Still, there was no denying it that Charlotte made Pat happy.
Every time he glanced our way, Charlotte smiled the same way Pat smiled when he talked about her. They were so in love that it almost ached inside me. When he came to retrieve Charlotte for the dancing, I let them go easily.
What I hadn’t expected was how it would somehow lead me to stand next to Helena again.
“Hey,” I greeted, willing any sort of awkwardness to disappear.
The smile she gave me had some stiffness in the corners, like she wasn’t sure quite how to greet me. I could hardly blame her for that. My own uncertainty swirled inside me. We were more than strangers, and yet less than friends, especially after such a lot of time had passed.
“Hey, Sam.” The way she said my name brought me a wave of nostalgia. She shook her head, like she’d just surfaced from the exact same waters. As I glanced towards the people dancing, it was impossible not to remember that the very first words I’d spoken to Helena had been to ask her to teach me how.
None of those were thoughts it would help to dwell on. “How are you?” Helena asked. “When did you get back to town?”
“Only a couple of days,” I answered, glad for the lifeline she’d given me. We could chit chat about this. Nothing we talked about had to be serious. “Mom and dad were away on a whale-watching cruise, so Pat’s been feeding me,” I joked. I could very well feed myself. In fact, I had made mom and dad dinner on the night of their return.
“Did you know he’s now an amazing cook?” I asked instead. Pat deserved all the praise for his cooking. “He says Charlotte’s been teaching him, but I think secretly he watches those cooking programs on the TV and takes notes.”
The sound of her laugh startled me - and her, judging by the way she cut it short. That hurt. Helena had never had to resist the urge to laugh with me before. But things were different now. That was only to be expected, after the amount of time that had passed.
“Charlotte’s an amazing cook,” she offered, not quite meeting my eyes. “Maybe they watch those cooking programs together.” The thought of my baby brother sitting at home watching cooking shows with his wife-to-be was… sweet. I almost hoped that it was true.
Helena swept a curl back behind her ear, catching my attention for a moment. “What did he make you that was so impressive? Maybe I can tell you if it’s one of Charlotte’s recipes.”
“Macaroni and cheese the first night,” I answered. “And then some sort of a spinach pastry concoction that was like the best thing I’ve ever eaten.” Truthfully, I was shocked by how good Pat was at cooking. And maybe a little disappointed that mom was now back in charge of what we had for dinner.
Not, of course, that I would ever dare to say that!
Feeling like maybe I was making it seem like I couldn’t cook - and finding that it bothered me to leave Helena thinking that - I added, “I can cook, by the way. I just don’t have as much experience with cooking shows.” That was kind of a joke. I had learned to cook from cookbooks. Our team’s new nutritionist, El, was excellent at suggesting good things to read.
Why I cared whether Helena knew that I could or could not cook was questionable. Or perhaps I did know, I just didn’t think that it should matter. The last time I had cooked for her was so long ago I couldn’t even remember what it had been. No doubt it would have been terrible.
“I wouldn’t have thought you had time for cooking shows,” Helena agreed, making me look sharply at her. Though the words sounded like a rebuke, there was nothing but civility in Helena’s face. And maybe a touch of awkwardness.
She wasn’t wrong. My time was taken up with hockey and training for hockey. Even when I wasn’t training, my mind was on the game for much of the time. So why did I suddenly want to prove to Helena that I could have other interests?
“Charlotte bought me a slow-cooker for Christmas,” Helena carried on, apparently oblivious to my tumult of emotions. “She’s been teaching me a different thing to cook in it about once a month or so.”
“That’s like the pot you just put everything in and leave it?” I asked. “El’s been suggesting we all get one.” At Helena’s quizzical look, I clarified, “El’s our nutritionist. She’s got some great ideas for how to improve our diets. It’s been very helpful.” And that was true. Our old nutritionist had been fine but El came with so many new and fun ideas.
Not to mention that she had managed to get Alfie to eat some vegetables, even if it was still an argument. That was more than anyone else - including Alfie’s parents - had ever managed.
