Happily Never After

Sophie: Any business coming our way?

I was sitting on the patio at my parents’ house, drinking a glass of after-dinner Scotch with my dad. They’d had everyone over for a cookout since it was a gorgeous Saturday that felt closer to July than May—high of eighty-five—and we were watching the Cubs on their outdoor TV.

I texted: Who is this?

Sophie: Your partner in crime.

Me: You’re going to have to be more specific.

Sophie: I put a bride in a headlock the last time we were together.

I texted: Again, you’re going to have to be more specific.

She was good at surprising me, and this was no exception.

Because she fucking called me.

Sophie Steinbeck.

I set down my glass before walking away from the patio and lifting the phone to my ear. “Hello, Steinbeck.”

“Hello, Parks. How’s every little thing?”

“That depends. Why are you calling me?”

“Just wondering if there’s any objecting to be done.”

“I thought you said you have a life.”

“I do, but I suddenly feel like saving someone else’s.”

I suspected there was more to it than that, but I rather enjoyed figuring her out. She was like a stubborn puzzle who didn’t want to be solved, which made me want to toss all the pieces into the air.

And then solve it anyway, just to piss her off.

“I actually got a call last night from an old friend’s cousin’s bridesmaid’s aunt, but I’m turning it down.”

“Why?” she asked, sounding somehow insulted that I’d pass. “Why would you leave an old friend’s cousin’s bridesmaid’s aunt hanging?”

“Because it’s a black-tie wedding about an hour away. Very wealthy people, very stuffy event.”

“So . . . ?”

“So that sounds awful.”

“No more awful than the ‘Thunder Rolls’ wedding we attended last month.”

“True,” I said, noticing that my mother had come outside and she and my dad were watching me. “And the woman did offer me ten grand.”

“Oh, my God—ten grand? We are so doing it. Go rent a tux this instant.”

“I have a tux.”

“You do?” she asked, sounding shocked. “Why?”

I looked down at the grass and ran my shoe over a soft spot. “Sometimes I go out.”

“Whoa,” she said. “Are you a billionaire?”

“Are you high?”

“Accept the job and text me the details. Then I’ll tell you if I’m high or not.”

“Sorry,” I said, looking up as my nephew barreled out the back door carrying a Little Tikes driver. Once the course closed for the night, my parents always let Kieffer run around on the golf course greens behind their house. “I’m sitting this one out.”

“No.” She sounded determined. “Let me convince you. Where are you?”

I wasn’t expecting that. “At my parents’ house.”

“Location, please.”

“Are you serious right now?” I asked, alarm bells ringing just a little. Doing another wedding with her was a terrible idea, in spite of what I’d said that night. She and I were both staunchly anti-relationship, yet we’d almost kissed after the last wedding. Somehow that seemed like a recipe for disaster, and I needed to pump the brakes.

Regardless of how many times my brain kept replaying the near kiss.

“Just drop me the address. I’ll pick you up, drive you around the block until you agree to do what I say, then I’ll push you out of the vehicle so you can return to your familial shenanigans.”

“That sounds a lot like kidnapping.”

“Nut up and go for a drive with me,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I only need five minutes of your time.”

I opened my mouth to say, Sorry, but instead said, “Will you take me to Whole Foods and then drop me at my car?”

“Wha—do I have to?”

She sounded like I’d confused her, which was fair because I’d confused myself, as well. What the hell am I doing? But it occurred to me at that moment that it’d be the perfect chance for me to see her one last time and cordially terminate our one-and-done partnership without hurting her feelings.

“I think yes,” I said, watching my parents watch me while pretending to watch their grandson. “You can yammer about things I’m ultimately not going to do, and I can get the cat food and milk I don’t feel like stopping for on my way home.”

“I don’t yammer, and you’ll do it. Now drop the location,” she said, sounding unfazed. “Because I’m on my way.”

—

“You’re getting a cart for two things?”

“I always get a cart.” I yanked one out of the line of carts and turned it toward the produce section as the motion-activated doors closed behind us. “It’s nice having something to lean on.”

