Page 41 of A New Chapter in Rosewood Beach

“Pasta,” he agreed.

They sat down again, and Faith felt a wonderful certainty that everything was going to turn out all right.

“Does anyone want more tea?” Vivian asked, standing up to get herself a second cup of peppermint tea.

Her daughters and Faith looked up from where they were working around her kitchen table.

“I’d take some,” Hazel said.

“I think I’ll make some coffee, actually,” Julia said, standing up. “I want some serious caffeine.”

“What, sending out your wedding invitations isn’t giving you enough of an adrenaline boost?” Alexis teased.

Julia shook her head. “No, it’s giving me a headache. What if some of these addresses are wrong?”

“Don’t worry about that, sweetie,” Vivian assured her. “We’ll double-check all of them. Most of the addresses on our side arein my address book, and the ones that aren’t we can check using your phone’s contacts info.”

Julia, ever the organized one, had printed out sheets with the addresses of all of her and Cooper’s wedding guests on them. Each of the girls had a stack of envelopes and a pen, and they were getting ready to address all of the envelopes before putting the invitations in them.

“Besides,” Hazel said, “if an address is wrong, it’ll come back in the mail, so we’ll know. Or, worst case scenario, it does get lost in the mail but you realize that it did because you never get an RSVP from the guest.”

“Ah, true.” Julia sighed. “I just want everything to be perfect. I’d hate for anything like that to happen.”

“It won’t.” Alexis laughed and stood up. She took her sister by the shoulders and sat her back down at the table. “You just sit there, and I’m going to make everyone chocolate milkshakes. You don’t need caffeine, you need comfort food.”

“I would definitely not say no to a milkshake,” Faith said with a grin. “And I agree—don’t make yourself more jittery when you’re stressed, Julia.”

Julia chuckled. “You’re right. I just usually tend to ride the waves of the nervousness on the tide of extra caffeine jitters.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Alexis said, shaking her head, “but I know it’s a bad idea.”

Vivian laughed and went to get herself and Hazel second cups of tea. She felt sure that nothing was going to go wrong with Julia’s wedding invitations. They’d already double-checked the addresses since they’d sent out the “Save the Date” postcards months ago. As she waited for the tea kettle to heat up again, she looked at the table, where the women of her family were clustered together, looking over Julia and Cooper’s beautiful wedding invitations. She looked at the way the gold letters on the invitations gleamed in the light and thought of the way she’dfelt when she’d sent out her own wedding invitations many years ago. Instead of making her heart ache, however, the memory was purely a happy one. She realized with a jolt that she no longer felt as though excitement and romance had passed her by. The whole world had opened up in front of her, full of potential and wonderful uncertainty.

Thank you, Terrence,she thought, feeling her heart stir.

Although she didn’t know what was going to happen between her and her friend, she felt grateful that he had changed the way she felt about her life. She now knew that romance was still possible for her, and the thought of everything working out between them filled her with butterflies.

She was just sitting back down with her tea after handing Hazel her mug when her phone began to ring. She pulled it out of her pocket and froze when she saw that the caller was Terrence.

“Who’s that?” Faith asked gleefully, even though it was clear from her tone that she had already seen Terrence’s name on the screen.

“It’s Terrence.” Vivian cleared her throat. “I can call him back?—”

“No, answer it,” Julia said, also sounding gleeful. “We don’t mind.”

Vivian felt a little awkward about answering the phone in front of the girls, but she decided it would be more awkward if she left the room to take the call. And the truth was that she didn’t want to have to call Terrence back. She wanted to talk to him right away.

“Hi, Terrence,” she said, surprised by how eager her tone sounded. She noticed the girls exchange delighted glances and started laughing, and she blushed a little.

“Hi, Vivian. How’s your night going?”

“Oh, fine. I’m just here with Faith, Hazel, Alexis, and Julia. We’re getting ready to send out the invitations for Julia’swedding.” She thought to herself that he could easily conclude that she was lying about that, because the room had suddenly gone as silent as the bottom of the ocean. The girls pretended to keep working on the envelopes, but she knew that they were listening to her conversation. The room was quiet enough that she guessed that they could hear what Terrence was saying as well.

“That sounds nice.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “How is Julia feeling about it? Excited?”

“Excited but a little stressed. I guess Alexis is going to make us all chocolate milkshakes.” She gave Alexis a look, since her daughter had stopped running the blender and was leaning against the counter pretending to be entranced by one of the fridge magnets.

“That sounds great.” Terrence cleared his throat. “I called because I was wondering if perhaps you would be available to go out on a date with me tomorrow night.”

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