room, grabbing Ava’s arms.
“Um, you can keep the top. Sorry. And thanks. Come again!” Lex flashed a desperate smile as the woman backed out of the store, looking like she was ready to run or call the police.
Nate turned to Ava, smirking. “That was your masterclass in customer service?”
Ava let out an indecipherable sound of frustration.
“Why don’t we go to the back and eat lunch,” Lex suggested.
We followed her through the store and through the open doorway behind the counter. The room held a table along one wall, boxes stacked along another, and a few chairs. But everything faded away when I saw the mannequin surrounded by an ocean of white fabric.
My fingers itched to pull at the collar of my sweater. “What is that?”
“It’s a dress, D.”
“Yeah but it’s a…”
“A wedding dress?” Ava looked at me pointedly. “It’s for a client.”
“You remember Jane, right? One of my friends from school.” Lex opened the sandwiches and picked at one. Ava wolfed hers down, her eyes still on the giant dress. So were mine, for that matter.
“You should’ve heard how he proposed,” Ava went on, wiping her hand on a napkin and tossing the wrapper in the garbage. “He took her to Aspen. And he wrote her a song, and used torches on the ski hill to spell out ‘Marry me, Jane.’”
“Torches?” I repeated dully.
Nate brushed it off, shooting me a look. “Fire’s so old school. Call me when the guy uses lasers.”
Not helping, man.
“I just hope it works out for them,” Lex commented, oblivious to our subtext. “Too many people rush into things.”
“What, you don’t believe in happily ever afters?” Ava, who’d parked herself in front of the dress, lifted layers of fabric one after the other like she wanted to burrow straight to the mannequin’s feet.
“Of course I do. I just think that people should take their time. Be sure they’re not making a huge mistake.”
Lex turned back to her sandwich while I tried to keep breathing.
“Where’s your bathroom?” I grunted.
Chapter 9
Dylan
I braced my hands on the sink.
People rush into things.
Shit. She hadn’t meant us, had she? We’d talked about a future together. That I’d move here after school.
But what if she was changing her mind?
The door jerked open.
“Don’t you knock?” I spat at Ava. “I could’ve been taking a leak.”
“I’ve seen it all before.” Her eyes narrowed. “Dylan, are you all right? You look like you’re sweating.”
“Yeah, just … close the door.” She did, wedging her body between me and the sink. I was forced back with one leg on either side of the toilet. “I meant with you on the other side.”
“First Nate’s acting weird, and now you too. Dylan Cameron, what the hell is going on? Lex said you came home drunk and smelling like shit yesterday. She might put up with your bullshit because she loves you or whatever, but I’m your sister. Tell me the damn truth.”
I blew out a long breath. “I was going to propose.”
“What?” Her eyes went round.
I reached into the pocket I’d been patting all day and produced the ring.
Ava shrieked. “Holy shit, D! It’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to do it for the last two days, but things keep getting in the way.”
A knock on the door had us both freezing.
“Everything OK in there?” Jordan’s voice was skeptical.
“Um, yeah! Cramps,” Ava called back.
“Right.” Footsteps faded away and I winced.
“Cramps? Seriously?”
“Dylan Cameron, you have no idea how good you have it.” Her eyes went back to the diamond in my hand. “But today I don’t care because this is the best news ever!”
“You aren’t worried about what Lex said out there?”
“Are you kidding? She loves you. It’ll be great.”
“Shit. I hope so. Nate and I have been working on this for weeks.”
Ava held up a hand. “Wait, Nate was in on this? I’m going to kill him.”
“Don’t. He’s been kind of great.”
Her eyes glassed over again. “This is so perfect, D. I’m beyond happy. Even though we weren’t close in high school, I love that we are now. And part of that’s Lex. But I always wanted you to end up with someone amazing, and the same for her. Neither of you could do any better.” She threw her little arms around me, and I tucked the ring back in my pocket before bending to return her hug.
“Thanks, Ava.”
She started to pull back. “So you can get married when she gets back from Europe.”
“Wait, what?”
Ava’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, fuck. I did not mean to say that…”
My head was suddenly pounding, either from the overhead lights or the crowded bathroom that was quickly heating up.
“Ava. Talk.”
“Lex is trying to get an internship with Elle Duchesne in Paris. Elle’s this amazing designer she totally worships.” Ava grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into the muscle that was suddenly tense. “I’m sure she was going to tell you, Dylan. She hadn’t decided for sure.”
“Hey Ava?” Lex’s voice came from the hall outside. “I need to use the bathroom. I don’t know where Dylan is.”
