I chanced a quick glance over at Jensen, and the movement banged a metallic gong in my head.
“Ohh,” I groaned, clutching my forehead. “I bloody hate champagne.”
He smiled politely at me.
Lord, he was pretty. I hoped he had someone to go home to and tell all about the insane, disheveled Brit on the plane.
But once we were allowed to stand, he pulled his phone from his laptop case and gazed, frowning, at the long scroll of notifications.
“Back at it, then?” I asked with a smile.
He didn’t look up at me. “Have a nice trip.”
“Thank you.” I literally bit my lips to keep from adding a rambling explanation for why I’d babbled incessantly at him and belched in his direction, and instead I followed his perfect ass into the terminal, ten steps behind him.
Crossing the terminal and going down toward baggage claim, I found Grandpa waiting at the bottom of the escalator in his Red Sox T-shirt, faded khakis, and suspenders.
His hug reminded me of Coco’s: firm grip, warm softness, not a lot of words in greeting.
“How was the flight?” he asked, guiding me along beside him with an arm around my shoulders.
My legs felt weak and wobbly. What I wouldn’t give for a hot shower.
“I had too much champagne and talked that poor guy’s ear off.” I lifted my chin, indicating the tall businessman walking a few paces ahead of us, already speaking to someone in clipped words on his phone.
“Ah, well,” Grandpa said.
I glanced at him, marveling again that I could come from such gentle, soft-spoken stock. It had been two years since he’d visited London, and before then I’d seen him at every major holiday. Grandpa didn’t ever gush over anything, but was steadfast in his quiet support of Lele and Coco.
“It’s good to see you,” I said. “I missed your face and suspenders.”
“How long are you here before your road trip?” Grandpa asked in response.
“I have the party tomorrow,” I told him, “and then we’re heading on the winery tour Sunday morning. But I’ll be back at the end of the trip to be at the house for a bit.”
“Hungry?”
“Famished,” I said. “But no booze.” I quickly retied my messy hair and then scrubbed my face with my hands. “Ugh, I’m such a mess.”
Grandpa looked over, and when our eyes met I could tell he saw only the best of me. “You look beautiful, Pippa girl.”
TWO
Jensen
I could remember exactly one flight more awkward than that one.
It was the June after my freshman year in college, and about ten months after I’d met Will Sumner. He’d blown into Baltimore, the guy with the smile, swagger, and certainty that he and I were going to be partners in crime. For someone like me whose life had been, up to that point, quiet and sheltered, Will Sumner was the best kind of wrecking ball.
That summer, we went to Niagara Falls with his extended family and . . . let’s say we happened upon a VHS tape of some badly shot porn. There was no music, no faces, and it was all done by one stationary camera, but nonetheless we watched it over and over until we were blurry and desensitized, reciting the dirty talk in unison and shoveling Pringles into our mouths.
It was the first time I’d ever seen someone having real sex, and I thought it was fucking stellar . . . until Will’s pretty aunt Jessica panicked at the airport, unable to find her “home movie” in her carry-on.
I sat next to Aunt Jessica the entire flight, and it’s safe to say I did not play it very cool. At all. I was sweaty palms and monosyllables and constant awareness that I knew what she looked like naked. I knew what she looked like having sex. My sheltered brain could barely handle that kind of information.
Will was about as sympathetic as expected, pelting me with tiny balls of his napkins and peanuts across the aisle. “What’s got you all tied up, Jens?” he’d called. “You look like someone saw you naked.”
Pippa was a different kind of awkward entirely. She was the kind of awkward where pretty and engaging turns into smeary makeup and incessant rambling from the miracle of alcohol. The kind where you feign sleep for more than three hours when your brain is panic-scrolling through the list of ways the time on the plane might be better spent.
As we made the trek to baggage claim, the low hum of airport noise drifted over me. It was nearly as familiar as the sound of my heater switching on at night, or my own goddamn breathing. I could sense Pippa behind me, chatting idly with her grandfather. Her voice was nice—accent thick with the polish of London and the streets of Bristol. Her face was great, eyes bright and mischievous; they were actually what drew me in right away because they were such a startling blue, and so expressive. But I was afraid to make eye contact and begin the talking all over again. I’d felt her apology practically bubbling up as I nearly sprinted from the plane, and worried that if I gave her an opening, she would take it without question.
I rubbed my eyes and then spotted my suitcase sliding down onto the carousel. There was something almost comically intense about the message I felt I was receiving. Just when I began to consider whether I was looking for women in the wrong places, whether I was wrong about my type, whether I should be more adventurous in dating, the universe trapped me on a flight with a woman who was gorgeous, eccentric, and completely insane.
So let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Jens. Stick with what you know.
Maybe Softball Emily wasn’t so bad after all.
My driver stood with a placard bearing my name, and I nodded, wordlessly following her out of the airport. The car was dark and cool, and I immediately pulled my phone back out, letting my brain slip into that familiar space where work lived and breathed.
I would call Jacob on Monday to set up a time to review the Petersen Pharma files.
I should email Eleanor in HR about getting someone to replace Melissa in the San Francisco office.
