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“Jesus, Ellie, what the hell?” she exclaims, her hand flying to her chest.
“I want your help. All of you guys. I need to get Tyler back.”
Her broad smile overtakes her face. “Why the sudden change?”
“He was there. At the firehouse. You said he wasn’t going to be there, but he was.”
Her smile fades. “He wasn’t supposed to be working.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I tell her. “I…I…miss him.” That’s a broad sum of what I’m feeling. “And I saw something in his eyes…something I didn’t let myself see before. But I think it may have always been there if I looked hard enough.”
“What did you see?” The corners of her mouth lift, and she wipes her hands on her apron.
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure. But I want to be.”
“Alright, then,” she says. “We’ll gather the troops tonight at The Rusty Anchor.”
I give her a curt nod and get back to work. I told Courtney that I would make her a sample batch of my blueberry and lemon tarts, so I start in on the crusts.
I spent years trying to perfect my tart crusts, and all it took was one drunken night in college when I was just messing around to get it right. And from then on, I learned that being in the kitchen should always be fun. The wasted hours, ingredients, and frustration I had over trying to make sure my crusts stayed firm and held their shape through baking, meant nothing. All it took was a few glasses of wine and the 90s pop radio station to get what I wanted.
All it took was a little fun.
It was that case with my love life, too. All it took was a little fun with the right man. But instead of getting it right, it cracked and crumbled under pressure like all of my failed crusts.
∞∞∞
“Alright, talk,” Ash says, pinching her straw between her lips, taking a long drag from her rum and coke.
“I, uh, need your help.” The words burn coming from my lips, but I swallow them. I hate asking for help.
“With?” Ally prompts, the gleam in her eyes telling me she already knows.
I roll my eyes. “You need me to say it?”
“No,” Mel insists, hitting Ally’s arm, “you don’t.”
Looking around the crowded bar, I swallow hard.
“Okay, look,” Ash starts. “Tyler is having a huge bonfire party next Friday at his house. You’ll come with us.” She shrugs, like that’s the end of the plan.
“But that’s a week away…”
“Okay, I can’t with this, Ellie.” Ash sucks down the rest of her drink and levels me with a look. “You need to man up. Besides, you’re the one who ended it. And he needs more time to realize that he should have fought for you instead of letting you walk away and then act like he couldn’t have done something about it. Plus, he’s not going to fall in love with someone else in a week.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I really do. The Taylor men were raised to be good men, by good people. And in the time I’ve known him, Tyler’s had countless women come and go, but you’re not every woman. You’re a bad ass bitch who had your heart broken by a douchebag, and yet you’re here. You’re fine. You’re living your fucking dream here, El.”
My wine disappears in a matter of seconds, and I look at each of them around the table. “I love him.”
“Yeah, we know,” Courtney says through a laugh. “You had that look on your face all the time.”
“I didn’t have a look,” I say defensively.
“You did,” Mel confirms. “The one with the look is always the last to know.”
“I’ve been the one here to always point it out, though.” Courtney smirks. “Luckily I didn’t need a me”–she points at her chest–“to point out that I was madly in love with Jack. He told me himself.”