Ava’s eyes widened. “Just a minute! Can you go see if we have the Lita skirt in a six? I, um, got a call about one.” Her expression shifted from panic to contrition. “I’m so sorry, D, I really thought you knew.”
“Yeah. No.”
Her voice softened. “Come on. Lex loves you. You know that. And this doesn’t have to change anything.”
“Right.” The ring in my pocket suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
Ava left the bathroom, and I took a moment to stare at my reflection in the mirror before following her out.
Chapter 10
Lex
“Can we talk?”
I glanced up from where I was rummaging through our stock to find Dylan. I pulled a skirt out of the stack and turned to face him, setting it down on the table next to me.
“Of course.”
We were alone on the retail floor, Jordan, Ava and Nate tucked away in the back room out of earshot.
“What you guys have built here is pretty incredible,” Dylan started, running his gaze over the racks of clothes.
The flush of pleasure I felt was real—it meant a lot to hear him say that.
“Thanks. It’s been a lot of work.”
“I get that.” He turned and stuck his hands in his pockets, leaning his rangy frame against the w
all. Moody eyes stared back at me. “Lex, is there something you want to tell me?”
My breath hitched in my chest. Suddenly the colors of the clothes around us felt too bright, and the ceiling was pressing down on me.
I knew what Dylan meant, even if I didn’t know how he’d found out.
“I haven’t decided whether to go.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re thinking about going to Europe for six months and you didn’t even tell me.”
“Thinking. The opportunity’s just come up. Actually, I don’t even know that it has come up.” I folded my arms over my chest, wishing I didn’t feel guilty without knowing why. “It’s an opportunity for Travesty. You know the next step is going international. I just have so much more to learn. This would be six months, tops. You’d barely notice.”
He reached up to rub the jaw he’d shaved this morning. “It’s hard enough as it is seeing each other once a month.”
“I get that. That’s why it’s better for me to do this now, right? Before you move to New York.”
I thought reminding him of us together would make things better, but somehow it made things worse.
“Lex. Everything I’m doing is to get closer to you, to here. Everything. And now it’s like you’re trying to leave.”
His voice had a strange urgency but it was the words that stunned me. “Dylan, I...” I shook my head to clear it. “It’s not like that at all. I’ll be back.”
“What if you’re not? What if Europe loves you and you love it? What then?”
My mouth fell open. I searched his face for some sense that this was a joke but found nothing. His dark hair fell across eyes tinged with betrayal. “I … I guess you just have to trust me. Which is what we’ve been doing all along. Trusting each other. Being honest with each other. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the internship. I should have.”
He glanced down at the rack of denim skirts, running a finger over the hangers. “You’re right. And there’s something I should tell you too. I have a job offer back home. With Rav-con. Full-time next year, on good projects making real money.”
The clock on the wall ticked. I’d never noticed it before, but I did now. One second. Two. Three.
I wrapped my arms around my body for somewhere to put them. The sound of laughter from the back room made me jump, but neither of us glanced toward the door. Dylan watched, waiting for me to respond. I watched him, waiting for my vocal chords and my brain to cooperate.
Finally I cleared my throat. “That’s… Congratulations. Did you … do you want to take it?” My voice cracked at the end, and Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Of course not. But as of now, I don’t have any prospects here.”
Since my dad left when I was a kid, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d cried.
But tears burned behind my eyes at the thought of Dylan thousands of miles away indefinitely.
Sure, there’d always been a possibility of him staying in California, but we’d been talking all year about him joining me in New York. I figured it was a done deal. The idea of him being somewhere else, not just now but always, was something that had never occurred to me. I’d always taken it for granted, kind of like breathing.
Jordan’s voice had both of us jerking our heads around. “Am I interrupting?” Her all-seeing gaze flicked between me and Dylan.
I shook my head, swallowing.
“Good. Well Colton has my dad’s box for the baseball game tonight. You guys want to go watch a bunch of middle-aged men in too-tight pants chew tobacco?”
I started to say no, but Dylan beat me to answering. “Sure.”
With a last indecipherable look at me, he turned to follow Jordan into the back.
Chapter 11
Dylan
“Is this a joke?” A low, smooth voice came down the phone.
“It’s not.”
“You just figured the fact that my ex left me for Europe qualifies me to play therapist when yours threatens to do the same?”
Even over the thousands of miles separating us, my brother Ethan still didn’t pull any punches.
I leaned against the wall by the upper deck bathroom as a crowd of guys in Yankees hats brushed by me.
“Lex is not my ex,” I reminded him tightly.
“Gia wasn’t mine then either.”
“Ethan. Come on. I need someone to talk to, and I can’t talk to Ava. And the engagement was supposed to be a surprise for Mom and Dad.”
