Sweet Forty-Two (34 page)

Ember sat forward. “Well, it’s safe to say you fucked up, Regan, but so did she, kind of. She was scared, you were insecure, it’s just ... nonsense.”

“What’d you say?” My eyes shot to her.

“Uh ... nonsense?”

“Ha!” I clapped my hands and stood up. “You’re brilliant. I gotta go.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Bo nearly yelled. “You just swallowed five beers. Tomorrow. You can ride in on your white horse tomorrow.”

He was right, said my head, as it seemed to move separately from my body. I sat down in a loud thump and looked at the love birds perched on their Adirondack chair together.

“Rabbit.” I smiled.

“What?” they said in unison.

“Bo said
white horse
... it’s a rabbit.”

“Christ, you’re weird.” Ember stood and gathered the bottles from around the chairs. “It’s my hypothesis that you and Georgia will do just fine together.”

The next day I left as soon as my eyes opened for the first time which was, regrettably, five in the morning. I knew that would be my only chance that day to talk with Georgia, since she was doing her day-long introductory class today at the bakery.

She’d already be in the kitchen, whisking and whipping away, so I wasn’t worried about waking her up, though if I had to, I’d do exactly that to get her to listen to me.

I slammed my hand against the steering wheel in frustration at what a jackass I’d been to her. Just because two people don’t trust on the same timeline doesn’t mean one is more or less trustworthy than the other. I’d quantified Georgia’s trust and told her, in not so many words, that her total wasn’t good enough, high enough, for me.

What a dick.

As predicted, when I pulled into our driveway, I saw the light shining in the bakery kitchen. I knew the door would be locked, and I didn’t want to scare the hell out of her right before I apologized by bursting in through the interior door, so I knocked on the glass door outside.

And knocked.

And pounded a fist.

My pulse became slightly frantic, as she seemed to ignore me, until I caught the bright pink outline of her earbuds and noticed her phone tucked into her shirt pocket. A few seconds later, she looked in the direction of the door and jumped when she saw me.

I waved, pointing to the door, asking to be let in. She seemed to take a deep breath, but exhaled with a smile as she held up one finger. I watched her lean forward as she pulled a baking sheet from the oven and set it on the stainless steel table behind her.

She jogged over to the door a second later, and I smiled at the short shorts and combat boot combination that first caught my attention a couple of months before. Her smile widened as she unlocked and finally pushed the door open.

“Hi,” she said, holding the door open.

“Hi.” I tried to take a step in, but her hand stopped me.

“Wait a sec. Don’t move.” She pulled her hand away from the door and nearly skipped across the seating area to the far wall, flicking two light switches.

The pre-dawn darkness was still heavy enough for me to notice pink and blue lights turn on at the front of the building. I leaned my head to the side, to try to see what she’d done, but she yelled as she ran back to the door.

“I said don’t move!” She laughed nervously as she met me outside and took my hand, bringing me to the front of the building. “Well ... now you can move.” She shifted on her feet, nodding upward toward the sign.

It took me a while to tear my eyes away from studying the way hers lit up. She seemed hesitant to look at me as her eyes remained fixed on the neon sign above us. Finally, I looked.

Sweet Forty-Two.

The letters were in no particular pattern, some blues were two in a row, some pinks three, and most of them were in a different font.

“You’ve got a name! But ... wait...” My excitement at this tiny detail that had been annoying the piss out of me for the last couple of months waned. “Forty-two?”

She nodded, pouring everything she had silently from her eyes into mine.

Forty-two days. You
’
ve been in my bakery with me for forty-two days.

“This is ... from our conversation the other day?” I swallowed hard, looking between the sign and her face.

She smiled. “It is.”

“But ... we kind of ... ended on a shitty note there.”

“It wasn’t about that day, Regan. It was about the forty-two before that. You didn’t just help me in the bakery and break down my stubborn walls.” She took a deep breath and reached for my other hand. “You broke down the walls and lead a search party for the pieces of me you knew you could love, and you dragged those out of the fucking rubble I’d let pile up around my soul.”

“Georgia,” I whispered, moving my hands up to her face, letting the warm fullness of her cheeks warm my hands.

“It was,” she cleared her throat as I watched her eyes water, “the sweetest forty-two days of my entire life, Regan.”

I pulled her head to my chest and kissed the top of her head. “What if I didn’t fucking come back? Or, what if I did and we didn’t talk anymore?”

She shrugged beneath my arms. “It wouldn’t have changed those days and what they did for me. Plus,” she pulled away and wiped under her eyes, “you asked me if I could believe in a prince. I believe in you. Will you believe in me?”

“What?” I shook my head in confusion.

“Will you believe in me? Will you be patient with me and hold me and trust ... me. I realize that’s a huge thing to ask, given everything that’s happened—”

I cut her off. “I believed in you from the second I laid eyes on you, Georgia. There was never anything unbelievable about you. Well,” I laughed, “it was
all
a bit unbelievable, but you know what I mean. You’re real. Raw and jagged. Confusing and curious and ... nonsense. And, I believe every single bit of it.”

“Do we get to kiss now?” She sniffed, an unsure smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Don’t you even want to hear my apology?”

Her brow furrowed. “For what?”

“Being an ass. Kicking you out of my apartment. Telling you it was too late. Pick one, I’ve got more...”

Georgia lifted up on her tiptoes. “That, I believe, is called being human. You don’t have to apologize for that.”

As our lips got closer, our smiles faded and our breathing got heavier. Clouds of anticipatory breath swirled around us, highlighted by the freshly rising sun. Our lips finally touched, both of us taking deep breaths, submerging ourselves in the feeling.

