by Linda Seed
Bianca considered lying again, but what would be the point? “Yes! Yes. God help me, yes. I’m in love with him again. And I can’t be, because it’s too hard. Because it hurts too much when he … when he dismisses me the way he did in high school. He hasn’t changed, Sofia. Nothing has changed. We’re older now and we can drive ourselves and we have more money, but everything else is the same.”
“Well … your fashion sense is better. Remember those lace-up jeans and that tattoo choker you used to wear? Ugh.” Sofia half-grinned.
“I do remember. And you know what? None of that stuff was me, Sofia. I wore those things to try to get TJ to notice me. And he never did.”
Sofia’s eyes filled with sympathy, and she reached out to put a hand on Bianca’s arm. “If he said that to his mother, that really does suck, and I’m sorry. But dating Peter again? That’s not going to solve anything. You don’t love him.”
“I can learn to love him.”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
It was time to open the doors, so Sofia stood and retrieved the office keys from her desk drawer. Before she went to unlock the door, she stopped and looked at her sister. “If TJ doesn’t value you, he’s an idiot. But that doesn’t mean you should just give up and settle for someone you don’t really have feelings for. And for what it’s worth? It’s kind of a sucky thing to do to Peter, making him think he’s got a chance. He’s not a bad guy. He doesn’t deserve it.”
Bianca knew Sofia was right about so much of it. But Peter was offering her everything she wanted. Wasn’t it worth giving it a shot? Wasn’t it worth accepting those things and trying to be happy?
When TJ got a text from Bianca’s sister, he braced himself for something unpleasant. What that unpleasant thing might be remained a mystery. Was Sofia planning to deliver some kind of message from Bianca? Was she planning to kick his ass? She might be a girl, but she was an athlete, and there was a fair chance she could do it. It was certainly something to keep in mind.
Because he didn’t know what to expect, he almost declined when she said she wanted to meet him for coffee. What good could possibly come of it? Instead, against his better judgment, he found himself agreeing. It was just curiosity, he told himself. It had nothing to do with the fact that he couldn’t quite seem to let go of the idea of Bianca.
They met on a Tuesday morning at Jitters, a coffee house on Main Street in Cambria.
“I’m supposed to be at work,” Sofia told him as they sat down at a small table toward the back. “But I told Bianca I had errands to do. I wanted to do this while she was working so she wouldn’t walk in and see us.”
“Look, Sofia … you’re a very beautiful woman and all, but …”
Sofia’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not interested in you, you ass.”
He considered defending himself, but he probably was acting like an ass, so he let it go. He took a sip of his latte to hide his embarrassment. “Okay. So … why are we here?”
Sofia had an iced, blended coffee drink with a cloud of whipped cream on top—surprising, given her attention to fitness. She took a sip and then licked a bit of whipped cream off of her upper lip.
“We’re here,” she said, “because I believe there’s been a misunderstanding, and Bianca’s too pigheaded to clear it up. So I thought I’d do it for her.”
TJ felt his defenses go up. “If this is about what I said at my mother’s house …”
“It’s not. Although, now that you mention it, if you really meant what you said—that you’re just playing with Bianca—then let me know now, and we’ll skip the rest of it, because there would be no point.”
“No.” His throat felt thick suddenly, and he cleared it. “No, I didn’t mean it.”
“Fine.” Sofia nodded. “You should tell her that. And you should apologize for being enough of an idiot to say it.”
“Now, wait a minute….”
“But that’s not what I came here to say,” Sofia told him. She took a deep breath, then continued. “The notebook you saw—the one with the wedding plans in it—is not what you think.”
“It’s not?” He looked at her, eyebrows high. “You mean it’s not Bianca’s plan for a big, elaborate wedding? To me?”
Sofia opened her mouth, then closed it again.
“Okay, it is what you think. But she did it when she was sixteen, TJ. When she had a crazy teenage crush on you and you wouldn’t give her the time of day. It was a way to channel her emotions. She did it for fun, because you were never going to pay attention to her, and she needed to put those feelings somewhere. She never expected it to be real. It was a fantasy. An exercise.”
Sixteen?
“But … if she did that more than twenty years ago, why was it out on your coffee table? Why …”
Sofia’s face got that dewy, pink look women got when they were about to cry. Which TJ absolutely did not want her to do.
“Let me back up,” she said. She looked at her drink, which she held in both hands, instead of at him. “Our parents died a few years ago. Her from cancer, him in a car accident a short time later. We were destroyed. All of us. Because of the grief, and the pain, and the … the feelings, I had a hard time with the idea of marrying Patrick. I needed to feel like my mother was there, like she could be a part of it. Bianca made that fantasy wedding plan with our mother. They did it together, as a kind of bonding thing. So when things got serious with Patrick, and I was sad that my mom wasn’t there to help me plan a wedding …”
Now TJ was catching on. “You decided to use the plans she’d already made,” he finished for her.
“Yes. Exactly.” A fat tear slid down Sofia’s cheek, and she wiped it away. She took a deep, ragged breath, then steadied herself. “So, that’s why the binder was out. Because I’m planning my wedding. Bianca is not trying to rush things between you. She is not some crazy stalker who’s planning to wear your skin like a man suit.”
