CITY OF YES

A Novella

 

“Ouch!” Charlotte hissed as the match sizzled against her thumb, and she dropped it into the last of what seemed like a thousand mason jars. The Nagai proposal was minutes away, and her job was to make it magical, hopefully without melting off her own fingerprints. “Can’t believe I forgot my lighter. Rookie mistake.”

“Seriously. You’re lucky I always have matches in my bag,” said Lily, who was setting up her camera equipment and taking light readings behind a nearby tree. “I bet Owen never forgets his lighter.”

“I know for a fact he does, because I’ve had to rush one over to him at Baker Beach,” Charlotte said irritably. She knew her friend was trying to get under her skin by invoking their super-competitive Perfect Proposals colleague. And it was working. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I’m on whichever side gets us through this proposal and out to the car before the fog comes back in.” Lily eyed the still-clear dusk to the west suspiciously. They were in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, their fourth wedding proposal this week. The sense of romance was certainly wearing down. “What time is this happening?”

Charlotte checked her watch. “Nine minutes.” She carefully descended the Japanese Drum Bridge between clusters of tea lights. “The groom will be here first, and I’ve set up a scavenger hunt to get the future bride into the Tea Gardens and up to the bridge.” She pointed at a bend in the pathway. “She’ll be able to see the candles starting around there, and realize something’s up. Can you catch her expression?”

“Let’s find out. Go be my dummy bride.”

Charlotte went to the bend in the path and faced Lily, making exaggerated expressions of shock. “This is such a surprise. Why, I had no idea when the man I’ve been dating for eleven years invited me to Golden Gate Park out of the blue for mysterious reasons, that he might be planning to propose!”

“Take two steps back,” Lily said, half-laughing behind the camera, clicking practice shots. “And don’t ever wear that color again. It washes you out.” They were roommates as well as coworkers at Perfect Proposals, and there was almost no filter between them.

Charlotte ignored the fashion commentary, clasped hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes. “Especially not after telling him six months ago we had to get married or I’d dump him on his ass. This is a total, total, surprise. I never knew he was so romantic and spontaneous!”

Lily lowered the camera. “Girl, you should take a vacation. Get that bitterness in check before you lose your job.”

“Oh, please,” Charlotte said. “Five years and I still have a near-perfect client satisfaction rating. Except for the ones who said no, but that’s hardly my fault, is it?”

She crossed to join her friend in the little copse of trees, admiring her own handiwork with the candles as Lily adjusted dials and buttons on her camera. The light was just beginning to fade behind the steep, circular arch of the Drum Bridge, which was dotted with shiny orange flames. It was breathtaking, this scene she’d created. And the rest of it would move forward like science.

In five minutes, a man would stand on that apex with a ring in his hand and his heart in his throat, trying not to vomit over the side of the bridge while he waited for the longest moments of his life to pass. In seven minutes, those singular orange dots would melt together, casting a surreal glow from the bridge, reflecting in the shallow canal and the surrounding gardens. Perfect for pictures. And in eight minutes, a woman would come around the bend with a rolled-up scavenger hunt clue in her hand. A woman who loved that nauseated man on the bridge. A woman who knew-but-didn’t, hoped-but-tried-not-to-hope, that her life was about to change.

Charlotte sighed. She had to admit, it was a lovely place to get engaged.

“Not so bitter after all.” Lily watched her with a smirk.

“Not bitter, exactly.” Charlotte edged toward the conversation she’d been having in her own head for a long time. The nursing school pamphlets had been accumulating on her backseat for weeks now, mostly for schools outside San Francisco, where the exorbitant rents would prove impossible on a student’s budget. “Just…bored, I guess. Do you ever wonder if what we do really matters?”

Lily glanced up, not missing a beat. “Of course, I wonder. I’ve been wondering since the day I did the first job. A one-time thing. Special favor for my dear roommate.”

Charlotte stuck out her tongue. “You’ve been free to say no for about three years since then.”

“Great. You take over.” Lily pretended to hand Charlotte the camera. “I’m going to go figure out how to get myself embedded with the military in war-torn regions of the world. Instead of capturing contrived magical moments for people with more money than sense.”

“That’s not fair,” Charlotte objected. Her profession was like a sibling sometimes: it was fine for her to complain, but when someone else criticized it, her defenses shot up. “We take the burden off people so they can enjoy a special time in their lives. We create stories they’ll treasure forever.”

Lily shrugged. “Hey, you’re the one who’s questioning our higher purpose here. I’m just the camera jockey.”

Before Charlotte could respond, Leonard Nagai rushed up to them, in pressed khaki pants and a carefully ironed button-down shirt. Look nice, but don’t out-dress her, Charlotte had coached him. Make sure she wears a dress, and that she’s had her nails done. So far, he’d gotten his half right, at least.

Leonard was a software developer, his prospective bride a human resource specialist. Lately, Charlotte had been more interested in her client’s occupations than their meet-cute stories and wedding possibilities, another sign that she probably ought to be looking closer at those nursing school pamphlets.