Ethan hesitated. “Fine. Give me two minutes.”
Jordan, her boyfriend Colton, Ava, Nate, Lex, and I had gotten through most of the baseball game. At least, the Yankees were up by five in the seventh. But every look between me and Lex was tense, every word measured, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the ring burning a hole in my pocket. Which was why I’d finally left the box to make a call. Ethan might have had his own shit going on as a realtor in LA, but he was my big brother. His number was the one I dialed.
I heard something in the background over the phone line that sounded like a woman’s voice, then furniture moving.
Then Ethan’s smooth voice said, “I’m back.”
“I’m going to assume you’re selling a house to a celebrity right now.”
“Yes. Selling a house.” I could almost hear the grin. “With my—”
“Right,” I cut him off.
I explained the situation from the beginning, starting from the fact that I’d come to New York to interview and propose to Lex, and ending with the fact that she might be leaving and, thanks to three flops for interviews, I was no closer to being here.
Ethan blew out a breath. “That sucks.”
“What do you mean, ‘That sucks’?” My voice was sharper than usual, but I could picture Ethan’s shrug.
“I mean I’m good at getting girls, not keeping them.”
“So what. You don’t have one shred of brotherly advice after being on this planet for almost three decades? Forget it.”
“Wait.” He sighed. “Listen. I know six months feels like a long time. It’s not. Know what is? The rest of your life. And it’s going to feel like a really fucking long time if she’s what you want and you screw it up.”
I reached up to scratch the back of my neck, pressing the phone closer against my ear as an announcement came over the system. “You can be almost helpful when you want to be.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I still know where you buried Grandma’s china dog figurine in the backyard.”
Chapter 12
Lex
“Wake up.”
I shivered as something soft stroked the side of my face. “Mmmmmm. Whvtmzit?”
“Five-thirty.” Without opening my eyes, I knew it was Dylan’s mouth brushing my ear. “It’s our last morning together, and there’s something you’re going to want to be awake for.”
I was safe and sleepy and deliciously warm. Wrapped in a cocoon where everything was light and love and perfection.
Until my brain slowly came to, and I remembered how we’d argued yesterday.
I blinked my eyes open with a vague sense of foreboding to find my boyfriend lying on his side, already dressed in a button-down shirt and jeans. Not a sliver of morning light peeked between the drawn curtains behind him.
I bolted upright. “Wait, what’s going on? Is the building on fire?”
Dylan chuckled, and the sound dispelled some of my anxiety. “It’s a surprise. Come on.”
After the baseball game last night, Dylan had seemed thoughtful, but not mad. We hadn’t talked but he’d slid into bed next to me and pulled me into his arms. Neither of us tried to start something but before long I’d heard his rhythmic breathing at my back.
It’d taken me a long time to fall asleep.
Still, the Dylan looming over me now looked more himself than the one last night. I pulled on jeans and a shirt and stumbled out the door after him. Jordan’s door was shut, meaning she was still sound asleep. The girl was a lot of t
hings, but an early riser wasn’t one of them.
The sky was just lighting and a few New Yorkers were out running or on their way to the office as we brushed through the front doors of the building.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we could have coffee and watch the sun rise.”
“OK, who are you and what have you done with my boyfriend?”
Dylan shrugged. “I just realized last night that we’ve been so busy with work shit that we haven’t really had a chance to catch up yet.”
My heart warmed. “You’re right. Completely, utterly right. Can we start this visit over?”
“Even the sex part?” His dark eyebrow lifted, and I could feel my body prickle in anticipation.
“No, that part was just fine.” Though if there was anyone who could tempt me into going at it behind the swan pond, it’d be Dylan.
Dylan stepped closer. “Just fine, huh?” I stood, helpless, as his mouth dropped to mine. His fingers wove into my hair, and I opened under his lips, his tongue. He knew exactly how to light me up, and in five seconds flat I was pressing against him, panting and completely ignoring the world around us.
When he finally pulled back, he looked every bit as affected as I was.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” I murmured. “We have such little time together, it feels like the physical stuff comes first. Then there are the usual crises. After those two things, it’s like we never have time for the good stuff, the ordinary stuff.”
Dylan sighed. “You’re right. Let’s fix that. Starting now.”
I shot him a smile, then took his hand and pulled him down the block. I stopped to peer into the window at Lindy’s, the cafe on the same block as my building. It wasn’t open yet, but the proprietor was setting up for the day. I knocked on the door and she glanced over, familiarity on her face as she crossed to open the door for us.
“What would you like, sweetie?”
“Just two coffees to go, Lindy?”
Two minutes later, we were on our way to the park.