I would need to get in early next week to tackle this inbox.
The car pulled up at the curb in front of my brownstone, and it felt like a gentle tug, unwinding me.
Fall was upon us, spiraling through the trees that canopied the streets, turning everything somehow brighter before it all dimmed for the interminable months of winter. The air outside was biting after the warmth of the car, and I met the driver at the back, handing her a hefty tip for getting us here so efficiently in Boston rush hour.
This London trip had been only a week, but it felt like an eternity. Mergers were one thing. International mergers were another. But international mergers gone wrong? Brutal. Endless paperwork. Endless depositions. Endless details to scrounge up and record. Endless travel.
Staring up at my house—a simple two-story, two lights on in the bay window, front door framed by potted plants—I let the unwinding work its way through me. As much as I traveled, I was a homebody at heart, and fuck if it didn’t feel good to be so close to my own bed. I didn’t even feel privately embarrassed that the call of takeout delivery and Netflix made me feel a little drunk.
The house lit up with the flick of a single switch, and before I did anything else, I unpacked—if for no other reason than to hide the evidence that I’d been traveling and would no doubt have to fly again soon. Denial, you are my favorite lover.
Suitcase unpacked, dinner ordered, Netflix loaded and ready, and, as if on cue, my youngest sister, Ziggy—Hanna to anyone outside our family—opened the door with her set of keys.
“Hey,” she called out.
Like she had no reason to knock.
Like she knew I’d be sitting right here, in sweats and slippers.
Alone.
“Hey,” I said, watching as she threw her keys toward the bowl on the table near the door and missed by at least two feet. “Nice shot, loser.”
She smacked my head as she walked by. “Did you just get home?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was going to call you after I ate.”
She stopped, turning to loo
k at me quizzically. “Why? Am I your ‘Honey, I’m home’ call?”
She turned away and I stared at her back as she retrieved a beer for me and a glass of water for herself.
When she returned, I grumbled, “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
“Is it inaccurate?” She flopped down next to me on the couch.
“Why are you even here?”
Ziggy was married to my best friend of more than fifteen years, Will—of Aunt Jessica fame—and the two of them lived not five minutes down the road in a house much bigger and much more lived-in than this one.
She pulled her hair over her shoulder and grinned at me. “It has been suggested that I ‘stomp around the house,’ thereby ‘making it difficult to have work calls at night.’ ” Ziggs shrugged and sipped her water. “Will has some big conference call with someone in Australia, so I figured I’d hang here until I get the all-clear.”
“Hungry? I ordered Thai.”
She nodded. “You must be tired.”
I shrugged. “My clock is a little off.”
“I’m sure a quiet night sounds good. I’m sure there’s no one you’re dying to see now that you’re home.”
With my beer tilted toward my lips, I froze, sliding my eyes to her. “Stop it.”
To be fair, my entire family tended to be overly concerned with the goings-on in each other’s lives, and I would admit to playing the protective older brother on more than one occasion. But I didn’t like having my youngest sibling stepping into my game.
“How’s Emily?” she asked, and faked a yawn.
“Ziggs.”
Knowing exactly how big a brat she was being, she turned and looked at me. “She scrapbooks, Jensen. And she offered to help me organize the garage.”
“That sounds pretty friendly to me,” I said, scrolling through the channels.
“This is her before marriage, Jens. These are her zany days.”
I ignored this, trying not to laugh and encourage her. “Emily and I aren’t really a thing.”
Thankfully, she decided not to push or make some sex joke. “Are you coming over tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow?”
Ziggy glared at me. “Seriously? How many times have we talked about this?”
I groaned, standing up and trying to think of a reason I needed to leave the room. “Why are you laying into me? I just got home!”
“Jens, we’re hosting Annabel’s third birthday tomorrow! Sara is ready to pop with their seventieth child, so she and Max couldn’t handle throwing it at their place. Everyone is coming up from New York. You knew about this! You said you’d be home in time.”
“Right. Right. Yeah, I guess I’ll stop by.”
She stared at me. “There’s no stopping by. Come hang out, Jensen—how wonderfully ironic that I’m the one telling you this. When was the last time you went out with friends? When was the last time you were social, or went on a date with someone other than Softball Emily?”
I didn’t answer this. I dated more than my sister knew, but she was right that I wasn’t all that invested. I’d been married once. To sweet, playful Becky Henley. We’d met my sophomore year in college, dated for nine years, and then been married for four months before I came home to find her packing her things through a haze of tears.
It didn’t feel right, she’d said. It never really felt right.
And that was all the explanation I ever got.
Okay, so at twenty-eight I’d had my law degree and was newly divorced—turns out there’s not a lot of that going around—so I’d focused on my career. Full steam. For six years, I made nice with the partners, climbed the ladder, grew my team, became indispensable to the firm.
Only to find myself spending my Friday nights with my baby sister, being lectured about being more social.
And she was right: it was ironic that she was the one having this conversation with me. Three years ago I’d said the exact same thing to her.
I sighed.
“Jensen,” she said, pulling me back down onto the couch. “You’re the worst.”