Still, she was a professional. Charlotte greeted the groom with a warm smile and her bag of proposal essentials: breath mints, unscented baby wipes (for the sheen of sweat already showing on his forehead), a small flask of peppermint schnapps for courage. As they made their way to the candlelit bridge, Charlotte went over the last-minute instructions, knowing she might as well be reciting Medieval poetry, for all the poor dude was getting.

“Make sure you’re facing her, and both of you are turned with your profiles toward the camera. Pull the ring out before you kneel—it will be easier to get out of your pocket. Don’t forget to use her full name when you ask. And,” she added, cringing at the memory of more than one future groom who had found himself speechless. “Don’t forget to ask. She can’t say yes if there’s no question.”

Leonard nodded, smiling hard, as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. Charlotte could relate: there was a Cary Grant marathon on TV tonight and a pair of fuzzy slippers waiting for her. She took his clammy hand and squeezed. “It will be perfect.” As he relaxed, she added softly, “She’ll want to kiss you, and of course that’s fine. Just don’t block her face from the camera when she does.”

With that, Charlotte left him twitching on the bridge, scuttling down quickly so Lily could get some shots of him waiting for his future wife. She joined her beneath the trees to do what she had spent most of her adult life doing: waiting for love to arrive.

 

 

 

“The Nagai engagement went off without a hitch,” Ellen Trask, the owner of Perfect Proposals, said brightly. “Congratulations to you and Lily. The pictures were stunning; the future Mrs. Nagai ordered the extended package with save-the-date cards and digital downloads. Excellent work.”

“Thank you.” Charlotte twisted the ribbon bookmark from her planner around her finger. “Do you think my next assignment could be…something more challenging?”

Ellen’s smile faded. “We only do custom proposals, geared to our client’s desires. Every assignment is unique. You know that.”

“I know.” Charlotte sighed. “And I don’t want to complain. But I keep feeling that the interesting assignments seem to go to Owen. He got to do the city councilman’s proposal, and those firefighters who all proposed at once. The Pride Parade—”

Ellen started to speak, but Charlotte headed her off. “I know, he’s obviously earned that one. But he also did the cool one with the dog and the wounded veteran from Afghanistan, the one that made the news.”

“Not that you’re complaining,” Ellen said drily.

“It just seems that my proposal requests are in a rut, lately. Everyone wants Golden Gate Park at sunset.”

“Golden Gate Park at sunset is our bread and butter, Charlotte. Yes, Owen is great with the flashy moments, but your crafting skills and attention to detail garner way more attention on Pinterest and the wedding blogs. I know it’s not sexy, but your consistency is a vital revenue stream for this company. Our clients appreciate that. I need that.”

Charlotte sat back in the chair. “I know. I’m sorry. I love this job, Ellen, believe me. But sometimes I wonder if it’s time to expand my horizons a little.”

Ellen sat up. “You’re not thinking about leaving, are you? You’re my best planner.”

Aha. Charlotte raised an eyebrow. “The best, huh?”

“Don’t tell anyone I said that. We can’t have dissent in the ranks. If my planners don’t all feel like the best at what they do, they start fouling things up, and the next thing you know, people are back to popping the question at restaurants with the waiter holding their phones.”

“The horror.”

“Okay, fine. I was going to give you this upper-crust guy who wants to propose at the top of Coit Tower—”

“Ugh. I did six of those last year…”

“But instead, I will give you a much more interesting groom I was going to send to Owen. He’s one of those tech millionaires, sold some kind of elevation mapping software to Google. Outdoorsy, wants to do something unusual. You’ll probably end up on horseback on Monterrey Bay or a sweat lodge in the desert.” Ellen glanced at her notes. “Rock climbing, rollerblading…”

Charlotte made a face. “Sweaty proposals mean lower picture sales.”

Ellen snorted. “You can’t have it both ways. Like I said, I was going to give it to Owen…”

“No!” Charlotte said. “I’ll take it.”

“Great,” said Ellen. “Take care of this guy. He’s got money but no idea what to do with it. Guy like that, you never know, he may get married more than once. Everyone likes a repeat customer.”

“Ellen!”

Her boss shrugged. “I’m a realist, what can I say?”

Rather than point out how odd it was that a self-proclaimed realist founded the most romantic company possible, Charlotte took the file and scooted quickly out the door.

 

Lily called just as Charlotte hit the sidewalk toward Blue Bottle Coffee, her favorite place to work. “How’d it go with Ellen?”

“Fine, I think. She’s giving me a more challenging client.” Charlotte paused as a cyclist zipped in front of her in the crosswalk. “Why are you asking? It’s your day off. Go hang with Darren.”

“He’s still asleep.”

“So? Go over and wake him up. Isn’t that the kind of thing you disgustingly happy couples do?”

“Eh, I’m not a morning sex kind of girl.” Lily yawned. “Darren is a beast in the morning anyway. He’d probably punch me before he realized what was happening.”

Charlotte sighed. “How am I supposed to live vicariously through your love life if you’re so honest about the reality of it?”

“Maybe you should try going on a date once in a while and live it un-vicariously.”

“Don’t start, Lils.”

“Anyway, I am not going anywhere today unless I can walk or take the bus. I have the primo spot in front of the building and I’m not letting you-know-who take it.”