“Do you like it? Cooking?” I asked. It was almost startling to realize that I genuinely didn’t know. The Helena in my head was a Helena from ten years ago. If I was no longer the person I had been then, there was no reason to imagine that she was either.
Helena gave a small shrug, like she was weighing how much of her opinion to give me. “I like it at the weekends, when I have the time to… well, to take my time, you know?”
Before I could answer, she carried on. “I used to complain about coming home from work and not having the energy to make a real meal. The slow cooker’s been great for that. I can get everything ready in the morning, when I’m at my most energetic. Then, when I come home, it’s done and all I need to do is put it on a plate.”
As someone with a very physical job, I could see the appeal of that.
“It gets a bit samey. There are only so many things you can leave for that long without ruining them. But at the weekends I get to eat whatever I want to make.”
“What’s your best dish?” I asked. It struck me just how normal this conversation was. Perhaps even boring. Except it didn’t feel at all boring. I genuinely wanted to know what Helena’s favorite was, what she cooked the best, why she liked it. Back when we were younger, it had always been one of my favorite things - listening to Helena talk.
It could be about anything and everything. And apparently, as I listened to her tell me about some chicken dish she’d discovered in an old recipe book, that hadn’t changed. Fascinated by what the answer was, I subconsciously shifted closer, in order to hear Helena better.
As she finished describing the modifications she’d made, a blush crept across her cheeks. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t realize how much detail I was getting into. You can’t be interested in the difference between using chicken thighs and chicken breast!”
Ten years ago, I would’ve told Helena that I was interested. Now, I wasn’t sure what it was appropriate to say. As the silence stretched between us, Helena fidgeted, her hand fluttering up towards the cascade of dark curls.
“But tell me about you!” she urged, sounding just a little strained. “Have you ever been a best man before? You must have a lot of guy friends on the Pumas.”
The question brought back all the thoughts about how long it had been since I last saw Helena. Ten years. Yeah, that was a lot of time to have been the best man at someone’s wedding. I hadn’t been, though. So I shook my head.
“I’ve been a groomsman a few times but never the best man,” I answered truthfully. “What about you? Many bridesmaid dresses in your wardrobe?” I joked. It made me think about how we’d never become social media friends. Facebook or even Instagram, I had never added Helena, had never wanted to see how well she was doing without me.
Maybe that hadn’t been a very mature response. Or maybe it was quite the opposite and having your ex as a friend on social media wasn’t something that grown-ups did. I had no idea. It didn’t seem like the right sort of thing to ask Helena, of all people.
“I was a bridesmaid at Kate’s wedding, obviously,” she said. Like a flash, it came back to me, the day she’d told me her sister was getting married. But it was safer by far not to think about that now.
Instead, I let her carry on. “And Lisa, do you remember her?” Frowning, I nodded. Lisa had been one of Helena’s friends at school. Like Charlotte, I hadn’t kept up with what she’d been up to in the years since. I h
adn’t even known she’d gotten married.
“This is my first time being maid of honor,” she said. “So that’s exciting. And a lot of work!”
“Oh, is someone getting you to help them build a house?” I teased.
Even though it was a little weird, Helena and I being the maid of honor and the best man, it wasn’t as weird as it might have first appeared. We got on just fine, it seemed. And that shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
Helena had been my closest and my best friend for over four years. There was obviously something that had drawn us to each other. Ten years down the line, we still had that connection. But perhaps that was a dangerous line of thinking to go down.
“Not that I’m not happy to help,” I added, shaking my head. “It’s a very impressive wedding present.” And that it certainly was. Not all men could say they built their new wife a house!
Helena’s blue eyes widened, a finger coming up to rest against her lips. “Ssshh! It’s a secret!” For a second, she sounded so genuinely scolding that I blinked. Pat had admitted to me that Charlotte basically knew, even if she was pretending not to for the sake of the surprise at the end.
