The Key to Happily Ever After

by Tif Marcelo

  Trenton was one of those people.

  Pearl sloshed through the grass in her red calf-length Hunter boots. They’d had an April shower overnight, and the ground was soft, though green and lush. Around her was a cacophony of birds who seemed to be announcing their group’s arrival onto the plateau where the Thatched Roof Winery was situated.

  “You’ll have to imagine an abundance of red, gold, and yellow leaves.” Rene McDaniel, the general manager of the winery, spread his arms out and presented the view of the Potomac like a prize. “But look at that vista. There isn’t anything like it.”

  “I do love it. Don’t you, honey?” Daphne, next to Pearl, spun around, only to find her fiancé far up the hill, speaking with Trenton with exaggerated hand gestures. Trenton clutched his stomach, doubled over in laughter. “Babe, really?” she yelled.

  Pearl and Rene laughed.

  “Seriously. Maybe they should be the ones to get married. Talk about a bromance,” Daphne said.

  But whatever annoyance Daphne had felt seemed to disappear once Carter stomped toward them and slung his arms around her. She tipped her face upward, the wind catching the loose hairs that had fallen from her messy topknot. He nuzzled his chin into her Burberry scarf. “It’s beautiful and perfect. If you love it, it’s a yes from me, too,” he said.

  Pearl hung back and allowed the couple to make their final decision. She met up with Trenton at the crest of the hill. She took out her phone and captured the panoramic view and uploaded it to the Rings & Roses social media platform. The caption: A future wedding spot? We’ll see.

  “This is gorgeous.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, inhaled deeply. “The air, the view. Would you want to get married here?” He stumbled over his words. “Someday, in a place like this? I remember how you were, Pearly-Pearl. Always cutting up those Martha Stewart magazines, watching Say Yes to the Dress on repeat.”

  “Market research, even way back then.”

  “It did you well. So, is this your style?”

  She turned her face away as a gust of wind swept her hair into her face. Instead of the usual nervousness, what came over her was a feeling of comfort. The comfort of talking to a friend, of confiding in someone she trusted, someone who didn’t judge her.

  “No.” A grin burst from her lips. “Is that weird? With all the wedding scrapbooks I put together and all that talk about having the red carpet and the ball gown dress”—all with Trenton in mind, though she would have never said—“honestly? After all this drama with my sisters, I think I want a destination wedding. Someplace tropical. I would say the Philippines, but that would be impossible for many to go to—the flight alone is astronomical. But I’d love to marry someplace warm, with sand in between my toes. No makeup that will render me unrecognizable, without the stress that will turn me into a crying mess. Anyway.” She snapped herself out of the dream, looked up at Trenton.

  He pushed the hair out of her face, tucked it behind her ears. It was innocent, evergreen, and sincere. “I hope you get it.” But there was more in his eyes. Something she couldn’t decipher.

  “Okay, lovebirds.” Rene approached them.

  Pearl’s high crashed back down to earth—time to be a professional. “Thank you, Rene, for squeezing us in.”

  “Not a problem. Anything for Rings and Roses.”

  Pearl’s heart dipped in her chest. Technically, she hadn’t been bought out yet, and she was still part of the business. Technically, she was still under the store’s banner. But soon, she wouldn’t be. “I think you might have yourself another couple booked for next fall.” She motioned to Daphne and Carter, who were now taking a selfie using the red barn with the metal roof, the reception area, as the backdrop.

  “Next summer and fall is booking up quickly.”

  “I’ll have an answer for you ASAP.”

  After their final goodbyes, Pearl walked Daphne back to the couple’s car, parked on the side of the road. Trenton hung back with Carter. Keeping her voice neutral, Pearl asked, “What do you think?”

  “It’s a yes,” Daphne said.

  “Great. I can submit the paperwork tonight.”

  She tugged on Pearl’s elbow. “Now the big question is—will you say yes?”

  Pearl smiled hesitantly. “What do you mean?”

  She gestured to the men behind them. “I know you said the crush is one-sided, but it’s so obvious that Trenton is actually in love with you.”