Sophie made a noise like she disagreed as she started walking beside me. She was dressed like she’d just left work—nice pants, pumps, blazer—and it seemed on-brand for her somehow, working late.

Something about her just screamed driven.

Of course, that could have to do with the overstuffed work bag I’d had to move off her passenger seat in order to fit in her car.

“The only way I’m going to consider your proposal, by the way,” I said, glancing over at her, “is if you add things to my cart that you think I should eat.”

Eyebrows went up and her mouth quirked just a little. “How many things?”

I thought about it for a solid half second. “Eleven.”

“But aren’t you just getting cat food and milk?” she asked.

“No, that was a lie,” I said, grabbing a bag of grapes and setting them in the cart. “This is my monthly grocery run.”

“Wait—aren’t you going to taste one?” she asked, her eyebrows scrunching together as she looked at me like I’d just committed a crime.

“What?”

“The grapes,” she said, her eyes wide as if she was talking to a moron. “You’re not going to try one?”

“Before I buy them?”

“Yes,” she said, still giving me the same you’re-making-a-colossal-mistake look.

“Um, no, I am not, because they aren’t my grapes to try until I pay for them.” Was she serious? “You’re messing with me right now, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely not. You have to try them to know if they’re sour.”

“That’s theft.”

“That’s not.”

“Aren’t you in HR, Steinbeck? Aren’t rules your life’s work?” I supposed that was part of what made Sophie so damn interesting, the way I could never figure her out, but this one was blowing my mind a little. “You can’t tell me you’re a grape stealer, because I refuse to believe it.”

“It’s not stealing, it’s checking for ripeness,” she said, shaking her head as she took a grape from the bag and popped it into her mouth. “Mmm—these are good.”

“Now I’m going to have to tell the checkout clerk that I owe them for one additional grape.”

“Are you going to have them weigh one grape so they know how much to charge you?” she teased.

“I suppose I will.”

“I cannot wait to witness this absurdity.” Her lips slid all the way up into a huge smile that I really liked. “Also, you only get groceries once a month?”

“Sadly, yes. It’s never intentional, but that’s the way it shakes out.” I snagged a bag of spinach, a head of cauliflower, and a carton of mushrooms. “I purchase groceries with the best of intentions, but after a few days of careful eating, I get sick of cooking and slip into sandwiches and takeout for every meal.”

“Leaving your vegetables to die in the fridge?” she prompted.

“RIP this very spinach,” I said, dropping the bag into the cart. “It’s a terrible system.”

She grabbed a container of pineapple. I said, “I actually hate pineapple.”

“It’s not for you.”

“Who is it for?”

“Me.” She tilted her head and said, “If the eleven things I add to your cart are destined to die in your fridge, then I’m going to select eleven things that I like so I can save their lives by rescuing them from your bags and taking them home with me.”

“I don’t like tricky people, Steinbeck.”

“Says the man who tricked me into being his grocery shopper and delivery driver.”

“Fair.” I grabbed a handful of green peppers and set them in the cart.

“You’re not going to put those in a bag?”

“No.”

“Do you know how dirty grocery carts are?”

“As dirty as the shoppers who fondle the peppers with their filthy hands.”

“But the carts also sit outside in the elements. Birds poop on carts.”

“Just like the peppers before they were picked.”

“At least tell me you scrub them.”

“The peppers or the birds?”

She just sighed, so I said, “Until my hands bleed, don’t worry.”

“So.” Sophie cleared her throat, and I could tell she was about to launch into her presentation. “This wedding.”

“Should I get tilapia or salmon?” I pushed the cart toward the seafood department.

“Neither, because you won’t feel like cooking them, so you’ll throw them in the freezer, where they’ll go to die.”

That’s exactly what usually happened. “So canned tuna?”

“Good call.” She was unfazed by my distraction. “Why are you so hell-bent on not doing it?”

“The bigger question is why are you so obsessed with making it happen?”

I reached for a freeze-dried salmon fillet, but Sophie smacked my hand and gave me a headshake before saying, “I very much enjoyed the rush of saving someone from a lifetime of marital hell, and also I could use five thousand dollars.”

