Page 24 of Best Served Cold

SOPHIE

Rob Price is standing just inside the front door of my house in a band T-shirt and worn jeans again. It’s like someone magically rewound the last two weeks out of existence. Except I wasn’t at all happy to see him on my doorstep two weeks ago, and Iamhappy to see him today.

It felt like a bond formed between Rob and me the day of the great phone-off, and then Dottie called me the following day to say Rob’s tea leaves had formed the same shape she’d seen in our four cups. Admittedly, his leaves weren’t from actual tea, and tea-leaf reading isn’t exactly a science, but it had feltinteresting.

Then he came over with that CD two days later. To be honest, I’ve sat in my car listening to it for long stretches of time. So long that Otis once knocked on my window to tell me he’d read up about carbon monoxide poisoning and would be “keeping an eye” on me.

I’d informed him that was only a concern if the car was kept in an enclosed space with the engine running, and Aunt Penny’s house had no garage, but he’d still looked worried.

It was the music that kept me in there, though. The songs he’d chosen spoke to my angry, hurt soul, which was trying to piece itself back together.

I’d thought about reaching out to him, if for no other reason than to thank him, but I would have needed to ask Dottie for his phone number. Something she probably would have taken the wrong way.

But now he’s here, like I’d manifested him.

“Hi,” I say, smiling at Rob. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

There’s a confused, wary look in his golden eyes, which is when it hits me…

Oh, crap. I’m wearing a wedding dress. He must think I’ve gone full Miss Havisham, the jilted bride wearing her wedding dress continually until it’s brown, moth-eaten, and full of holes.

I lift my hands in a pathetic and futile attempt to hide the dress he’s already seen.

“I haven’t been running around in my wedding dress crying,” I say. “Or wearing it at all. This is an aberration. I mean, there have been some low moments, I’m not going to lie.”

Otis nods silently, grimacing. I don’t blame him. The other day, I cut up a bunch of photos and then accidentally got the shreds all over the kitchen floor. Another time, he walked in on me when I was crying while eating an entire pint of ice cream with a fork.

I didn’t love Jonah, because I’d never really known him, but I still mourned the loss of Fake Jonah. Learning the truth about him had felt like losing the last of my innocence, and it was hard to face the world without it.

I force a smile. “But yeah…this isn’t a cry for help. It’s just…”

“She sunk all of her savings into that beautiful disaster, and she can’t return it because she had to get it tailored,” Hannah summarizes, lifting her champagne glass. “So we figured if she’s only going to be able to sell it for a fourth of its value, she might as well get to wear it once.”

“What she said.” I point to Hannah, hopeful no one will mention the rest of the plan for the evening.

“And she’s going to marry herself tonight,” Dottie says with warm enthusiasm. She waves to indicate the setup we jokingly threw together with a few cheap grocery store bouquets, my crafting materials, and the big sheet of red satin material Briar had from a Christmas event at Silver Star last year. “We’re so glad you arrived in time to witness it. Our poor Briar got called into work, but she insisted we push ahead.”

Darn it. I didn’t want him to know that.

Still, it’s impossible to be mad at Dottie Hendrickson.

IloveDottie. After our afternoon at Tea of Fortune two weeks ago, she drove Hannah, Briar, and me back to my house and helped me break the news to Aunt Penny over FaceTime. That proved unnecessary because Otis had already told her everything. She was thrilled I’d finally realized Jonah was an ignoramus and insisted our little group should drink the peach schnapps she kept for special occasions.

It tasted like perfume, but we drank it anyway; it made it feel like she was there. Hannah, Briar, and I also shared our stories. Well, parts of them. I don’t like telling anyone about my past. Aunt Penny knows, of course, and so does Otis. But even though Otis is usually more like a slice of Alpine Lace Swiss than a steel vault, he knows better than to talk aboutthat.

Hannah has an older brother and a much younger brother. Her mom left a few months after her little brother was born, and they were raised by a single dad, who had taught them all how to brew beer by the time they were thirteen.

“Isn’t it illegal for minors to brew beer?” I asked.

But Dottie had harrumphed and poured herself another shot of the terrible schnapps. “My nephew learned when he was a teenager too, and now he’s the head brewer at Buchanan. Sometimes children are prodigies.”

I wasn’t sure I believed that, but there was no denying both Dottie’s nephew and Hannah’s brother were now brewmasters at two of the most successful breweries in the city.

Briar is an only child like I am. Her father had opened Silver Star a few years back, one of the many successful businesses he’d started, only to eventually abandon. She moved to Asheville last year to work under him after her handmade jewelry business went under. She seems to share her father’s reticence toward technology, although she uses Etsy to sell her pieces.

Then there’s Otis and me. Otis grew up here, graduated from Asheville High School, and has been waffling his way through dozens of odd jobs ever since. But he’s twenty-one—waffling is expected.

I’m twenty-eight, I graduated from college six years ago, and I still haven’t accomplished anything. My dream business is still just a dream.

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