by Lucy Kevin
Phoebe grinned at his confused expression. “You’ll see.”
* * *
Patrick did his best to join in as a couple of hundred people sang the words to the Sound of Music in the Castro theatre. It was by far the strangest experience he’d shared with Phoebe so far, and yet there was something immensely fun about joining in on a chorus with a group of complete strangers like that.
The theatre was crowded, which meant Phoebe was next to him, so close that she was leaning against his chest, her hair soft against his upper arm.
Patrick savored their physical closeness, but he wanted more than that. So much more.
Phoebe was amazing. How many other women would have gone so far off the beaten path on a date?
Not many, and certainly none as wholeheartedly as the beautiful woman beside him.
When the movie ended and they spilled out into the street with the rest of the movie-goers, he was caught almost completely off guard when Phoebe said, “I’ve never had as much fun as I do with you.”
“It’s the same for me,” he agreed. And it was true. Every moment he spent with Phoebe was perfect.
“Come back to my place,” Phoebe said, so low that she barely breathed it.
“You’re sure?” Patrick said carefully, even though there was nothing he wanted more.
Phoebe knew what he wanted, that he wasn’t just after a quick fling...and he knew she wouldn’t ask him unless she was feeling the same way.
Her answer was another sweet kiss that rocked through him, head-to-toe.
* * *
They made it back to her apartment with the anticipation in the car hard to ignore. It was nearly impossible to sit still in the passenger seat when all she wanted to do was reach out and touch him. To start to unbutton his shirt…
It was obvious that Patrick felt the same way, given the way he kept looking across at her, practically undressing her with his eyes. She didn’t want to think too hard about the decision she was making, didn’t want to face the fact that this wasn’t just another one-night stand that didn’t mean anything.
Hand-in-hand, they made it up the stairs with only a couple of pauses to kiss one another furiously, pressed against the rail, and then the wall.
“I’m pretty sure,” Phoebe said as she unlocked her front door, “that tradition says that I should pretend I’m inviting you in for coffee at this point.”
Patrick opened the door, pulled her inside, then pushed it shut. “I think,” he said as he bent to kiss her again, “we’ve already proved we’re the kind of couple who don’t do traditional kinds of dates.”
* * *
A long while later, Phoebe lay on her side, the covers of her bed drawn up around them both, drifting on the edge of sleep with a blissful smile. She could feel Patrick beside her, his strong muscles pressed firmly against her back as he held her close.
She’d never done this before. Never taken a man to her house, never made love to him with more than just her body, and certainly never been perfectly happy to drift off to sleep beside him, letting him stay the night.
Yet with Patrick, it felt so simple. So obvious.
Phoebe felt so happy. Not just basking in the afterglow of what had been a frankly amazing couple of hours, but genuinely, truly happy.
Briefly, she wondered if this was how people felt when they were in love.
Patrick’s fingertips brushed her hair aside, and his lips moved in to kiss just below her ear, as he pulled her in closer and settled in behind her to sleep. Utterly content for the first time in her life, she was drifting off to sleep when softly spoken words landed straight in the center of her heart.
“I love you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Phoebe woke to the sound of someone cooking in her kitchen.
Patrick.
She put on a T-shirt and jeans and headed into the kitchen just as he was serving up a huge plate of pancakes, which he had sculpted into the shape of a skyscraper. Trust an architect to do that.
Trust Patrick to do that.
He turned as she entered the room and smiled. “You’re awake. Perfect. I made breakfast.”
“I can see that.” Phoebe happily sat down and claimed some of the small mountain of pancakes for herself. “Did you have to come up with blueprints for a stack that high?”
“It’s my signature architectural achievement,” Patrick assured her as he joined her at the table and picked off some of the remaining pancakes. “Buildings will come and go, but people will always remember my refinements in the field of pancake engineering.”
Phoebe laughed at that. She couldn’t not laugh. She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said just as she fell asleep, but right then it was hard not to simply bask in what promised to be a wonderful morning.
Yes, she knew that most people who said “I love you” didn’t hang around for long, but Patrick very definitely wasn’t most people.
And the most amazing thing of all was that just the sight of him sitting in her kitchen, his hair rumpled from sleep with dark bristles across his jaw as he smiled at her with an adoring look in his eyes, was almost enough to make Phoebe want to blurt “I love you” right back at him.
“How did you sleep last night?” he asked.
“Great,” Phoebe replied with a smile she couldn’t contain. “Better than great. This is nice too. Really nice.”
And it was true. When she thought back to the previous night, she couldn’t feel anything but happiness, and having breakfast with him now, she found herself wishing that even this moment would never end. Wishing that every morning could be like this.
Patrick understood her, the real her, not the version of Phoebe Davis that she often felt she needed to put on to make others happy. And with all that he’d done for her mother, he already knew her better than anyone else ever had. Even her friends didn’t truly comprehend how things were with her mother.
And now, she had a great breakfast, memories of a great night, and a wonderful guy who had already proven that he wasn’t the kind to run away.
