Focusing too much on how I enjoyed listening to her was unhelpful. Instead, I smiled back, giving a nod. “Yeah, I don’t think Pat ever planned for it to be an actual secret. Not to mention that I don’t think he can keep a secret from Charlotte.”
“It’s nice that you... like it here. Have you got a house? Or... a husband to build you one?” It was an awkward question; I managed to make it mostly sound like a joke. I was pretty sure that Helena wasn’t married. I hadn’t heard anything about it and she wasn’t wearing a ring. But, it had been ten years. She could have been married and divorced by now.
Her eyes widened, followed a few seconds later by a laugh. “I do have a house,” she answered, shaking her head slightly. “But it’s husband-free.” The way she phrased it made me chuckle. I’d heard of houses being pet-free, but never spouse-free!
“It’s not far from the house Pat’s building, actually,” she added. “I think that’s part of why he picked the area. Charlotte and I like the idea of being close enough to walk to one another’s houses.”
I couldn’t help but remember that the rest of Helena’s family lived way on the other side of town.
“What about you?” she asked. “What’s living in Salt Lake like?”
For a moment, I wondered if that was an accusation. But why would it be? Helena and I had gone our separate ways. I was honestly interested in her life now; it wasn’t hard to imagine that she might feel the same way about me.
“It’s alright. They don’t get proper winters, not like what we’re used to, so that’s kind of weird.” I shrugged. Helena’s question might not have been about the weather in Salt Lake City, but it was the first thing that had come to my mind.
“I have a husband-free house, too,” I added after a moment’s pause, giving Helena a grin that implied that I didn’t have a wife at home either. “I thought about getting a dog, but being away for games, it seems harsh. My ex, Becca, she had a dog but when we broke up she took him with her.”
That had sucked but it also made sense. Jasper had been Becca’s dog; I wouldn’t have had the time to be a dog parent on my own. Everyone on the team who had pets, had them with someone else. Except for Felix, who just had dogs with other dogs.
“Oh, that must’ve been awful,” Helena sympathized. “I mean, breaking up sucks anyway, right? Losing a dog at the same time must make it so much worse.”
Was it weird that Helena could be sympathetic towards me breaking up with someone else? Maybe. It felt a little strange. But Helena had always been a good person. It didn’t surprise me that her first thought on hearing about a breakup was to commiserate with how I must have felt.
“What about a less intensive pet?” Helena offered. “I thought about getting a turtle for a while.”
“I don’t know what sort of a pet would be okay with me leaving for a week at a time,” I commented. “The only house plants I can keep are cactuses,” I pointed out. They were good plants to keep when traveling a lot. Not to mention that cactuses, in general, were pretty low maintenance.
There weren’t, as far as I was aware, any pets that would be okay for you to leave for a week with no water or attention. “I guess, maybe a pet rock?” I joked.
Helena laughed. It struck me how much easier this conversation was than the one we’d had at Pat’s engagement party. I felt like I was actually getting to know Helena as a grown-up. Before, she had almost frozen in time in my head.
“You can get cat bowls that dispense them food on a daily basis while you’re away,” she informed me seriously. “And I have definitely met some cats who wouldn’t mind the lack of company.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know how you make sure you get one of those cats, and not one of the ones that sits on you all the time.”
“To be honest, I think I’d probably want one of those cats that sits on you all the time,” I admitted with a small shrug. It was what appealed to me about having a dog, too. Just having someone to come home to, having someone to cuddle with on a long evening. But those weren’t things I was going to talk to Helena about!
They were the sort of thoughts best kept to myself. I didn’t think I was lonely, but after Becca, things had felt harder. Emptier, in a way. A pet could have improved that; it just didn’t feel like an option right now.
The line had finally reached the bakery. gave Helena a smile. “Thanks for keeping me company,” I commented. “It’s been... nice to catch up.” And it honestly had been. Even if it hadn’t been a deep and meaningful conversation, it just felt so easy. Things with Helena had always felt easy. Until they didn’t.