“We haven’t seen her for days,” Charlotte said. “You shouldn’t let a stupid block war keep you from getting out and living your life.”

“Says the expert on getting out and living,” Lily said flatly.

“Alright, alright. Point made. I need to run, anyway, I’m at Blue Bottle. I need to check out this super exciting, creative client Ellen’s given me.”

They both knew Charlotte was avoiding the topic of her nonexistent love life, which Lily had been not-so-subtly bringing up every few weeks lately. It was touching, particularly since Lily wasn’t widely known for her empathy and nurturing, but Charlotte had no interest in discussing men just now. She ended the call as the warm scents of the coffee shop enveloped her. This was her second home, a welcoming place to clear her head and get ready to prove to Ellen Trask that Charlotte could be just as creative and flashy as Owen.

It was only after ordering her favorite almond latte and settling onto a stool that Charlotte read the name on the file, and her heart nearly stopped.

It had to be a coincidence. Some other guy with the same name.

She stared down at the neat letters on the file label for several long seconds before she could bring herself to open the folder.

Jared Kunitz.

 

 

 

Right up until the moment he walked into the café the next morning, Charlotte held on to her hope that the whole thing was a crazy coincidence. It was statistically impossible that her newest client—and tech tycoon, apparently—could possibly be the same guy who’d borrowed her art history notes and taught her to do keg stands in college.

But there he was. And he looked amazing.

Charlotte hadn’t seen Jared Kunitz since the day after college graduation—what? seven, eight years ago? Now that she saw him walking into the cafe, it rushed back. Jared, leaning against his battered maroon Nissan Sentra, which was full of boxes and already pointed west. The May sunshine highlighted streaks in his sandy hair, his arms were folded across his chest. Two close friends, one awkward good-bye. They’d both promised to keep in touch.

And if it hadn’t been for the previous night, they might have kept their word.

If they’d stayed in touch, Charlotte wouldn’t be seeing him for the first time now: in cowboy boots and a flannel shirt that didn’t go together but somehow worked perfectly. He wore a battered leather satchel across his chest, and his familiar amber eyes blinked to adjust from the bright morning outside. He looked way better than he had in college, which Charlotte thought patently unfair.

She waved, wishing she’d made more time to work out her arms in the past couple of weeks. Past couple of years. But she had on the bangle bracelets she loved: they always made her feel like a superhero. And her cutest wedge sandals. She could totally handle this.

Jared’s eyebrows lifted when she waved, and he made his way to her. But she could tell he didn’t yet know who she was, other than a representative for Perfect Proposals. He was giving her his charming stranger smile, hand reaching out to shake hers, when he froze. Charlotte had to laugh as the dawning realization traveled from his shocked eyes to his throat and finally permeated his expression in highly gratifying joy.

“Lotta Love.” His grin widened. “Is that you?”

“It’s me.” She allowed herself to be pulled from the handshake into a warm hug. “But call me Lotta Love again and I’ll skewer you with a plastic butter knife.”

He smelled the same.

“Death threats within thirty seconds,” he said into her hair. “It’s definitely you. What the hell are you doing here?”

She gave him her most professional face as they broke the embrace and sat at the bistro table. “I’m your Perfect Proposals consultant, actually. Here to make your engagement dreams come true.” She said it with a bit of embarrassed irony, as though this were just some temporary job that required her to say stupid things to people. Like working at a pirate-themed restaurant where you had to call everyone “matey.”

Jared, however, looked delighted. “Well, damn, girl. I never would have guessed. Not in a million years.”

“You can’t envision me planning proposals?”

“Not that. I mean, hell yeah. I think you could plan just about anything you wanted. You were always the most creative one of us. I just—I didn’t even know you were in San Francisco.”

“Five years now,” she said. “I guess we’re not really connected on Facebook.”

“I don’t do social media.” He shrugged.

“But you’re in technology, right?”

“What’s the expression? The cobbler’s kids have no shoes?”

He was still looking at her as if she were the best of all his birthday presents. No trace of the tension from seven years earlier. Maybe she should have made more of an effort to stay in touch with her old friends. Jared looked really good.

“And you’re getting engaged,” she said, a reminder as much as a question. “Congratulations.”

“What? Oh, yes. The whole point of our meeting.” He grinned.

“I saw from your file that you’ve been in Austin? Are you coming here just for the proposal?”

“My girlfriend is here in San Francisco. I live in Austin, where my company is headquartered, but we have an office here.”

“Apparently, your hiking app is the hottest thing going right now.”

He shrugged in that carefree way he always had, with the sideways grin that showed the dimple beneath his light stubble. Funny how when you’d known someone for so long, their expressions could transport you back to other times, like the smell of gingerbread cookies at Christmas. It was Jared’s same shrug that said, “Why wouldn’t our fake IDs work at this bar?” “Of course we should go swimming at four a.m.,” and “This security fence is obviously just a suggestion.”

It didn’t matter if it was their core group of four close friends, or a party filled with seventy people. Whenever Jared gave that charming little shrug, Charlotte knew trouble was going to follow.

“So how long have you been dating…” She checked the file. “Brianna?”

“Six months,” he said, straightening. “At least officially. She’s a friend of a friend, so we’ve been…” He cleared his throat. “On and off…for a couple of years.”