Then Helena laughed - this time, letting the sound ring out until there was no other noise in the room for me. “Sorry, I forgot you don’t have experience of my ‘lawyer voice’. I was kidding.”
“She does know, right?” I asked somewhat worriedly. “I mean, she has to know, Lunengrove couldn’t keep a secret even if it tried.” It hadn’t occurred to me that the house itself was a secret from Charlotte. From the way Helena’s eyes glistened, I could tell she was pleased by having had me on with her joke.
I shook my head, reaching to take a sip of the drink that I had almost forgotten since we started talking. “I went to see it yesterday. It’s a great house. Pat is doing so well. Have you seen it?”
The question made Helena’s eyes glitter even more. “Oh, yes. Charlotte took me to see it the minute she found out.” She giggled, looking so delighted with herself that it was impossible not to smile. “She won’t go inside it, though. That’s how she’s keeping up her end of the bargain.”
That seemed fair. The whole inside of a house was still a pretty big surprise. “I just hope Pat doesn’t spend loads of money on new curtains that Charlotte won’t even like,” she admitted. “Not that she’s hard to please but… well, I don’t know if Pat’s ever actually chosen how to decorate a room.”
I had to shake my head at the thought that Charlotte had shown Helena the house that was going to be given to her as a ‘surprise’. Except, of course, it wasn’t actually a surprise. Pat wouldn’t, and truthfully probably couldn’t, keep something like that from Charlotte. It was sweet, how much he wanted to share with her.
At the moment, much of the inside of the house was still unfinished. Pat wasn’t anywhere near getting curtains yet. “He’ll probably ask you,” I shrugged. “As Charlotte’s best friend, you know about curtain preferences, I expect.”
First, though, we needed to get the house ready for curtains!
Helena smiled. “Oh, yes,” she agreed. “I know all about curtain preferences. Just let Pat know I’m willing to help however I can.” Pat hardly needed me to tell him that, but I nodded anyway. In case Pat hadn’t thought to ask Helena for help, I’d pass the message along.
“Have you done anything like this before?” Helena asked. “I mean, not built a house, exactly. Probably not a lot of people have experience with that. But renovating or extending?”
It was strange to realize that Helene knew nothing about my house in Salt Lake. She’d never been there. By the time I picked it out, we’d already been broken up.
It was a thought I pushed to one side. How we could have picked together, how we could have decided what to do with the house together. As it was, I had made most of those choices on my own and then later on with Becca.
“Somewhat. I did an extension on my house, but that mostly involved paying someone else to build it.” I shrugged. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go into the discussion of my house. It just made me think about how, once upon a time, I had hoped that Helena would be the person I made those decisions with.
I was saved by Charlotte’s mom appearing. She wanted to discuss something with Helena, which gave me the perfect excuse to leave. Neither woman stopped me, though Helena did look a little disappointed. Or maybe that was just me projecting.
Whatever it was, I escaped to find another drink and maybe have a conversation with someone I hadn’t once upon a time planned to marry.
Chapter Four
Helena
As hard as I might try to deny it, seeing Sam had brought back a lot of emotional memories. And not only bad memories, either. We’d had a lot of good times. In fact, the reason we’d broken up had been that our lives weren’t compatible, not that our personalities weren’t.
And that was still true. If it still gave me a thrill to make Sam laugh, he was also still living in Salt Lake City, at the mercy of the NHL. He could be traded at any time.
The fact that he hadn’t been, in ten years, lurked at the back of my mind. I’d told him that we couldn’t be together because I couldn’t move around with him, not if I wanted to be a lawyer. But he hadn’t moved around.
Part of me wondered if I’d thrown away a good thing for no real reason.
I had to remind myself that neither of us had been able to predict how often Sam would have to move. And he could still be traded any year! I wouldn’t have been able to pick up and move my career around that way.
But with half of my mind on Charlotte’s upcoming wedding and half of my mind on Sam, it was difficult to settle down. At the office, work could absorb all my attention. I’d always loved that about law, how it could totally fill my active mind in a way that other subjects failed to do.