“Yeah,” Helena agreed, sounding almost like she only realized it was true as she was saying it. “It’s good to see you again, Sam.” Her smile was sweet, with a wistful edge that I wasn’t sure was really there. Maybe it was just my imagination.
Did I want Helena to be wistful?
There was no time to consider that before Helena had carried on. “And let me know if you think the bread was worth it, won’t you?”
“I don’t think my mom will let me think anything else,” I joked just before we bid our goodbyes so Helena could go order her bread and I could stand in line after her. Even just watching her go on about her life, the way she gave me one last smile before leaving? It felt a little intoxicating.
I had to get a grip. It was just nostalgia, I told myself. Helena had been such a big part of my life and then she hadn’t been. There was nowhere this could go that wasn’t going to end in tears.
Thinking that made things a little easier. And then I had delicious bread to distract me! As it turned out, mom and whoever gave bread awards were right - it was delicious. It didn’t even taste like missed opportunities and exes that made your heart beat a little harder.
Chapter Six
Helena
Seeing Sam in the line for bread had felt so different from seeing him at the party. It had hit me suddenly, just how nice it was to see Sam around Lunengrove, doing normal day-to-day things. After we’d broken up, his absence in my life had been mostly personal. I’d missed calling him after my lectures, chatting to him about his training.
It wasn’t until I moved home that I started to miss Sam as just another resident of the town. For as long as I’d lived here, I’d looked forward to catching a glimpse of Sam going about his routine. Even after we got together, when we could see each other any time we wanted, it still gave me a thrill to happen upon him by accident.
Apparently, that hadn’t changed. I’d been so taken with how right it felt to bump into Sam that way, I’d completely forgotten to ask him about Ethan.
“Are you sure you still want me as your maid of honor?” I asked Charlotte, a few days later. I was watching as two shop assistants helped her into her wedding dress.
“I mean, what if my mind has gone completely to mush? I might forget your ‘something old’, or turn up with the wrong shoes or anything!”
Charlotte laughed, wincing when it led one of the shop assistants to pull the corset tighter. “That’s why you’re not in charge of my shoes,” she teased. It was true, my responsibilities didn’t actually include bringing anything. I was to be there for Charlotte. That didn’t sound like a hard thing to do. Or well, it did right now, but I was very much escalating things in my head.
Glancing over her shoulder, Charlotte gave me a wink. “You’re going to be fine,” she informed me. “And I’m assuring you now so you can reassure me when I need it,” she added. “What’s brought this on, anyway? Is it that Levesque boy? I hear they’re trouble!”
I laughed, relieved that nobody was lacing me into a corset which would make it uncomfortable. “It might be,” I admitted. “Kate wants me to ask him if he’ll do something for Ethan’s hockey team. You know, because asking my ex-fiancé for favors is totally how I want to spend my precious free time.”
Charlotte gave me a tiny shrug. We both knew that, no matter how much I complained about Kate and my mom, I would do anything for Ethan. He was a good kid
, one who deserved better things in his summer break than being dragged to museums.
“Anyway. I bumped into Sam but I totally forgot to ask him!” It had made me kick myself as soon as I got the bread safely home. Of course, there’d be opportunities to ask my favor in the future. It still bothered me to have forgotten. I didn’t usually let such things slip my mind.
Shaking my head, I shrugged. “I think we talked about… cats?”
“Cats?” Charlotte frowned. “You think that’s what you talked about? You don’t know?” I shrugged rather than bothering to reply fully. Charlotte knew me, she didn’t need me to explain how it might have been a bit distracting. Except, of course, I hadn’t planned for Sam to be distracting.
Charlotte could almost read my mind; she always had been good at that. But thankfully, like a great friend, she didn’t push the topic. When I heard her next question, I almost wished she’d stayed on the previous one.