Charlotte looked down at the folder. “You must travel a lot.”

“Exactly. I’m here twice a month or so.”

It was an odd feeling, to think this old friend had been in her city twice a month for who knew how long and she’d never bumped into him. She felt suddenly exposed, as if the protective wall of distance she’d put between herself and everyone from her past had been eroding without her notice.

“So what about you?” he said. “Planning proposals? I, uh, don’t see a ring on your finger.”

“No.” She smoothed the napkin on her lap. “Boyd and I broke up about a year after college.”

“I heard.” Jared’s expression was soft and serious as he waited for her to look up. “I do manage to get occasional updates from the grapevine, even without the benefit of Facebook.”

Charlotte shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Jared would know the delicious gossip that his best friend Boyd had cheated on her with Mimi, the crazy hairdresser a few years older than they were. Mimi had never gone to their school but hung around the college parties anyway: flouting her pot connections, incredible breasts and lack of inhibitions. She was the kind of girl, Charlotte’s mom would’ve said, men loved to play around with—never marry.

“So I guess you know he married her,” she said, surprised at the lump in her throat. This was all old news, but something about facing Jared with it made the humiliation fresh. “They have three kids now.”

Jared nodded and reached instinctively for her hand. She pulled it back. Old friend or not, she was here to plan the most romantic moment of his life, not to cry on his shoulder over idiot Boyd. She’d done enough of that in college, and it hadn’t done either of them a damn bit of good.

Charlotte forced a laugh. “Well. To his credit, only one of those three kids was conceived while he and I were still living together, so we can be proud of that.”

Despite her attempt at humor, Jared’s easy smile was nowhere to be found. He held her gaze, expression calm and serious. “You know this already, and I loved that man like a brother, but I never once thought Boyd Williams was good enough for you.”

Charlotte plastered on her professional smile. “Fortunately, we’re here to talk about whether you’re good enough for this lovely Brianna person, which I seriously doubt.” She nudged his boot with her sandal and put the file back in her bag. “I was thinking we’d start with a few possibilities in the heart of the city, if you don’t mind a walk?”

His gaze lingered on her for a moment before he answered, as though he was trying to decide whether it was okay to move on from the most painful moment in Charlotte’s history to talk about proposal settings. “I can walk.”

“Great. I’m going to grab us a coffee and muffin. You still a lemon poppyseed guy?”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“You are literally the only person I know who actually likes poppyseed muffins.”

“Can’t be possible. Someone else has to like them. They wouldn’t make them just for me.”

She grinned. “The whole world is made just for you, if I remember correctly.”

He shrugged again, making her wonder how she’d survived graduation night with her integrity intact. She ordered the muffins, and two coffees—hers with light cream, his black with extra sugar—and followed him out into the sunshine.

 

 

 

“So, did you have anything in mind?”

They were walking down Market, devouring the muffins in companionable, if slightly awkward, silence. Charlotte was grateful to have her usual engagement-related questions to fall back on. It was strange seeing Jared Kunitz after seven years, and even more surreal that she was going to be spending the entire day with him, helping him plan a proposal to a woman she’d never met.

Of course, she did this every day: planned pivotal moments in the lives of women she didn’t know. But in those situations, she didn’t know the grooms, either. In this case, he’d been one of her best friends.

“Not really,” he said. “I don’t know the city as well as I should. When I’m here, I kind of move in Bree’s trajectory—her friends, her job, her parties…”

“What does she do?”

“She raises money for a foundation to send underprivileged kids to outdoor summer camps. That’s how we met, actually—we were both visiting a camp in Colorado, and I took her with me on some of my trail testing for the PathFinder app.”

“So you bonded over s’mores and bug spray?”

He laughed. “I guess you could say that. She’s a great girl. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

“Me too,” Charlotte said. “But she’s out of town now, right? We don’t have to worry about running into her and ruining the surprise?”

“She’s gone until Saturday, which is why I want to propose that night.”

“This Saturday?” Charlotte stopped on the sidewalk, gaping at him. “Ellen told me you wanted things expedited, but I thought we had a couple of weeks, at least.”

“I thought we did, too,” he agreed. “But the Google guys just added a bunch of stuff to my calendar for the rest of September, and then Bree’s busy season for fundraising starts and doesn’t let up until summer. You can handle it, right? I can pay extra if it helps.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charlotte said. “You don’t have to pay extra. It’s just with only seventy-two hours to plan, you’ll have to be open to some creative options. We’ll have to rule out stuff like the big screen at AT&T Park or renting a cable car—those take special permitting and even I can’t turn them around that fast.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.” He grinned at her. “But neither of those appeals to me anyway. Brianna is a pretty girly-girl. She hates sports and all the touristy stuff in San Francisco. She prides herself on being a native here and knowing all the little secrets of the city.”

“I take it that rules out anything with the Golden Gate Bridge as a backdrop.”

“Sorry. I guess those are your go-to places, aren’t they?”

Charlotte bristled. “I pride myself on giving every client a unique and beautiful experience. No two proposals are alike.”

