“Yay! You’re laughing.”
I nod. “Yeah, I am.”
But as soon as I admit to it, my world begins to spin. I’m flooded with panic, and I have a minor, hyperventilating breakdown.
“Do you think he hates me now?”
“Who?” she shrieks. “Alec?”
“Yes, Alec. Of course Alec!” I cry.
“Hates you? The guy is worried sick about you. Seriously, Caroline,” she says, as though I’ve gone mad, “you’re the reason blondes have a bad name.”
“But I didn’t even say good-bye, Sofie. I just left, and I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t even let him touch me. I just pulled away. I was cold and mean, and he deserved none of it.”
A replenished well of tears threatens with a fresh stab at my chest. It reminds me of how much I can live to regret this, and I forfeit.
“Sof,” I say, pulling in fitful breaths, “I miss him. I really miss him, like…” I pause. “I miss him like I love him. I need to repair what I’ve done. I need to apologize, and I think we can find a medium here. There has to be a balance, right? Where there’s a will there’s a way?”
I look to her for hope, guidance, reassurance… anything. I’ll take her snarky, in-your-face, hemorrhoidal, self-asserting ways if she could tell me I haven’t jeopardized everything—if I didn’t lose my chance with the most, glorious, beautiful man I may ever meet.
“Alec asked me what I was afraid of,” I say. “We talked about things like that.”
“Hmm,” Sofie says, standing back. “I think I made my point.”
“I think I want to call him. Maybe he can come here to Montreal for a weekend, or I can go to Maine. This can work, right? If I try, and he sees I’m serious about us, this can work.”
“It can,” she answers.
“Or, he’s finally seen all the baggage I have, and I’ve scared him shitless.”
“That, too.”
I find myself becoming irritated. She’s not helping at all. Sofie’s belittling me and my critical pros and cons lists.
“Are you patronizing me?” I ask, folding my arms over my stomach.
“Yes,” she says in a light, bubbly voice. “Now calm the fuck down and call him before he picks up and goes back to England swearing off all Canadian girls forever.”
I breeze by her, grabbing my phone from my back pocket, and sit on a sofa. I stare at my mobile, deliberating, meditating, reviewing our brief, breath-taking history with Alec’s picture as my sidekick. Surely, he understands my mother was hospitalized, and that I indisputably had the kind of morning they write about. My radio silence is more than understandable. It’s justifiable. I have confidence in him. I believe in us. Alec will understand. He’s understood everything up until now, and I’m certain he won’t be too thrown and bitter about my reaction. He may not want to see me again, but he will answer my call. I’m confident about this.
I tap on his contact number and take a deep breath to facilitate a semblance of composure. I watch Sofie step out of the room.
First ring.
Nothing.
Second.
Nothing.
I cringe. Oh God. Third.
“Caroline?”
I’m in awe, frozen in wonderment.
“Talk to me, love. Please.”
The euphoria is disorienting. I’m dizzy, staring incredulously at his painting.
“I’m so sorry,” I whimper.
Silence.
“What is it that you’re saying, Caroline?”
My fingers touch my parted lips.
“Are you calling me to give up?”
I shake my head. “No! No, I’m just sorry. I was awful. I ran off, and I didn’t let you near me, and now it’s all I want. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispers. “My love.”
“I’m begging you for a chance. Please forgive me, Alec. I was so stressed, and if I’m too much to bear, then please, please just forgive me. Don’t regret me.”
“Forgive you?” His tone sounds uncertain. I can’t decipher what to file it under. “Forget you?” he says, definitely disbelieving. “Bloody hell, have I not made myself perfectly transparent, love? I’m in love with you. I’m wholly and extremely in love with you, and that goes for your baggage as well. When will you understand that I want to help you carry that load, and for whatever reason, I find your neurotic, stubborn existence terribly irresistible.”
I can’t digest this news fast enough. I’m a child eating chocolate cake for the first time, and I’m airborne with bliss. I want to kiss Alec, thank him, and tell him I totally intend to let him lug my baggage for me, too.
“I miss you,” I whisper, feeling weightless and totally aware that I may sleep unperturbedly tonight. “I need to see you, Alec. How will we do this?” I walk to the canvas, grazing his name with my fingers.
Summer, I decide, nurtures the soul without you asking for it. It cultivates a hunger and thirst for love and change, and it’s defined by stories unlike any other season. Other seasons are marked by tedious, generic holidays, but summer will light fireworks in ourselves, and if you’re lucky, someone will sit by your spark and relish in your colours.
“I miss you, too, love. It was unbearable to watch you leave. You have to know that.”
“I had my doubts,” I say. “Things got so out of hand.”
“It’s been balls-up. I’ll give you that. How’s your Mum, love. Is she up to visitors?”