  “What?” Pearl heard the woman loud and clear but couldn’t believe what she’d said.

  “Ah, you’re still in denial. That’s cool. Carter and I are patient. We’ll wait. By the way, not sure if it’s clear, but we are going to stay with you. With or without Rings and Roses. Besides, I don’t think I can split those two up.” She gestured to the guys.

  Pearl halted in her tracks. “Really?”

  “Really.” She nodded and leaned in, arms out for a hug. “You get all my props for your hustle.”

  Carter walked up. “I guess you told her the news?”

  “Yep,” Daphne answered.

  “I’m biased but I agree with this decision.” Trenton wrapped an arm around Pearl’s waist. “But do you mind if I ride with them since they’re headed straight to Arlington? I’m due back at the apartment to meet the movers. My stuff from my last duty station is being delivered today.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Pearl said.

  Trenton walked her to her car. He opened the driver’s-side door, and as she climbed in, he bent down, leaned in close. “Would you consider having dinner with me, tonight?”

  Dumbfounded, she blubbered the first thing in her head. “Dinner?”

  “You know? Food?”

  “I was gonna order pizza,” she heard herself say, because that was truly her plan and she was still processing the words dinner with me.

  “Pizza then. My place.”

  “Um. Sure.” She pushed the shake in her voice away.

  “Text me when you’re done? I can swing by and grab you.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Pizza was simple enough. But as he planted a kiss on her cheek, Pearl had an inkling that dinner at his place might end up a little more complicated.

  That night on Trenton’s apartment balcony, Pearl gasped at his view. Against the black sky, the imposing, brightly lit figure of the Pentagon and the spiky sculpture of the Air Force Memorial broke the horizon’s line.

  But that wasn’t the only reason her heart thumped at a sprinter’s pace. She was with Trenton, alone, and not on a fake-date premise. This was a date-date.

  She followed Trenton back through a sliding glass door that lead to the living room. It was decorated simply, with a leather couch and a coffee table. To the left was a bar island and behind it, a small range and a stainless steel refrigerator. Above the island hung pendant lights, casting a glow over Trenton’s head. Boxes lined the walls from today’s household goods delivery.

  “I got lucky. The soldier who lived here before me had to break his lease. And my roommate is never around—he’s also a government civilian but travels often. He’s on a trip the next couple of weeks. It’s like having the whole place to myself.” He lifted two plates onto the bar, each with two slices of pizza on it. Pearl’s favorite: Hawaiian. His: Everything.

  “Thanks.” Pearl took their plates and brought them to his round kitchen table, big enough to seat two. She grabbed a napkin from a stack on the bar and set one down at his place setting, one at hers, and naturally began setting a third. For Kayla. Who wasn’t there.

  She took back the napkin and perched on the chair. “Does Kayla—”

  “Know you’re here?” He stuck his thumb in his mouth to lick off pizza sauce, then came around the counter. He’d kicked off his shoes at the door. “She doesn’t.” His voice was gravelly as he sat, forearms on the table, as if preparing to launch into an explanation. Instead, he picked up a slice of pizza. “I’m starving. Aren’t you?”

  “Hangry,” she said, though she’d lost her appetite. Kayl
a had known all about their fake dates, and she’d encouraged it.

  But this wasn’t fake, and this was in secret.

  She wiped off her fingers with her napkin though they weren’t dirty.

  “I sense something serious coming,” he said after swallowing a bite.

  She tore her eyes away from his face. The tops of her cheeks were coal hot. “You asked me to dinner. And Kayla doesn’t know about this.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want to be here?”

  She shook her head. Then did it so forcefully that it brought a grin to his face.

  “Is that a no you don’t want to be here?”

  “You’re going to make me say it out loud?” She huffed exaggeratedly when he nodded. “I do want to be here.”

  “Then we’ll figure it out, okay? But for now, enjoy this magnificent pizza. Man, I missed Filippo’s. The sauce. The herb crust. And they deliver. It’s the trifecta of pizza.” He stuffed half the slice in his mouth, chewing heartily.