Yes, it definitely seemed safe to relax and enjoy the moment.
Finally.
Just then, Patrick’s phone buzzed and he frowned briefly as he read the message before putting in back into his pocket. “I can’t believe it’s been two weeks already,” he was saying when his phone buzzed again.
Phoebe felt everything go still inside of her at his mention of the time since they’d met, the same amount of time that he’d been planning on spending in San Francisco before he left for Chicago again. For so long she’d celebrated that “end date” to their relationship...but now she realized she’d spent the past week with Patrick trying to erase it.
So when his phone went off a third time, Phoebe knew she had to ask, “Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s nothing that can’t be dealt with,” Patrick assured her. “There are just a few complications with the job I have lined up after Rose and Donovan’s house. I’ll take care of it later today.”
Tension knotted Phoebe’s stomach and she put down her latest forkful of pancake untouched.
“What job?”
“It’s for a newly married couple up in Chicago,” Patrick said lightly, as though it wasn’t a big deal. “They’re very nice, but I suspect they’re also going to be the kind of couple who have a hard time settling on what they want. They want me to fly out to take care of a few things. Honestly, it could be one of those jobs that takes practically forever. My assistant is texting me with the information for a flight back later today, actually. Hopefully, I shouldn’t need to be there long, just for a few—”
Phoebe couldn’t listen to any more of it. She pushed her plate away and stood up, stepping back from the table.
“Phoebe, what is it?”
She could feel the corners of her eyes stinging with the start of tears. But she wasn’t going to cry. Not over a man. Not when she’d known how things would end all along.
So then, why did it feel like she wa
s heading straight for a dangerous tailspin?
Patrick rose, began to move toward her. “Phoebe, just tell me what’s—”
“You’re leaving for Chicago,” she said in a wooden tone. “You’re going to be there ‘practically forever’. You’re leaving.” She tried to keep her expression as blank as possible. She wasn’t going to show him how much this part hurt.
“It’s the twenty-first century, Phoebe,” he said gently, but firmly. “They have these amazing things called airplanes that mean I can travel back and forth from San Francisco to Chicago as often as I want to.”
“Yes, but you won’t want to come back,” Phoebe said. “At first, maybe, you will, when everything is fresh and new. But then, eventually, you’ll get caught up in whatever it is you’re doing next. You’ll forget all about our fling.”
She could see how much she was hurting Patrick with that word...just as much as he’d just hurt her by saying “I love you” and then planning his immediate escape.
“This isn’t a fling, Phoebe. Not even close. Not to me, and, I thought, not for you, either. Especially after yesterday—”
“How could you have said those words to me?” Her bleak question was barely above a whisper. “How could you?”
And how could she have been stupid enough to believe it, even for five minutes?
He reached for her, but she took a step back before he could make contact. Still, he said, “I told you I love you because I do, Phoebe.”
He waited for her to reply, but there was a huge lump in her throat and it was taking all her self-control not to break down sobbing...or, worse, to ask him to hold her tight again, the way he had last night.
When his arms came around her, she didn’t have the strength to push him away.
“From that first moment we danced, sweetheart, my heart has been yours.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek and she realized there was wetness there. “I didn’t tell you how I felt to try to force you to say you feel the same way. I wouldn’t do that to you, you know I wouldn’t. But I can’t keep in what I feel for you any longer.”
Phoebe had never been so confused, so torn in two between what she wanted and her long held beliefs about life...and love.
“What if,” he whispered in her ear, “the walls you’ve put up to protect yourself are only keeping out the very people who want to love you?
“We’ve only known each other two weeks,” she protested as she forced herself to step out of his arms. “We hardly know anything about each other.”
“You know that I love you. That’s all you really need to know, Phoebe. Everything else is just…details.” Patrick shook his head, and it broke her heart to see the strong man she’d fallen for despite herself looking so miserable. “I’ve tried to change your mind, but I can’t. You’re too strong for that. The only one who can change your mind is you.”
He let her go and as he headed for the door every cell in her body wanted to pull him back toward her. He was halfway out the door, when he turned back to face her.
“Have you ever thought about why you chose to be a florist for weddings, Phoebe?”
She was surprised enough by his strange question to reply, “It was a good job.”
“But it could have been so much more than that, couldn’t it?”
It was the last thing he said before he closed the door behind him...and walked out of her life.
Chapter Sixteen
Phoebe’s mother’s house was a big space with great views out over Sacramento, filled with expensive furnishings. When her mother walked inside, looking much happier than she had been when she’d been staying with Phoebe, she was surprised enough by her unexpected visitor to let out a small squeak.
“Phoebe?”
“David let me in,” Phoebe said, her voice breaking on the final short word. She’d told herself a hundred times during the drive from San Francisco to Sacramento that she wasn’t going to cry over some guy.
Only, Patrick wasn’t just some guy.