Georgia’s cold nose brushed against mine and we smiled and we kissed until the sun had fully risen and the world started a new day with new love.

The best kind.

“Wait a second,” I asked as I pulled away. “How’d you get a lighted sign made in three days?”

“There’s a sign shop in La Jolla. I’d been there a few times talking designs and names with the guy. When this name hit me, I knew I’d be out of luck, that there was no way they’d be able to make the sign before the grand opening in two weeks. But, I figure the outside should match the inside, so the guy took me to the storage room where they keep pieces of old signs, letters they never used, prototypes, all of that. There were enough there for what I needed. He came yesterday and wired everything in and ... here.” She held up her hand, once more showcasing the bright sign.

“But if the outside should match the inside ... shouldn’t it be something Alice-y?”

She bit her bottom lip, smiling wider by the second. “That’s where we’re in luck. When Alice was on trial ... book not movie ... for the rose painting incident, the King was in a tizzy about Alice being there at all. Near the end of the trial, he blurts out, ‘Rule forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’ So,” she shrugged, “I suppose they can all come here.”

“Nonsense,” I whispered to myself, smiling at Ember’s words, and the tone of my life over the last few months.

Georgia winked and kissed me again. “Exactly.”

The grand opening of
Sweet Forty-Two
was more than I could have ever expected. Since I expected nothing, and ended up with a bakery that saw probably a thousand people in the first two days. Truly, though, it was magnificent. Regan told members of The Six, and they told all of their friends. Willow Shaw even plugged the opening during a radio show she hosts once a week.

While my friends at E’s were sad to see me go, they showed up in full force and traded one vice for another as they gorged on cookies and cupcakes. The classes I’d hosted for the two weeks prior to the opening were a hit, and I was already taking requests for more. Thankfully, Regan was finished recording with The Six, and had some time to kill before they started their regional tour, so he was just as busy as I was in the kitchen and helping me advertise.

It’s been two months since I made my first dollar from something I created, and, pardon the cliché, but it keeps getting sweeter. As I looked through the kitchen into the cafe area—which is what we call it now since that’s hip—my stomach twisted a bit at the thought of having to share my boyfriend with The Six once summer rolled around.

Boyfriend.

Such a simple, ordinary word for a relationship that is anything but.

Regan wiped down the tables after locking the door and turning the sign to
Closed
. He tucked his always-wild hair behind his ears as he cleaned the tables and benches, humming a song I didn’t recognize underneath his breath.

“See something you like?” he teased when he caught me staring, my lips slightly parted. Regan put the rag over his shoulder and glided toward me, pressing his hand on the small of my back when he reached me and giving me a warm kiss on the lips.

Maybe it was the unnatural long length of his legs, but he always looked like he was gliding whenever he moved by foot. A lot of tall people are awkward in their body, but Regan is awkward in nothing. He wasn’t thrown off balance when I asked if we could wait a while before spending the night together. It was part of my trust thing, and, really, there’s nothing more vulnerable than sleeping next to another person. Leaving yourself defenseless in their arms.

Tonight, though, that was going to change. I laughed under my breath about the card that slid under my doorway first thing in the morning. It looked as though he’d had help from Ember, or some other female, because it was quite crafty. It was on thick card stock and had all the suits of a deck of cards stamped along the border. I was invited, the letter said, to an unbirthday celebration in Regan’s apartment after closing time at the bakery that would last until the next morning. Seemed he didn’t want to come right out and ask me to spend the night in his bed. I appreciated the tact.

“What do you have planned for tonight, exactly?” I asked, kissing him on the nose once before lowering myself back to my heels.

“Oh, you know, cabbages, kings, bits of Cheshire running about.” Regan twirled his hand through the air with a crazed look in his eyes.

I smacked his chest. “I’m serious.”

He picked me up and set me on the large worktable behind me.

“Will you just trust me?” He grinned.

“Oh, I do. I really do. I was just saying—”

He laughed, pinching my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I know you do. And, I know it’s not easy. Thank you...” He trailed off, his eyes locking on my lips before moving back to mine. The look he got right before he kissed me was enough to seize every muscle in my body.

“What?” he asked, studying my face.

“That look in your eyes ... it’s so intense.”

He kissed me, letting his tongue trail the length of my lips once before pulling away. “Bad intense?”

“No,” I said in my exhale.

“Come upstairs with me.” Regan held my hand as I slid off the table and walked next to him up the stairs. My pulse thumped in my neck.

He opened the door, letting me in first. The usually bare interior of his apartment was alive. White twinkle lights were strung around the perimeter of the room and framed the picture window at the far end. The couch had been pushed aside, and in the center of the living room sat a small bistro table and two chairs, with a bottle of wine and two glasses sitting in wait.

As if crafted for a script, the timer on the oven dinged just as Regan closed the door. I whipped around to face him.

“How ... what? You were with me all day today.”

He ran his thumb across my cheek and kissed me on the forehead before walking into the kitchen. “Ember.”

“Oh...” I trailed off, watching him remove what looked like chicken parmesan from the oven, and pulling two plates from the cabinet.

“Fantasy is fun, Georgia. It’s how we met ... and fell in love. Being at the Mad Hatter’s tea party day in and day out in the bakery is a joy, and watching you handle customers in character with that theme is fantastic. But,” he brought the two plates over to the table where I’d been standing, “normal is underrated. Sit.”

I looked around, tears forming at the way
normal
had taken my breath away when I opened the door. White lights, a simple black table, one guy, one girl. I sat and took his hand from across the table. He smiled and squeezed my hand.