He put a hand on her arm. “Calm down, Lotta. I’m sure you’re amazing at your job. I wouldn’t expect anything less. I just figured lots of people getting engaged here would want the iconic San Francisco experience.”

“They do,” she agreed. “But I still give every couple their own meaningful take on it. This moment I’m planning, it’s a key part of their story together, something they’ll be telling at parties and family reunions years from now, long after they’ve forgotten that I helped them plan it. I like to get down to the little details of what makes every couple’s story special, so it feels like their moment, not mine.”

They paused at an intersection and he faced her. “That’s really cool, Lotta. I’m proud of you.”

The blood rose to her cheeks. “Thanks. Now, I just need to make a couple of calls while we walk so I can give you some fantastic, unique proposal ideas.” She pulled out her phone and dialed a friend at the California Academy of Sciences. “And quit calling me Lotta.”

He was chuckling next to her when the museum operator answered and she asked to be transferred to Ken Nguyen.

 

They hopped off the bus at Golden Gate Park a half hour later. Jared gave Charlotte a quizzical look. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s not what you think.”

When they arrived at the California Academy of Sciences, with its roof carpeted in greenery and solar panels, and line of school busses out front, Jared finally had to ask. “Are we going on a field trip? Because as you may remember, staying with the group has never been my strong suit.”

“Today we’re on the buddy system.” Charlotte took his hand. “And if you get lost, find an adult with a name tag and have me paged.”

She gave her name at the front desk, and they were led by a docent to the doors of a huge white sphere in the middle of the museum. Jared whispered, “I really want to make a joke about your big, impressive balls right now, but I’m afraid it will remind you why you haven’t seen me in ten years.”

“Seven years,” she corrected. “Keep up. We’ve only got about ten minutes before they let the next tour group in.”

The docent, a woman in her sixties with rust-colored hair, had them sit side-by-side in the empty auditorium, surrounded by a giant screen the colors of sunset. “Ken said to tell you he’s sorry he can’t be here himself,” she told Charlotte. “They’re finding out the sex of the baby today.”

“How wonderful! Ken runs the planetarium programs here,” Charlotte explained to Jared. “I helped him propose to his wife four years ago.”

“I’ll just take you through the basic idea since we’re short on time.” The docent climbed the stairs behind them. “If you’re interested, Ken will be back this afternoon and he can take you through some options.”

Charlotte pushed back in her seat to stare up at the domed ceiling, and Jared followed suit, letting out an exaggerated sigh of relaxation. A moment later, the auditorium went dark, and classical music began to play softly in the blackness, as—one by one—tiny pinpricks of light began to appear on the screen. These slowly lightened into stars, and as they got brighter, more and more stars began to fill in the gaps between them. It mirrored the effect of letting your eyes adjust to the real night sky, out in the country.

When the shooting stars started—an authentic digital reproduction of the Persied meteor shower, to be precise—Jared gave a gratifying little murmur of “cool.” The light display intensified over the next minute, and then speeded up using time-lapse, until the world around them danced with streaks of light in time to the music. Then, they slowed again, fading away, along with the other stars, as though the sun was coming up once more. As a pinkish-blue band of dawn lighted the bottom of the screen, the only stars remaining behind in the sky formed the words, “Lisa, Will You Marry Me?”

When the screen faded back to orange and the lights came back up, Jared turned to her. “I have to say, I’m impressed. That was…spectacular.”

“Thank you.” She could see that he meant it.

“Now I just have to find a cute girl named Lisa.”

Charlotte elbowed him in the ribs and stood to lead him out. “Lisa is Ken’s wife. It’s the only other time he’s used the planetarium for a proposal. He doesn’t want it to lose its specialness. But he offered it to me for a single future client, because he was so happy with how things went with Lisa.”

“You’d cash in your only planetarium chip for me?” Jared said. “That’s really touching, Lotta.”

She scowled, and began detailing how the proposal could work, as schoolchildren filed past them to take their seats for the next show. “We would do everything original for you and Brianna—I’m thinking a bistro table in that space up there. We can do wine and…”

She noticed a hint of dissatisfaction between his brows and stopped. “She’s not a fan of wine? That’s hard to imagine in Northern California.”

“That’s not it…” Jared trailed off as a little boy nearly careened into him, trying to catch up with his group.

Kids. Brianna liked kids, worked with kids’ camps. Camping. “Ooh! We could do s’mores!” Charlotte clapped her hands together and they made their way toward the exit. “No open flames in the museum, obviously, but there’s a kitchen in the staff room with a toaster oven… I could set them out right before she comes in…”

She waved to the docent as they exited into the main lobby of the museum.

Jared slung an arm around her. “I loved this idea. I really did.”

“Loved?” Past tense. Not a good sign.

“It’s beautiful and dramatic, and the way those stars came up reminded me of camping in the Utah desert.”

“But…?”

“But it just wasn’t quite…me. Or, Brianna and me, I guess. It was more…Ken and Lisa, you know?”

She knew. It had felt a little contrived, even when she suggested it. Charlotte had hoped the connection with camping and the night sky would be enough to honor Jared and Brianna’s story, while still conveying the elegance it sounded like Brianna was used to. But why would anything be so simple with Jared?