This was exactly the kind of emotion she’d worked so hard to keep from feeling. She’d seen this kind of pain so many times in her mother and her girlfriends, and now it was bubbling away inside of her as she struggled to keep it down.
But she couldn’t stop it. Not this time, not when the full pain of breaking up with Patrick was sweeping over her like a tidal wave.
All these years she’d told herself she didn’t need anyone.
What a huge lie that had been.
Because when push came to shove, Phoebe had realized she didn’t want to be alone. And then the memories of how loving her mother had been with her when she was a child came back to her in a rush, and it had seemed so obvious: if she just went to her mother, everything would be all right, wouldn’t it?
“Oh, honey, what happened?” Her mother sat down beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
Phoebe had always been the one comforting her mother, not the other way around. Now, though, she let her mother hold her while she began to cry.
“You drove here like this?” her mother asked.
Phoebe nodded, not trusting herself to speak right then. She could barely remember the trip now. She’d made it, somehow.
And the important thing was that she wasn’t alone.
“All right, Cally,” her mother said. “Whatever it is that’s wrong, I’m here for you and you can stay with David and me as long as you need to. You haven’t eaten have you?”
Phoebe shook her head.
Angela tucked a blanket around Phoebe’s lap and dried her tears with the back of her hands. Just as she had when Phoebe was younger and hadn’t felt well. “I’m going to make us both something to eat.”
Over the past few years, Phoebe had been the one in the kitchen putting together a meal for her mother, grasping for a way to try and cheer her up. And yet, everything was backwards today as she sat there on her mother’s couch, trying to find some way through the knotted maze of pain tangled inside her, and failing utterly.
“Here,” her mother said a short while later, putting a plate of pasta down in front of her. “Eat. It will do you good.”
Phoebe shook her head. “I’m not sure I can, Mom. I feel…”
How did she feel? How could she explain what it felt like, when the sheer heartache throbbing inside her was indescribable right then?
“I know,” her mother said.
Phoebe had the vague thought that it must be one of the reasons why she had come running to Sacramento: her mother was the one person on the planet who would understand the raw anguish that came from losing Patrick, even if Phoebe didn’t fully understand it herself yet.
“Eat,” her mother insisted. “You’ve always said it would make me feel better. And you were always right. Trust me, it will make you feel better.”
The meal her mother made her didn’t do anything to make the hurt go away, but the simplicity and normality of it seemed to almost ground her a little, helped her to think about something other than just how badly things had ended with Patrick. Not only how badly she’d ended them...but what he’d said about her needing to be the one to change her mind about love if things were ever going to work between them.
“Can you tell me what happened now?” her mother asked. “Is this about Patrick?”
“We decided to start dating...and then we split up.”
Her mother took her hand. “It’s all right, Cally. I’m here for you now. Just tell me everything and together we’ll work through it, I promise.”
“We spent a lot of time together in the past two weeks. And then yesterday, we went on the most amazing date. It was incredible.” She took a shaky breath before saying, “He made me breakfast, Mom. No one’s ever done that before. He even said—”
Oh God, it was hard to say the words aloud. Even though she’d replayed him saying them a thousand times in her head already.
“—he said he loved me.”
“Oh, Cally, honey. If he loves you and you lo—”
/> Phoebe had to cut her mother off before she could actually say it. “But then, he started talking about going back to Chicago for a long term project. And we argued.” Phoebe bit her lip, remembering the things she’d said, the way she’d thrown the word fling at him. “It all went wrong, Mom, and now…now it just feels so bad.”
“It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
Phoebe shook her head. How could her mother say that when it felt like nothing would ever be right again?
“It will be,” her mother insisted. “You’ll get him back, and things will be fine again, you’ll see. Just look at David and me. When I was at your apartment, I never would have thought that things would work out, but now…well, our relationship isn’t perfect yet, but we’re working on it.”
“You think that I’m going to get back together with Patrick after being with him once made me feel like this?”
“I know it hurts right now, but just think of how happy you were when you were together. You could be like that again.”
“I could be like this again,” Phoebe insisted, moving back from her mother on the couch. “If I get back together with Patrick, then I’m just setting myself up for even worse heartbreak later.”
Her mother reached out for her, but Phoebe moved back again. “You don’t know that, honey. He seems like a lovely young man. I don’t think he’d just abandon you.”
“You didn’t think Dad would walk out either, and look what happened there.”
Phoebe saw the hurt look on her mother’s face, and she realized that she’d gone too far. Again. Just as she had with Patrick.
“Neither one of us has all the answers,” her mother pointed out in a gentle voice. They sat there for several seconds like that, before her mother shook her head and said, “You know, honey, sometimes I think I’m never going to understand you.”
“Funny,” Phoebe said, even though right then she definitely didn’t find it the least bit humorous, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
How could they both be so different? How could her mother keep insisting that happiness was just the next man away? Right then, those seemed like questions to which Phoebe would never have the answers. Yet she knew one thing: relationships hurt no matter how you felt about them.