“I was just with her, but my Dad’s really the one looking after her. They’re… I don’t know… rekindling things.” I sigh. “I think she’ll be released soon though, and I’ll head home. My grandmother is eager to hear about our trip and the hunky men in our lives.”
He laughs. “I like her already.”
“Can I call you again, later?” I ask, struggling to let him go.
My heart wrenches from knowing it’s impossible to see him each and every day. I’ve come to depend and revel in his vicinity, take pleasure in the immediacy that only living in a small town can offer.
“I don’t want to hang up,” I profess.
“So don’t,” he says, his voice soothing.
I smile, relishing this song and dance for a little while longer.
“So what are you doing now? Where are you, anyway?” I ask, transfixed on his signature.
“I’m right here.”
I gasp, dropping my phone and processing the sweltering, mouth-to-ear voice.
“Alec?” I say softly, distrustful that I, in actual fact, see him.
He tucks me into his chest, glides an arm around the small of my back, and cups my chin with his hand.
“Are you done running away from me now, love?” he asks, his fierce radiating, blue eyes penetrate mine.
I gulp. “Alec.”
I take in the sight of him, sizing him up, affection and lust collecting deep in my chest. I blink, feeling like it’s days or months or years since we last saw each other. A charged few seconds pass—fraught, laden, thrilling seconds.
“I was hoping you’d ring me,” he says.
My mind wraps around the logistics to how he’s really here. He must have followed behind us or left sometime in the middle of the night.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my eyes glazing over. “I’m so sorry.”
The pained and amused confusion sweeping across his face takes my breath away.
“What in bloody hell are you always going on about?” He scowls, and his lips crush mine.
I reach deep in the bay of his warm mouth, moaning into his kiss. I swallow his frantic groans, and Alec strokes the recess of my cheeks, bumping and gliding with my tongue. I clasp his head, splaying my fingers through depths of unfussy, magnificent curls, confirming he’s here, forcing him to stay. Electrifying knots cripple
me, flanked by my thighs, and I’m desperate to tame them.
I curl a leg around Alec. His palms cup my cheeks, gripping each mound in a hand and lifts me up without severing our kiss. His fingers naturally slip into the crevice, as my shorts simplify the task.
I break free, my nose wrenched under his. “I’m so sorry,” I pant, “I thought I lost you.” My hands slide over the sculpted lines and form of his neck and shoulders.
His face screws up into a frown.
“That’s rubbish. But lucky for you, love, I was charmed by your blarney.”
He scoops in, and I laugh, dropping my head back, titillated. He coaxes his way in, coercing my lips apart and grabs my face between his hands.
“Ahem…”
A small, scraping sound echoes from across the room, attracting our attention.
“Daddy,” I utter, sliding down from encircling Alec’s waist.
My face, neck, and ears are impossibly hot, and my stomach plummets. I struggle to register the fact that this just happened, rushing to find a solution. I suck in my cheeks like it can stop me from crumpling under my father’s scrutiny and coil the ends of my hair around a finger.
I swallow.
“Well now,” Dad says grimly.
Alec straightens, and he’s rigidly at a loss. I avert my eyes, but I’m not too rattled to appreciate the mirth of watching Alec flummoxed. I roll in my lips to deter a smile as my father glares, ready to dip right into our mortification.
“I presume this is the fellow,” he says, and a full-fledged smile escapes me.
Six months later…
Noni’s giving us both a look of reproof. Her severe glance is fleeting, but ultimately she agrees with Sofie—that is, she agrees with Sofie’s opinion on my choice for carry-on, and not with Sofie’s scoffing.
I draw in a deep, long breath. “But just this very summer the both of you thought Strawberry Shortcake was okay,” I say, blinking rapidly until I shoot them a wide-eyed look.
“Oh, sweets,” Noni replies with a meek laugh. Her arm encircles my waist, hooking a finger in a belt loop of my dark blue jeans. “Sure, for Maine, sweetheart, but this is England. England is classy. You’re going to be meeting your boyfriend’s family for the first time. That’s no place for Shortcake, honey. Shortcake stays here.”
“They’re not that fancy,” I say testily. “Alec and I speak to them all the time through Skype.”
“But Prince Harry over there booked you on first class! I don’t think British Airways even lets kids on with Strawberry Shortcake luggage. By the way, what the hell is he doing out there?” Sofie watches the source in question critically from the living room window.
“I don’t know. Praying to the Canadian Gods or something.” I kneel slightly over a suitcase, dragging its zipper round. “He’s disappointed about his first Christmas in Montreal. He can’t get over the fact that there’s still no snow on the ground.”
“Well, tell him to mind his own business,” Sofie rebukes, pausing for only a split second because that’s really all Sofia-Marie can manage. “And will you please dump whatever’s in that inane suitcase of yours and use my carry-on. Besides, I’m sure that huge tote you lug around can fit whatever you need.”