“She’ll want something trendy, you know? Something to make her friends jealous. And I want it to be personal, unique.”

“No problem,” Charlotte said cheerfully, holding the door into the sunshine of the park. “So, we’re looking for an elegant proposal for a woman who loves trendy places and met her outdoorsy husband in the woods. With less than three days to plan and execute. I’m on it.”

“I know it’s a tall order,” he said. “But I guess it’s like love. Or the perfect campsite. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Absolutely,” Charlotte agreed. “Let’s do this. We’ll catch one of those open-top tourist busses at the end of the park and ride all around the city. When you see something that intrigues you, we’ll hop off and explore. In the meantime, I have a few calls I can make, for more options.”

 

According to Jared, Brianna loved animals, chocolate, fine food and wine, and art. Over the next several hours, they explored Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, Little Italy, Pier 39. They toured a private tasting room at Ghirardelli Chocolates, where they could mold a box for the engagement ring out of chocolate—dark or milk. Sweet and intimate.

They went to the zoo, where Charlotte could call in an enormous favor and set up a private nighttime tour, with a candlelit dinner in the carousel plaza and a proposal on the old-time carousel itself. Whimsical and outdoorsy.

They visited several art galleries, each of which would have been a prime choice for any art lover. Elegant and trendy.

But none felt exactly right to Jared.

After ten hours of searching, they ended with dinner at a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Transamerica Pyramid and the Bay beyond. It wasn’t on Charlotte’s original list, but they had to eat. And there was nothing like watching as the water turned all the colors of the darkening sky and lights began to twinkle like the stars at the planetarium.

They plowed their way through a bucket of fresh mussels, pork tacos with pineapple slaw, and a bottle of pinot grigio. Charlotte felt happy and lightheaded after the well-earned meal.

As the waiter took their plates, she leaned back in her chair and gestured at the view with her wine glass. “See? Okay, I know a restaurant isn’t the most original proposal site. But what woman could ever turn you down when you offered her all of this?” She swung her arm around to encompass the city, bridges, water, and sunset. “Hell, another glass of wine and I’d marry you.”

There was a long beat of silence, during which she regretted her last statement deeply and strained to keep her eyes on the view.

“It’s not like I never offered.” Jared’s offhand smile was belied by the crack in his voice.

Charlotte’s heart lurched. Did he really want to talk about this now? Or was that just one in Jared’s endless stream of jokes designed to make her uncomfortable?

He had always delighted in throwing her off her game. But say the wrong thing now, and she could not only make the conversation awkward, but take the focus off his engagement and put it on their painful history. Exactly what she’d been avoiding all day.

She lowered her glass. “True. Unfortunately for me, I was an idiot and missed my chance with you.” Her tone was playful, dismissive, but the truth of the words pressed on her even as she said them.

“Charlotte. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Water under the bridge.” She waved away whatever was coming next. She couldn’t go there. Not now. “It’s your new love we need to worry about now, your lovely Brianna.” She signed the check and put the Perfect Proposals credit card back in her purse. “This woman of yours seems harder to pin down than any future bride I’ve ever worked for. An outdoorsy type who doesn’t like public parks, an elegant type who won’t want a fancy restaurant or exclusive wine cellar, a San Franciscan who doesn’t want too much San Francisco in her proposal.”

“Don’t think of her that way,” he said, a defensive note in his voice. “She’s really easygoing, actually. She probably would’ve loved every place you suggested today. It’s just me. None of these places feel right, somehow.”

“It’s not a bad thing, Jared. I love a challenge.” She put a hand on his arm, feeling a prickle of warmth in her fingers despite the cool evening air.

Her phone buzzed, a text from Lily. “Darren is the house DJ at Club YOLO Saturday. Let’s go dancing after the proposal!”

“Everything okay?” Jared nodded toward her phone.

“Sure…” Charlotte said absently. Club YOLO… She’d never been, but Darren and Lily loved the place. There was one idea…

On sudden impulse, she looked up at Jared. “I’m thinking of trying something completely different for you. It’s a little unorthodox, but it has potential.”

“Why do I feel like we’re in a horror movie and I’m the idiot who decides to take a shower in the cabin at midnight?” He made a stabbing motion with his fist to illustrate. “Things never end well for the guy in the shower.”

Charlotte stood and shouldered her purse. “I’m out of brilliant ideas. It’s either this, or Alcatraz at night, and somehow I don’t think even you are charming enough to get away with the prison metaphor for marriage.”

“Fair enough.” He laughed. “What do you have in mind?”

“Lily’s boyfriend is a DJ, and he just got a gig at this super-trendy dance club on Saturday night. I thought we could check it out tonight.”

“Come on.” Jared gave her a skeptical look. “You’re just looking for an excuse to see my super-hot dance moves.”

“If I remember correctly, your dance moves consist mostly of the white man’s overbite, and grinding up on any woman who doesn’t slap you.”

“And the problem is…?” He bit his lip and began thrusting his pelvis as they exited the restaurant, with more than a few staring eyes following their progress.

“Great. I can’t come back here again for six months. Thanks a lot.” She chucked him on the shoulder as they waited for the elevator. “Seriously, I know it’s not outdoorsy or elegant, but it would be very trendy and it’s definitely original.”

