“Yeah, what’s the vibe?” Lucas asked.
“So you two aren’t…” Sarah waved between them.
“Oh God, no,” Jasmine said. “He’s like my—gay life partner? I would have brought an actual date but my boyfriend decided he needed to move back to Puerto Rico.”
“I can be your gay life partner, but you’re not mine,” Lucas replied to Jasmine. “My gay life partner is Matt Bomer.”
“Someone has to know you exist to be your life partner,” Jasmine said.
“Lies,” said Lucas. “I know what’s in my heart.”
“Since my divorce,” Sarah said, “I think I am my own life partner.”
“I love that for you,” Jasmine replied, waving a manicured hand up and down at Sarah. “I don’t even know you and I love that for you.”
Sarah smiled. “I guess the answer is that Newfoundland men are hot fisherman and hot miners. Offshore drilling is big up here.”
Lucas smiled. “I’m going to translate that into everyone looking like Ben Affleck’s character inArmageddon.”
“Be my guest.”
They watched as the luggage started to arrive. “So you’re completely over romance?” Lucas asked Sarah. “See, I aspire to that level of serenity.”
“It’s not that I don’t approve of it for other people,” Sarah said. “I’m happy for Paul.”
“Didn’t Abby say you’re shooting the wedding?” Jasmine asked.
“I offered. I don’t usually shoot weddings but I’m making an exception for Paul,” Sarah conceded.
Jasmine looked thoughtful. “You know I’ve barely met Paul. Is he like Gilbert Blythe?”
Sarah almost snorted. “Way more sarcastic than Gilbert Blythe. And I haven’t met Abby yet because she was visiting her niece last time I came through,” Sarah admitted. “But I am really glad Paul’s ex Trish is out of the picture.”
“Yeah, what happened with his ex-wife?” Lucas asked. “Tell us the gossip.”
Sarah thought about how to sum up Trish and that whole saga. “They were together for a long time,” she said. “Trish came up here, married him, and then a couple of years later, cheated on him and ran off with this documentary guy who worked for the CBC. But to be fair, Trish had to deal with Paul’s mom, who can be pretty toxic.”
“Abby said they’re not inviting Paul’s mother to the wedding,” Jasmine said.
“Thank God,” Sarah said fervently. “That woman ruined every holiday for my first eighteen years.”
“There!” Lucas called, pointed to a fancy suitcase. “That’s yours, Jasmine. And my zebra bag.”
Sarah helped them collect their luggage. She was struck by how much it already felt like she was friends with them. She wondered if it had to do with them being chatty New Yorkers or just that they all lived in cities, were single, and were around the same age. She had refrained from asking Paul how old his new fiancée was, but she felt relieved that it seemed likely—based on these two—that Abby must be in her late thirties or older.
After what had happened in her own marriage, Sarah had privately hoped that Paul wasn’t marrying someone much younger. That would have been a little too depressing.
Sarah walked out to her mother’s borrowed car with Jasmine and Lucas, pondering Jasmine’s question. What were the men like in Newfoundland?
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She had decided that she was going to be single for the rest of her life.
“Oh my God,”Jasmine said, stopping Sarah with an iron grip on her elbow. “Who isthat?”
The hotel that was hosting the wedding was a white-clapboard structure with rolling lawns that tumbled towards the sea. When they walked inside the main lobby, several guests were already chatting in armchairs or looking at the view, so Sarah followed Jasmine’s gaze and then froze at the sight of a handsome, dark-haired man standing a few feet away. He was talking in Quebecois French to a much larger, blond man she didn’t know who stood well over six feet tall. The dark-haired man was Ren.
It had been over eight years since she’d seen him, but he still had his lovely, curly hair, though it was now touched with grey. He still had those alarmingly pretty green eyes, slightly crinkled at the edges. He was still beautiful.
Sarah couldn’t move for a moment.