TJ was starting to wonder if maybe he’d been stupid for jumping to conclusions. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“But … if she knew that’s what I thought, why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t she tell me what you just told me?”
“Why should she, when what the two of you have is nothing?” Sofia looked at him pointedly. “Why should she fix it, when you were just playing around with her, just having a good time?”
“Oh, God.” TJ rubbed his face with his hands, then ran a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You think?”
He groaned. “The truth is … I care about her. A lot. But my mother wants me to get back together with Penny, and she was giving me a hard time, so … so I pretended that I was just … I don’t know. Just getting my feet wet with Bianca. Just getting back in the game.”
Sofia cocked her head and considered him. “Well, are you?”
Because he’d never put the question to himself exactly that way, he didn’t know what to say.
“Listen.” Sofia leaned toward him, her elbows propped on the table. “If you need some time to play the field after your divorce, I don’t think anybody’s going to hold that against you. I get it. It’s a normal thing to want to do. But Bianca’s not the woman to do it with, because she has real feelings for you.”
When he didn’t say anything, she gathered up her purse and her drink and stood up. “I’ve got to get to work, or Bianca’s going to start asking questions. You might not want to tell her we had this conversation.”
“Right.” TJ nodded.
“I mean, you can if you want to. If she asks me about it, I’ll just say that somebody had to be the adult in this situation. But, all things considered, I’d rather not have to.”
“Yeah. I get it.”
She walked out humming a little tune, full of the satisfaction of a woman who’d just handed a man his ass.
It did make a difference to TJ that Bianca had made the wedding plans when she was sixteen, and it did make him feel better about their potentia
l future. But he still had to figure out whether he was ready to have a relationship—with anyone.
Whether he was or wasn’t, he still owed her a proper apology about the things he’d said to his mother. TJ hadn’t been raised to say unkind, untrue things that hurt people’s feelings, and he certainly hadn’t been raised to avoid apologizing afterward.
And all things considered, he’d be better off setting things right before things with that Peter guy went any further.
He waited until that evening, when Bianca would be home from work. He decided to drop by her house without calling first, in case she decided not to take his call.
He parked his truck, trotted up the front walk, and knocked on the door—which was answered by a scowling Sofia.
“You might already be too late,” she said. “She’s with Peter.”
For some reason, he hadn’t considered that possibility. “What?”
“She’s seeing her ex again. Instead of you. Because you hurt her feelings.” Sofia spelled it out for him as though he were a particularly inattentive kindergartner.
“Ah, man.” TJ had come over here uncertain about where he wanted things with Bianca to go—if anywhere. But hearing that she was, this moment, with her ex-boyfriend made him feel as though he’d been punched in the throat.
“I wouldn’t tell you where they were, even if I knew,” Sofia went on.
“Well, of course. I didn’t—”
“If I knew they were having dinner at Neptune, for instance,” she continued, “I wouldn’t tell you that, even if I knew you could probably go there and break up the date somehow.”
“Oh.” TJ blinked a few times. “You think I should—”
“I absolutely do not think you should go to Neptune and break up Bianca’s date with Peter,” Sofia said. “Even though they don’t belong together, and if they do end up getting married or something, it’ll mean a lifetime of misery for both of them. So, don’t do that. Even though, if they had a hypothetical reservation at six thirty, they’d just be sitting down to dinner about now.”
“Okay. I won’t do any of that,” TJ said, playing along.
After he’d said goodnight to Sofia and she’d closed the door, he got back into his truck and hauled ass over to Neptune.
32
Owen was at TJ’s parents’ house that evening, which meant TJ had all of the time and freedom he needed to make an ass of himself.
Because he didn’t particularly relish the ass part, he considered his strategy before going into the restaurant, as he sat in his truck in the parking lot.
He could go in there for dinner and just happen to see her, then drop by her table to say hello.
He could try to catch her eye without Peter seeing him, then maybe have a private word with her.
Or, he could feign some kind of emergency to get her away from her date.
The last one seemed the most likely to get results, though he hated to use his son’s medical condition to forward his own love life. Still, Owen wanted TJ to keep seeing Bianca, so maybe the kid wouldn’t mind.
Still not completely clear on his plan, he decided to just charge in there before he lost his nerve.
Bianca and Peter were sitting at a table by the window, with a view of Main Street. TJ spotted them a moment after he pushed past the hostess, claiming he was there to meet someone.
He moved with more confidence than he felt—then doubted his decision as soon as he found himself standing at Bianca’s table, looking down at her.
“TJ.” Bianca sounded surprised to see him—and not the happy kind of surprised.
“Oh. Hello.” Peter peered up at him through his dark-rimmed glasses.
“I … ah …” The idea of claiming some kind of Owen-related emergency evaporated when he realized that Peter was Owen’s doctor, too. “I was just going to … have dinner,” he said, settling on one of his other scenarios.
“How nice for you.” Bianca’s voice was frosty.