  Pearl, satisfied with his answer for now, took a bite of her pizza. She fed her belly and devoured Trenton with her eyes. She tried to imagine him in uniform in real life. His fancy dress blues had been impressive in pictures, sure. But now she took it to another level. She thought of him shaving without a shirt on, dressing in his camouflaged uniform, flexing, and lacing up his boots. A different pose for every calendar month.

  “Pearl. You okay?”

  “Mmm? Yeah. Um, I’m relishing the moment. The food, I mean.”

  He grinned, and a devilish look came across his face. “I’m gonna grab another slice. And start up a movie. You want another?”

  “No . . . I think I’m good.” She stuffed her mouth, ravenous now, then wiped the bottom of her chin when she got sauce on it. She shut her eyes. This pizza was good. Perfect melty cheese. Crunchy, thick-cut, fatty Canadian bacon. And a crust that had herbs packed into its core.

  “Sure? I know how you are with bacon.” He stood and went to the kitchen.

  She grinned. “Well, maybe another slice.”

  “You got it.” Trenton’s face was in the fridge, and he popped out with two soda cans, one stacked on the other. He dragged two pizza slices from the box and brought them to the coffee table, where Pearl met him and sank into the leather couch.

  “Aw, you remembered.” She accepted a can of orange Fanta. Pearl wasn’t a big soda drinker, not after all the talk of artificial sugars and excess sugar in them, but the thought was too sweet to decline. Orange Fanta had been her obsession in high school.

  “You are talking to Triple-Threat Trent. I know the ladies.”

  “Whatever!” She bopped him on the arm with a couch pillow.

  He popped his root beer can open. He sank to the floor, back against the couch. With a few pushes of the buttons of his remote control, the TV menu screen appeared. Then he cocked a head at her, inviting her down to the floor. “What do you feel like watching?”

  She conceded, heart pounding now. It felt so much more intimate with them side by side, legs straightened out in front of them. “Um. How about a classic? The Matrix?”

  “You’ve got it.” He picked it from the TV’s menu. He pressed another remote and the lights dimmed above them. Pearl’s heart shot to her throat. She nestled back against the couch, the moment straight out of every angst-filled John Hughes movie she’d watched on Netflix—rife with too much thinking on her end. Did he lean in closer? Should she? What should she do with her hands?

  Pearl’s phone buzzed in her pocket, as if answering her, and it broke apart her neurotic thoughts. “Sorry,” she whispered as she read a text from Jane. Family, not business, meeting, tomorrow 8 a.m. before the shop opens. Ate Mari’s apartment.

  Pearl pursed her lips.

  “What’s up?”

  “Looks like Jane’s going to be the one to mediate, yet again.” She showed him the phone, then lowered it facedown on the carpet. “But this is good. I’m going to tell them about Heartfully Yours.”

  “And what about it?”

  “I still have no idea.” She slumped her shoulders. “Can I ask your opinion?”

  He put the movie on pause. “Course.”

  “Do you think I was right to ask to leave Rings and Roses?”

  He looked briefly at the glowing screen, his profile contemplative. “My opinion on this is that my opinion counts for nothing. Only you can decide. But I don’t think you want to leave. Look, when you are hell-bent on doing something, Pearl, God bless anyone who tells you otherwise.” He laughed. “Seriously—you have always marched to your own drum. So, no, I don’t think you want to walk away from your family like this. But I think you feel that you have to, and that is something else entirely.”

  Pearl let his words settle into her head as her gaze dropped to the space between them, to the fluffy carpet. She ran her fingers through it, feeling the fibers, and focused her intention back to her breath, the base of her entire existence. “Things are a mess right now. What if I made the wrong decision, putting my foot down like that? Especially now that Daphne has said yes. Isn’t that just stupid? I wanted a top and now that I have it, I’m scared as hell I won’t be able to do it alone. I’m afraid I burned the bridge to the most important people in my life, personally and professionally.”