I was. I was absolutely the worst at taking advice. I knew I needed to get out of this work rut. I knew I needed to infuse some fun into my life. And as averse as I was to discussing it with my sister, I knew I would probably enjoy being in a committed relationship. The problem was, I almost didn’t know where to start. The prospect always felt so overwhelming. The longer I was single, the harder it seemed to compromise with someone.
“You didn’t go out in London at all, did you?” Ziggs said, turning to face me. “Not once?”
I thought back to the lead attorney on the London side of our team, Vera Eatherton. She’d come over to me just as we’d wrapped up for the day. We’d talked for a few minutes and then I’d known the second her expression shifted, eyes turned down to the floor with an air of shyness I had yet to see from her, that she was going to ask me out.
“Care to grab a bite later?” she’d asked.
I’d smiled at her. She was very pretty. A few years older than I was, she was in great shape, tall and slender with great curves. I should want to grab a bite later. I should want to grab a lot more than that.
But putting aside the complications from a workplace standpoint, the idea of dating—even of a simple night of sex—exhausted me.
“No,” I told Ziggy. “I didn’t go out. Not the way you mean.”
“Where’s my player brother?” she asked, giving me a goofy grin.
“I think you have me confused with your husband.”
She ignored this. “You were in London for a week and spent all your free time in your hotel. Alone.”
“That’s not entirely accurate.” I hadn’t been in my room, actually. I’d been all over, visiting landmarks and taking in the city, but she was right about one thing: I’d done it alone.
She raised a brow, daring me to prove her wrong. “Will said last night you need to get a bit of the college Jensen back.”
I glared at her. “Don’t talk to Will about how we were in college anymore. He was an idiot.”
“You were both idiots.”
“Will was head idiot,” I said. “I just followed him around.”
“That’s not the way he tells it,” she said with a grin.
“You’re weird,” I told her.
“I’m weird? You have lights on a timer, a Roomba to keep your floor clean even when you’re out of town, you unpack within minutes of entering your house—and I’m the weird one?”
I opened my mouth to answer and then shut it, holding up a finger so she wouldn’t let loose another playful tirade.
“I loathe you,” I said finally, and a giggle burst free from her throat.
The doorbell rang, and I went to grab the takeout, then brought it into the kitchen. I loved Ziggy. Since she’d moved back to Boston, seeing her a few times a week had admittedly been good for both of us. But I hated to think she worried about me.
And it wasn’t just Ziggy.
My entire family thought I didn’t know they bought extra gifts for me at Christmas because I didn’t have a girlfriend putting presents under the tree. They always left the plus-one question hanging when they invited me over for dinner. If I brought a random stranger into my parents’ house for Sunday dinner and announced I was going to marry her, my entire family would lose their minds celebrating.
There was nothing worse than being the oldest of five children and also being the one everyone had to worry about. Making sure they always knew I was fine, totally, completely fine was exhausting.
But it didn’t stop me from trying. Especially because when I’d pushed Ziggs to get out into the world more she’d met up with Will, of all people, and their story was a happily ever after I couldn’t begrudge either of them.
“Okay,” I said, bringing her a plate of food and sitting back down beside her on the couch. “Remind me about the party. What time?”
“Eleven,” she said. “I wrote it on your calendar on the fridge. Do
you even look at that, or did you immediately throw out the Post-it note because it marred the perfectly stoic surface of your lonely refrigerator?”
I quickly swallowed a sip of beer. “Can you put the lecture on pause for a second? Come on, honey, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this tonight. Just tell me what I need to bring.”
She gave me an apologetic smile before shoving a forkful of rice and green curry in her mouth. Swallowing, she said, “Nothing. Just come over. I got a piñata and a bunch of little-girl stuff, like tiaras and . . . pony things.”
“ ‘Pony things’?”
She shrugged, laughing. “Kid stuff! I’m lame! I don’t even know what they’re called.”
“ ‘Party favors’?” I offered with dramatic finger quotes.
She smacked my arm. “Whatever. Yes. Oh! And Will is cooking.”
“Aw, yes!” I fist-pumped. My best friend had recently discovered a love for all things culinary, and to say we were all benefitting from it would be understating the extra hour I had to put in at the gym every night to compensate. “How is our little chef? Catching up on episodes of Barefoot Contessa? He does fill out an apron quite nicely, I’ll admit that.”
She looked at me sidelong. “You better hope I don’t tell him you said that, or you’ll be cut off from dinners. I swear I’ve put on five pounds since he got into this pastry obsession. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“Pastry? I thought he was on a Mediterranean kick.”
She waved me off. “That was last week. This week he’s mastering desserts for Annabel.”
I felt my brows furrow. “Is she an especially picky eater?”
“No, my husband is just insane for his goddaughter.” Ziggy slid another bite of food into her mouth.
“So if everyone’s in town, I’m guessing you’ll have a full house tomorrow night,” I said. Between our sister Liv’s two kids and our friends Max and Sara in New York about to have their fourth, the adult contingent would soon be outnumbered by adorable rug rats. Ziggs loved having the kids over, and I was willing to bet money that Will would have at least one of them attached to his leg for the majority of the weekend.
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