“A proposal at a nightclub?”

“Hear me out. I was thinking if you guys went dancing, and we had some lead time, Darren can help us. He could put the spotlight on you and Brianna, switch the music to your song—”

“We don’t have a song.”

“You have to have something.” She arched an eyebrow at him and he gestured for her to exit the elevator before him.

He shrugged.

“It’s not something embarrassing, is it? ‘Your Body is Wonderland’? Oh, please let that be it. I haven’t had anything decent to make fun of you about all day.”

“Nope. Brianna and I just… aren’t that sentimental about music, I guess.”

“Anyway, we’ll figure that part out. We’ll get the crowd to do something fun, like all the guys get down on one knee, and make a circle around you in the middle of the dance floor. We could rent one of the private rooms in the back for champagne…” Charlotte paused at the revolving door of the building to appraise her old friend. His expression was serious, inscrutable. “You hate the idea. I knew you would.”

“No, it’s…interesting.”

“Ugh. It’s a terrible idea.” She pushed through the door in frustration. “And it has no sentimental connection to either you or Brianna. It’s just been a long day, and I’ve never had so much trouble coming up with something for a client…”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You hate it so hard,” she said. “Look, it’s getting late and we’re both tired. Maybe we should call it a night and go back to the drawing board tomorrow.”

“Are you kidding me?” He flagged down a cab. “Since when do you go to bed at nine o’clock? Let’s go check out this club of yours.”

“You’re sure? I don’t want to waste your time.”

He gave her a serious look. “Hanging out with old friends is never a waste of time. Today has been the most fun I’ve had in years. Let’s go to this awesome, super-trendy club of yours. Maybe it will sweep me off my feet.”

 

 

 

“I really am so, so sorry!” Charlotte yelled, over the reverberating techno music, as Jared handed her a gin and tonic in a giant plastic cup. “It’s not…quite what I expected.”

They stood in the middle of a jam-packed dance floor, music thumping through them in teeth-jarring rhythm. “Don’t sweat it,” Jared yelled toward her ear, lifting his cup in a salute.

“The reviews are great on this place,” Charlotte went on, embarrassment made worse by the fact that she had to ramble apologies at the top of her lungs. “Darren loves it here.”

“It’s fine,” Jared said emphatically, taking a long gulp from his cocktail. “I’ve been really immersed in the Austin music scene, so it’s nice to try something different.” He moved closer as a woman in a bikini top the size of two tortilla chips pushed past him from behind. The woman wore glow-in-the-dark body paint and had her hair in braids; overhead, she held two drinks with pulsing neon spheres for ice cubes. Charlotte thought the woman pressed more firmly against Jared than was necessary to pass.

Charlotte took a long pull on her own cocktail. “Obviously,” her voice strained, “this wouldn’t work for a proposal. No way you could get all these people to do the same thing at the same time.”

Despite the elegantly framed local artwork on the black brick walls, and colorful LED lighting slicing through the dark in strategic places, Club YOLO still had the feel of a college dive bar. A DJ at one end of the room bounced and rocked over a turntable in front of a mirror; spears of light hit a disco ball overhead and shattered around them. The pressing crowd was not so much dancing as jittering, electrocution-style.

“It’s unlikely,” Jared agreed. “But hey, we paid twenty bucks to get in, right? Might as well soak it all in.”

“I always liked that about you,” Charlotte said, as the music got louder. When Jared signaled that he couldn’t hear, she leaned in, putting her hand on his shoulder for balance. His hand slipped around her waist reflexively for support. “I always liked that about you,” she repeated. “You were up for anything.”

“So were you.” His breath was warm against her cheek. “Be honest—I was just your excuse for doing what you wanted to do anyway.”

She pulled back to make a face at him, just as the skidding, thumping music changed tempo and the crowd surged in around them. A man who was dancing as though in the throes of a seizure bounced lightly against Charlotte and waved in apology. He then seemed to take her polite smile as invitation, and began dancing at her. There was no other way to describe it. The man vibrated, his wide eyes staring intently—almost aggressively—into hers. Jared tightened his grip on her waist and pulled her around to face him.

“We’re going to lose our drinks with all this bumping around,” he yelled, lifting his in a toast. “Bottoms up!”

She followed his lead and gulped down half the giant gin and tonic, something she hadn’t done in years. Being around Jared was like sliding back into her college self. Maybe a good thing, maybe not.

As Charlotte was working on the last third of her cocktail, Seizure Guy lost his balance trying to ensnare a blonde girl on the other side, and he human-dominoed straight into Charlotte. Jared steadied her enough that she didn’t plow into the person on the other side of them, but she did wind up with Bombay Sapphire and tonic running down the front of her white blouse.

Looking genuinely aghast, Seizure Guy made an effort to dry her off with his t-shirt. This gesture was nobler in theory than execution, considering it left him brushing her wet cleavage with his shirt.

Jared politely, firmly pushed the man away, and gestured at her wet, sticky blouse. “Should we…?”

“Please.”