“But you didn’t know about the 5K when you called me.”

“True, but now I do.”

“And who says I’d give you half? I was the only one invited, remember?”

“Because they don’t know about me yet. You’ll give me half,” she said, grabbing a bag of veggie straws from an endcap and throwing them in the cart. “And you’ll thank me for being so good. You might offer me more.”

“Won’t,” I said, turning down the canned food aisle.

“Nope,” she said, putting a hand on the cart and guiding it toward dairy and frozen. “Do you have other plans this weekend that conflict with the wedding?”

“No,” I said, watching as she started tossing Greek yogurts into the cart.

“So there’s no real reason you can’t, right? No ex-lovers in the bridal party or any underlying reasons?”

“There are two real reasons,” I said, meaning it. My tone of voice must’ve changed, because she stopped shopping and turned to face me. “The first is that work has been a real bitch lately, so a stressful event isn’t how I want to spend one of my two free days, and the second is that you will only make it more stressful.”

Sophie

“Me?” I looked up at him—he was so tall—and wondered what the hell that meant. “What the hell does that mean?”

He crossed his arms. “We’ve been thrown together in a few bizarre situations, which makes the fact that we’re essentially strangers easy to forget, but the reality is that you don’t know me and I don’t know you. So running around with a stranger adds to the stress.”

“Oh, come on—I’ve already done my social media creeping, and I’m sure you have, as well.”

“Yes, but what does that really tell you about a person?”

“A lot,” I said, feeling mildly offended that he seemed to have reservations about me after we’d already hung out a couple times. I turned the cart and pushed it toward frozen foods. “I’ve learned everything I needed to know, and I’m guessing you have, too.”

“Yeah, but have you ever done online dating? Gone on a blind date?”

“Of course I have.” I opened a freezer door and started grabbing my favorite frozen lunches and chucking them into the cart. “Who hasn’t?”

“Then you know that there are a lot of people in the world who seem cool when you first meet, but once you get to know them, they aren’t people you want in your life, right?”

“You’re afraid I’m a weirdo?” I asked as I stood on my tiptoes but still couldn’t quite reach the Amy’s chili mac on the top shelf.

“You should be afraid I’m a weirdo.” His voice hadn’t changed, but it was closer. Above and behind me as his hand reached for the entrée I hadn’t been able to grasp.

In an instant, everything in my brain went silent as I became aware of the fact that I was trapped between the freezing cold of the frozen foods case and the warmth of Max’s big, hard body behind me. I watched as his hand grabbed the box I’d been reaching for, and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I turned around.

My body was mere inches away from his as he looked down at me with dark, questioning eyes. Butterflies went wild in my stomach as the moment lingered.

Paused.

The cold air at my back did nothing to cool whatever was firing between us.

I blinked, looked at his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, and then I grabbed the frozen chili mac from his hand.

As if I hadn’t noticed the inexplicable electrical moment, I said, “Oh, my God, Max, I want to object with you, not become a permanent part of your life.”

He watched me for a second, like he was processing information, before moving back to the cart and saying, “It just seems like a terrible idea to inject a stranger straight into your life, don’t you think? The stuff of thrillers, especially when there’s money involved. I could have a rap sheet a mile long, and you could, like, enjoy puppeteering as a hobby.”

“So you’re afraid of what—that I’m going to rob you? Kill you?” Fall for you? “Also, puppeteering is a deal-breaker?”

“Absolutely it is.”

“Agreed, actually.” God, I just needed to go to the wedding with him and have photos for my boss; why was he making this so difficult? “Well, what if we get to know each other better? I’m sure if we hang out, you’ll see I’m incredibly normal. You’ll want to do the wedding just to spend time with me.”

The narrowing of his eyes told me he was about to say no, so I blurted, “Tonight. Now. As soon as we finish grocery shopping, let’s go over to the wine bar on the other side of the store and we can twenty-question the shit out of each other.”

His smirk returned. “Why wait? Let’s wine and twenty while we shop.”