At home, it was a lot harder to keep myself from sinking into nostalgia. Because that was all it was. Nostalgia for a relationship that could never have worked.
Over a week after the engagement party, my sister Kate picked me up at home to drive me to a fayre raising money for some local charity. I was glad of the distraction, even if it did mean spending an afternoon with my mom.
My nephew, Ethan, disappeared as soon as Kate put the car into park. I could hardly blame him for not wanting to hang around with his mom and grandmother, even if I did consider myself to be the cool aunt.
He’d be back when he’d used up his allowance.
“Do you all have plans for what you’re going to do with Ethan’s summer break?” I asked. “I remember when June until September felt like the longest time in the world. But I bet it feels even longer for the parents!”
“There’s some stuff the school’s organizing.” Kate shrugged. “And he’s still got hockey,” she pointed out. Ethan had started playing hockey pretty young. It was one of the things that kids in our town were able to do. There were other sports, too, of course, but hockey was very popular. Especially, I realized, because of people like Sam - people who’d made it in the NHL.
Sam wasn’t the only one. There were two other players Lunengrove had sent to the NHL and quite a few more playing in minor leagues. For a town so small, we sure did alright with hockey.
“I mean, if you want to have him for a few days here or there, I’m hardly going to object,” Kate joked. Except I also knew it was definitely true. Luckily for my sister, I enjoyed hanging out with Ethan.
“Sure, I can make some time to chill with my favorite nephew,” I agreed. Now that Charlotte had taught me how to make chili in the slow cooker, it was even possible that Ethan wouldn’t eat me out of house and home like he usually did when he stayed over.
My mom smiled. “Your father and I can take him for a few days, too,” she offered. “Maybe we’ll drive to a nice museum, or an art gallery!” I made a conscious effort not to wince.
As kids, Kate and I had both been academic. And yet, even we hadn’t always loved spending our summer days driving to stuf
fy museums. Ethan, who far preferred to be out of doors, would probably hate it.
“Wouldn’t he prefer to go hiking or something?” I asked Kate, hoping my mom might take the hint.
But of course, my sister had never been one to pick up on things quickly. She just shrugged. She probably wanted mom and dad to babysit for her.
“I’m sure he can learn something in a museum,” she commented. Biting my lip not to say anything to that, I shook my head. Ethan was Kate’s kid. If she wanted him to have a miserable time at a museum, who was I to stop that from happening?
Mom took that as confirmation that she should take Ethan to a museum. Oh, well. At least I had tried. “Did I hear it right that Sam Levesque is back in town?” she asked, surprising me. Not that it should have been surprising. For all she pretended to be better than it, mom loved gossip.
“Of course he is. His little brother’s getting married.” Even without talking to Sam for the last ten years, there was no doubt in my mind that he would move heaven and earth to be home for his brother’s wedding. Even if Pat hadn’t been considerate enough to schedule it for the NHL’s off season.
Mom raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting me to say something more. I shrugged. “He was at the engagement party. We bumped into each other.” My family didn’t need to know it had been awkward. They’d never liked Sam.
They’d claimed he wasn’t good for me; I knew that what they meant by that was that Sam wasn’t academic enough.
“It’s all water under the bridge,” I insisted. “We can be polite to each other without it being weird.”
“Ethan’s been asking about him,” Kate told me. I gave her a grateful look. Mom had definitely been about to ask me questions that I had no interest in answering. There was nothing for me to tell her, or anyone, when it came to Sam. But mom wouldn’t settle for that.
Kate’s change of topic, kind of, was a great help. “The whole town’s talking about the NHL star who’s back in town,” she continued. “So obviously Ethan’s excited. Apparently, he’s going to be training at the local rink? Which I suppose makes sense. Do you think he’ll do something with the kids? They’d love it.”
Home Matched (Salt Lake Pumas Book 4) Page 3