“Is this weird for you?” she asked. “The... wedding dress fitting? I mean, I know you’re fine but last time we talked about wedding dress fittings, it was yours.” Something that had never manifested. Honestly, I had almost forgotten about that altogether.
The mix of Sam being back in town and this wedding was so full of different emotions!
“It feels different,” I answered honestly. Charlotte and I were best friends, yes, but we had quite different taste in weddings. “Your dress is nothing like what I would pick,” I explained, gesturing to Charlotte’s corset and long train. “It looks great on you - but I don’t think I’d be able to carry it off.”
Charlotte nodded. We shared make-up, sometimes, but that was about as far as it went.
The biggest similarity between my imagined wedding and Charlotte’s was the venue. That was a little weird. But this wasn’t the first wedding I’d attended in my local church. Everyone in town got married there!
“Besides, we never really got far enough to plan my wedding,” I carried on. “I only dreamed about it. Isn’t this different from what you dreamed about?”
Charlotte gave the question some thought. Ever since we’d been teenagers, she chewed on her lower lip as she thought about things. Now it made me smile. Seeing her do it in a wedding dress seemed to highlight just how far we’d come in our friendship. Finally, Charlotte gave a nod.
“Yeah, this is very different than what I had imagined when I was twenty,” she nodded. “Do you think your expectations have changed, too? I know you thought about what a wedding might be like back then, but... it’s been quite a long while since.” And wasn’t that the truth!
My expectations had definitely matured. Even if there’d been no one since Sam who I’d thought I might settle down with, that didn’t mean my thoughts had never strayed to weddings. I’d watch Say Yes to the Dress or Love is Blind when I was in the mood for some ‘brain candy’ late at night.
“I’d think a lot more about two families coming together now,” I answered. At twenty, even though I’d loved Sam’s family, I had somewhat taken the thought of marrying into it for granted. “You didn’t ask if I’m jealous of you getting Mrs. Levesque as a mother-in-law,” I teased. “I definitely am.”
At twenty, my dream wedding had been all about me. That was how weddings were in the movies that I’d watched. Now that I was older, I’d actually want the groom to have a say.
“What did you want when you were twenty?” I asked. “Was it weird for you when I was engaged and you were single?”
Turning as instructed so the two women could check for any adjustments, Charlotte shook her head. “It wasn’t weird,” she answered easily. “You and Sam getting engaged was the least surprising thing ever at the time.” That made sense. Sam and I had been so in love since the first time we met; if I had seen that from the sidelines, I would have assumed an eventual engagement.
“I guess, I was a little jealous of the two of you. But I think everyone was,” Charlotte shrugged. “You were high school sweethearts! Everyone wants that when they’re that age.”
I could understand that. Sam had been so lovely to have, to know I could trust him, just to be with. Even though things hadn’t worked out, those memories were ones I would always cherish.
Giving me a grin, Charlotte added, “But turns out I just needed to meet Sam’s baby brother.” It was, of course, a joke. Charlotte had met Pat before they started dating, but when you’re 16 you’re hardly going to date a 13-year-old.
“And now I’m the one who’s a little jealous of the two of you,” I teased. It was different, of course. I was single right now, but I’d had the kind of love that Pat and Charlotte had. It wasn’t all waiting for me.
Though, hopefully, love was waiting for me. One day, I still planned to get married, to have kids. It would just mean being patient and waiting for the right guy to turn up.
“I remember when I was going through my poetry phase, I wanted to get married somewhere we could rent boats and go rowing,” I confided. “That definitely seems impractical now!”
Charlotte’s laugh pleased me. I knew it wasn’t at me. Or perhaps, it was somewhat at the younger me, but that was fair. I found it interesting to look back and compare how different things had felt back then. Probably a lot more emotional, too. As someone who was quite pragmatic, I’d never been overly emotional. Over and above that, there was a particular steadiness that came with age.