Noni totters over to the console in the hall. “Come on now, my silly geese.” She slides an ottoman out from underneath and her legs give way. Slumping down, she releases a blissful sigh. “Sit with me for a minute. We’ve lots of time before your dad picks you up for the airport.”
“So?” Sofie eyes me, reading my mind as she rests against the wall. “This trip is kind of different from your last, huh?”
I look up from my luggage, feeling more relaxed than I thought I could be. With Mom living with Dad in his three-bedroom house, she has her space, and he has his. It actually works. “I never imagined our trip to Maine and her meltdown would come to this, but—”
“But now you can live the life you’re meant to live,” Sofie interjects.
“Now, I can live my life the way I’m meant to live it,” I say, my voice an octave lower. I shake my head, disbelieving that again Sofie was right all along.
“Exactly,” Noni tacks on.
Sofie moves to pick up my coat. She proffers my plaid scarf with it, suggesting a truce perhaps, or closing the subject of the carry-on. “I can’t believe your mom gave you one of her Lady Danger lipsticks for Christmas,” she says.
I lean in over the console to brighten my lips before dragging the peacoat on. My red mouth boosts the grey and red plaid in the scarf, and I think I’ve managed to look smart and casual in a fitted white shirt with black stripes.
“Red to match shortcake.” I smirk and pucker my lips. “Hot or not?”
“Hot!” they declare.
“Wait!” Sofie shrieks.
I give her a quizzical look.
“I saw an opened bottle of Pinot in your fridge.”
I draw a second ottoman out, sit next to Noni, and I take her hand in mine. “So, I’ll call Daddy once we land, and I’ll call you when we’re settled.”
“I’d like that, Sweets. Did Sofie tell you? When she drives me home, later, she’ll call Jason, you know, so I can see him on her telephone.”
“FaceTime?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Noni, do you have a crush on Jason?”
“Don’t you know? I have a crush on all young men!” Noni leans back, bursting into laughter. She clutches me for support, quieting her merriment into my shoulder.
I tilt my head to meet Noni’s. “I love you.”
“I love you more, Sweets. I love my silly geese,” she says, pulling Sofie in as she approaches with a bottle.
Sofie kisses the top of her head. “Glasses,” she says before breaking free.
Alec pops his head in. “Love, your Dad’s arrived. Best we be off.”
Trying to subside her escaping laughter, Noni curls her lips in. Her slender shoulders joggle from suppressed giggling. Wine had been a good idea while we waited.
“Right, then,” Alec says upon entering. “A piss up with your grams.” He attempts a stern expression. “I’ll have to carry you down to Sofie’s car, Noni, once I’ve stored our luggage in the boot.” He leans in to smack my mouth with a kiss.
Noni collapses into laughter. “A piss up!” she repeats.
“You British people are so weird,” says Sofie. “Why don’t you just say we’re having drinks?”
“Hey!” I grumble. “Leave my guy alone.”
“Thanks, love.” Alec winks.
Noni’s hand immediately slides onto my knee, squeezing it as she bats her eyes. “Am I the only one who really loves when he does that?”
Sofie and I exchange a confused, flabbergasted glance. Noni’s face is flamed, bringing us into a state a shock before we dissolve in laughter.
Acknowledgements
This story of mine has a lot to do with beautiful men championing women, so on that note I thank my husband, Carlo, first and foremost. I admit, I’ve a hard shell to crack, but without his presence and back-up, I’m just a lost soul. Due to my children, I managed to complete this book as they accommodated me with an invisible door—sound effects provided by their father—when they let me tap away at the keys in my own little world. Thank you for supporting my truth, and I promise to embrace yours. Speaking of support, All of These Things has had its own cheerleader from its conception. Giselle, you give ego-boosts like no one else can! I am forever grateful. I must express sincere appreciation and gratitude to my Beta readers and to my mother for her endless enthusiasm. AOTT was plucked from a reserve of stories with all of you in mind. Melissa, thanks for letting me pick your brain, and I’m appreciative of my cousins Sabrina and Anna Maria for their ardent feedback. I thank the very keen, very sharp, Rebecca Heyman, for her constructive advice, and my editor, Jennifer Jaq
uith for being a guiding light. I’m convinced there’s a magic wand with Jennifer’s name on it somewhere. AOTT has been a blessing in disguise for so many reasons, namely, getting to know my little sister better. Katia, your well of creativity and vision manages to surprise me over and over. Thanks Anthony Nardelli, for helping me visualize what this book could look like. I need to acknowledge those who have continuously (but subtly) explored the topic of my writing, imperceptibly nudging me to share my secret with the world: Klaudia and Terry—mission accomplished. Huge thanks to my book club—a saving grace from the humdrum and chaos, and a circle of ladies I now can’t live without. Thanks for giving me a hand with bringing AOTT into the light. In a nutshell, a HUGE thanks to every encouraging, kind-hearted acquaintance and/or relative I’m lucky to know.
-A.
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