  The leather gave as Trenton turned. His fingers wrapped around a loose strand of hair and he tucked it in behind her ear. “There’s nothing that says you and your sister can’t fix this. You’re both still here, right?” He lifted her chin with a finger. “Which means whatever you choose to do, you can. It’s not too late.”

  Now that she had enough food in her belly and semi-good calories working through her, she digested his words. “With the way you say it, it should be easy. But when you have someone like Mari—”

  “Who is someone like you. Someone who has a strong opinion and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. Which aren’t bad traits.”

  “—it’s hard to come together.”

  He shrugged, a small protest to her comment. “You can let superficial stuff get in the way, and believe me, I know that our differences are ninety percent superficial. Or you can focus on the ten percent of similarity. I hate to put it this way, but when the shit hits the fan, when things start blowing up around you, that ten percent is what’s going to matter. That’s when camaraderie—brotherhood, sisterhood, humanhood, whatever—kicks in.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I have full confidence in you and in Mari. At the end of the day, you have each other’s backs.”

  Pearl searched the depth of his stare. His arm now rested around her against the couch, but the intimacy of his touch lingered. The subject of Rings & Roses fell to the rear of her thoughts. “What are we doing here?”

  A shy smile graced his lips. “I forgot to add ‘can’t get anything past you’ to your list of traits.” He paused. “I guess I wanted for us to be in another space, a place we’d never been to before. I wanted to see how it would feel to be truly alone with you, to see if what I was feeling was all in my head.”

  And there went her breath. “How . . . how are you feeling?”

  “Now you’re going to make me say it.” He scooted closer by a smidgen. As if magnetized, Pearl leaned in. Though humor laced his tone, the moment was so serious, so unlike what they usually were. “I like you.”

  “I like you, too.” She squeaked out the words despite herself. Like she’d been pining for a Christmas present and finally, finally, she was tearing the package open.

  “Oh, good. I wasn’t sure, with the yoga and Daphne and Carter.” His face broke in relief, surprising her.

  How could this man be so confident and shy at once? To Pearl, he was larger than life, with his feet firmly planted on the ground. “I felt it at the Coronation,” he said. “I pushed it away at first. I didn’t want to misstep because of our friendship. After spending time together, I now believe it’s so natural because of our friendship.”

  His words fell like cool raindrops on a h
ot summer day. It created steam between them.

  “And your matchmaker experience?” she joked, though her voice cracked.

  “Yeah, that was a flop. How about you?”

  “Total flop.”

  “What’s on your mind right now?” Worry flashed through his expression.

  Pearl swallowed. She was as much an open book with her emotions as she was protective over her vulnerabilities. She fought her first instinct—to clamp down and dig in her heels—and blew out the words she’d ached to say since they were kids. “That I’ve wanted you to say that for forever. I think since we were eight.”

  “I seem to remember you calling me a stinky jerk at my ninth birthday.”

  “It was probably for good reason.”

  The crevices on the sides of his cheeks caved in. “You’re probably right.”

  “So, what now?” she whispered. She usually flew by the seat of her pants, taking leaps and bounds. But Trenton was a man who planned. He’d known he wanted to be a soldier the moment their elementary school had taken a field trip to the Pentagon. Since then he’d methodically laid out his future, from then onward.

  “It means we do this. Us.” His fingers grazed her cheek. She leaned into his touch. “If that’s okay.”

  The answer that came from her was the most instinctual thing she’d done in a long time. She didn’t question his intentions, or hers. This was Trenton, and he wasn’t just her present. He was her past, her childhood. And maybe her future.

  She scooted closer. He placed his left hand on her waist, then her hip. Her leg crossed over and she straddled him. From above, she looked down upon him, at the beautiful face she’d seen change over the years. “Yes, that’s okay.”

  She lowered her face as his hands rose. His fingers embedded themselves in her hair. Their lips touched, and like a match against a firecracker, they sparked. The heat between them grew, encompassing them in the fire Pearl vaguely understood would either grow into a roaring flame or burn her magnificently.

  nineteen