“Maybe in winter,” Charlotte teased. One of the shop assistants told Charlotte that she could step off the podium she’d been stood on. When she did so, she reached out to bump my shoulder with hers. “Thank you for being my maid of honor,” she told me. “I was a little worried that with Sam being the best man, maybe it’d be weird? But you’ve been so great about everything.”
It was easy to smile back. “I’m glad you think so.” Charlotte had known me for years, if she thought that I was handling things well then I was going to take her word for it. “I love you. I want your wedding to be nothing but smooth sailing.” And that meant not being too awkward with my ex. Fortunately, Sam seemed equally interested in keeping things civil.
“Come on, tell me some of the impractical things you wanted to have happen at your wedding,” I urged. “I bet you had some even more impractical than boating!”
That, too, made Charlotte laugh. I grinned; I always loved being able to make Charlotte laugh. It was very fortunate that we’d made friends during my first dance at my new school. Fifteen years later, we were still going strong! Charlotte and I had seen each other through thick and thin; this was a friendship that would last.
Of course, I wanted to make her wedding special, as much as I could.
It was going to be special anyway, of course. But I could play my part!
Charlotte seemed to think about my question, her lower lip making its way between her teeth again.
“I want to have a super romantic wedding night,” she admitted. My eyes must have widened; it didn’t seem that unrealistic. “I’ve read a lot about how people are too tired on their wedding night to do anything. And that’s fine. If we don’t, you know, consummate our marriage that night, it’s fine. But I still want it to be romantic.”
I nodded just as Charlotte gave a small grin. “I mean, I also would like to consummate it,” she joked.
That part was out of my hands to deal with! But making sure Charlotte’s first night in her new house was romantic felt like something I could help to make happen.
“What do the two of you do that’s romantic now?” I asked. “Like, if you’re having a low-key romantic night in.” There were a lot of things I knew about Charlotte’s relationship, but what she and Pat did on ‘date nights’ was outside my field of experience.
Thinking back to what Sam and I used to do, I doubted that take-away pizza was going to be Charlotte’s idea of a super romantic evening.
“Usually a nice dinner. One of us will suggest a recipe and we’ll cook it together.” As she explained, a soft smile appeared on Charlotte’s lips. She was clea
rly thinking very fond thoughts. And who could blame her?! I enjoyed seeing how in love Charlotte always looked when she talked about Pat. This was precisely why people felt jealous - or envious - of them.
Walking over in her poofy dress, Charlotte took a seat on one of the couches. The skirt of the dress swallowed her up almost hilariously. “One of us will bring flowers. It isn’t always Pat. We’ll have some candles. Then dinner, wine, maybe a film. Sometimes we’ll play a board game,” she explained and then gave a small shrug. “It’s nothing huge, just... sweet, I guess.”
All of those were things I could accomplish. There’d be no need for dinner, but I, too, had heard things about how couples were sometimes too excited to eat much at the reception. I could make sure there were ingredients for a midnight feast in the refrigerator.
Just thinking about it brought a smile to my lips. Doing nice things for my friends always made me feel good. Charlotte had been there for me during so many difficult times - including keeping me sane when I studied for my bar exam. This was a way to finally repay her and show her how much I appreciated her.
“That does sound sweet,” I agreed. “I bet you’ll have plenty of nights like that once you’re finally married!” It was hard to believe such a huge change was happening at the end of the summer.
Tilting my head slightly, I asked, “Do you think it’ll feel different from being engaged?”
“There will be less wedding preparation,” she joked, making me laugh. Yes, there definitely would be that! Charlotte’s wedding was still two months off and there had already been so much preparation to do! We’d learned all about different shades of white and the technical names for how you fold a napkin. Pat was a little overwhelmed by it, so it was nice that I could be there for Charlotte.
Giving a small shrug, Charlotte continued, “I don’t expect our relationship to change. I mean, it’ll be nice to finally see this house that Pat’s been building, but I’d live in a shoebox with him if I had to.” A soft laugh fell from Charlotte’s lips as she grinned.
Home Matched (Salt Lake Pumas Book 4) Page 5