“The bisque is particularly good,” Peter said. “Ah … would you like to join us?”
Damn it. The guy was so courteous that he was actually offering to let TJ—a guy who’d slept with Peter’s date—horn in on their evening. TJ almost felt guilty about what he was about to do.
Not guilty enough not to do it, though.
“Thanks, I think I will.” He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table between the two of them.
“What are you doing?” Bianca said tightly.
“I’m here, and you’re here, so …” TJ indicated the table, the restaurant, Cambria, the state and country beyond. “We might as well be here together.”
“Peter and I are on a date,” Bianca said. “Maybe you didn’t realize, but …”
“Bianca and I were just discussing our living arrangements,” Peter said. “She’s planning to move in with me.”
Ah, so Peter wasn’t being courteous after all. He’d invited TJ to sit down so he could stake his claim at his leisure. It was game on, then.
“Really,” TJ said. “Congratulations.”
Bianca appeared flustered. “That’s … I don’t …”
“I guess we’re celebrating, then,” TJ went on. “We should order a bottle of Champagne.”
“Champagne makes me break out in hives,” Peter said.
“Two bottles, then,” TJ said mildly, a predatory grin on his face.
“Excuse me. I have to use the ladies’ room.” Bianca got up from the table and hurried toward the back of the restaurant, her heels click-clicking on the hardwood floor.
When she was gone, Peter took the napkin out of his lap, folded it carefully, and placed it on the table beside his plate. “What’s this about?”
“What do you mean?” TJ looked at Peter innocently. “I was here to have dinner, and—”
“That’s crap, and we both know it.”
The fact that the guy couldn’t even bring himself to say the word bullshit probably said something about him, though TJ wasn’t sure what.
“Okay, then why am I here?” TJ asked.
“You’re here because you’re jealous,” Peter concluded. “You slept with her and made her think there was something there, that it might go somewhere, then when you talked about her to your mother, you acted like she was less than the dirt on your shoe. Then you stopped calling, stopped texting—stopped everything. And now that she’s moved on, now that she’s seeing someone who actually wants a future with her”—Peter spread his arms in an expansive gesture—“here you are.”
TJ couldn’t argue with anything Peter had said. It was all true, and he felt ashamed of himself because of it. All he could do was answer truth with more truth.
“She wasn’t happy with you before or she wouldn’t have ended it. So, what are you doing now?”
“I’m dating her,” Peter said, “and you’re not. Not anymore.”
Peter had always seemed like such a mild-mannered guy when TJ had been to his office for Owen. But now the man’s face had colored with anger and outrage.
“You know, I’m rethinking dinner,” TJ said mildly, standing up. “I hate bisque.”
Bianca’s date with Peter had been going well enough—it was amiable, if dull—until TJ showed up.
Now, she didn’t know what to think. Had he been there by coincidence, as he’d said? Or had he come there to break up the date? If it was the latter, what did that mean?
She’d fled to the ladies’ room to have a chance to think.
While she was in the bathroom staring into the mirror over the sink, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called home. Benny answered on the second ring.
“Is the date sucking?” she asked. “Do you need me to call you in five minutes with an emergency? I’ve got some chipped toenail polish; I think that qualifies. It looks really bad.”
“TJ’s here. I don’t need you to manufacture an emergency. I’ve already got one.”
“You need Sofia,” Benny said. “Hang on.”
In a
second, Sofia came on the line. “He’s there already? Jeez, he must have run every red light on the way over.”
“Sofia. What are you talking about?”
Sofia sighed as though Bianca was trying her patience. “I’m talking about the fact that I sent him over there. You can thank me later.”
“But—”
“He came here looking for you. Finally. He should have done it weeks ago. But better late than never. I told him you were out with Peter, and where. If he’s going to make his move, I wanted to be sure he did it before Peter did something stupid, like proposing.”
“Oh, God.”
“Did he already propose? Oh, shit. Jeez. I hope you didn’t say yes, Bianca …”
“He didn’t propose. The two of them are out there at the table … talking. I think they plan to eat together.” She said the word eat as though Peter and TJ were planning to eat each other.
“Oh. Well, I didn’t expect that.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Bianca wailed.
While she was talking, a woman in a low-cut black dress came into the bathroom, gave Bianca a look of sympathy, and went into a stall.
“All right, Plan A, the thing Benny said before. I’ll call you in five minutes with an emergency,” Sofia offered.
“Do that,” Bianca said. “In five minutes. Not seven, not six, or I’ll give you a real emergency to worry about.”
TJ was waiting for her when she came out of the bathroom.
He was leaning against the wall of the hallway outside the ladies’ room with his arms crossed over his chest and one foot propped against the wall as though he were simply relaxing there, killing a pleasant fifteen minutes between courses.
“What are you doing here?” Bianca asked as she came out of the bathroom.
“Waiting for you.”
“No, I mean … what are you doing here at the restaurant in the first place? Because you didn’t come here for dinner.”
He leveled a blue-eyed gaze at her that almost made her knees weak. “I came here to talk to you.” He took two steps toward her until they were standing so close she could smell his warm skin.