He took her hand and they weaved through the crowd to the back of the room, where there was a stairway guarded by a bouncer and several weird little doors and hallways shooting off to other rooms. Jared led her to the first of these, which turned out to be a mirrored space with benches along the wall. A very drunk girl was dancing topless on a table in the middle.

“Um. No.” Jared dragged her immediately into the second room, which was a smaller version of the main dance floor, the music piped in through speakers. There was a couple pressed against the wall next to the doorframe, melting together, kissing in time to the music.

Charlotte glanced at Jared, who cleared his throat and averted his eyes, looking first down at her soaked blouse, then up at the painted ceiling tiles. “We need to get you dry,” he said. “Restroom?”

She laughed and took his hand, pulling him behind her. Charlotte had to admit, it was fun to see Jared discombobulated. In college, he had always been the one who knew where to go and how to get there. He knew which bouncers would let them in a side door and which female bartenders would give him free drinks just for that dimpled smile. Not that he necessarily tried to work the system; that wasn’t his style. He was just easygoing and personable; people just wanted to make Jared happy.

After a full day on her feet showing him every possible proposal site in the Bay Area, Charlotte could relate.

Still, it was fun seeing him a little off his game after all these years. It was clearly bugging him that he hadn’t already found Charlotte a stack of clean paper towels and seltzer water, and maybe an obliging waitress with a spare shirt she could borrow. Don’t worry about returning it, sweetie. Anything for Jared.

The line outside the women’s restroom was seven people deep. In the time it took Jared to run into the men’s room, pee, and confirm they were out of paper towels, the line for the women’s hadn’t moved. “We’ll go to the bar and get napkins,” he said, and Charlotte didn’t argue.

“Can I be honest?” Jared said on their way down the dark hallway.

“Of course.”

Instead of elaborating, he pulled her suddenly into a shallow nook in the hallway. Charlotte’s heart thudded in her chest as Jared pinned her to the wall. His fair, solid arms emerged from his t-shirt on either side of her. At some point he’d taken off the light flannel he’d worn all day; it was tied around his waist. Which was very, very close to Charlotte’s waist.

His head was turned to the side, toward the front of the club, watching something she couldn’t see. She leaned tentatively forward so her face was closer to his neck. She noticed it again: he smelled the same. The clean, Jared-specific scent she hadn’t realized she’d been missing for the last seven years, mingled with his detergent and sweat and gin. Charlotte wanted to inhale that scent, to put her lips against the divot in his throat, just above the line of his t-shirt, where she could see his heartbeat pulsing in time with the music.

She was mere centimeters from it—kissing that spot, feeling him groan against her lips—when he turned suddenly, and his nose bumped against her temple. “Sorry! I didn’t realize I was right up on you like that.”

When he released her, Charlotte could see what he’d been watching: two broad-shouldered bouncers hefting a very loud, very drunk college-age kid out the back door. The kid was kicking and flailing, followed from behind by six or seven of his buddies, two of whom were capturing the whole thing on their phones. That was why Jared had pulled her into the nook: to shield her from the ruckus coming down the hallway. He was being chivalrous, not amorous.

And she was a complete idiot, and entirely too close to him.

“Right there.” Jared nodded at the kid as they pushed him out the back door and his friends followed behind him, laughing. “That is why I don’t do social media. Ten bucks says that’s on YouTube or Facebook within an hour.”

“More like minutes,” Charlotte agreed. Her voice sounded like a baby goat’s, she was shaking so hard.

He gave her a perplexed look as he relaxed back, and his hands drifted down from the wall along the side of her arms. Was it a caress? Or just a friendly, “we’ve known each other forever and I’m comfortable enough not to try too hard not to touch you,” incidental kind of touch? It sure as hell felt like a caress. God, why had she let herself go so long without sex? No woman who’d had a proper orgasm in the past year would be this panicked around Jared.

This was Jared, for Pete’s sake.

Friend Jared.

Soon-to-be-engaged Jared.

Kind, sexy, delicious-smelling Jared.

“You were about to say something?” Her voice was an octave higher than usual. “Being honest?”

It took a minute for the distracted, puzzled look to leave his face. “Oh, right.” Then he was sheepish. “I was just going to say, and I hope you won’t be offended by this.”

“I can handle it.” I can handle you. I’m crazy about you, too. You’re attracted to me? I had no idea!

“I really hate this club.”

“Oh, right. Me, too!” Charlotte shook off a fog of disappointment. “Should we go?”

“If you don’t mind?”

He took her hand again, adjusting his fingers so they were interlaced with hers, and craned over the crowd in front of them toward the club’s entrance. “That’s a mess. Want to go the way of the social media stars?”

She nodded, and Jared pulled her toward the back door. The kissing couple had now disappeared. The girl on the table was still dancing, though she was now wearing a man’s sport coat over her bare upper body. The girl looked happy, twirling and swiveling her hips with her arms across her belly, eyes closed as though in a dream.

The night air was cool and bracing in the alley behind the club. No sign of the guy who’d been thrown out, or his entourage. Charlotte became aware that her shirt had not entirely dried as the cold air focused itself sharply against her—making her nipples harden embarrassingly under the damp blouse. She wanted to cover herself, but that would’ve meant dropping Jared’s hand, and she wasn’t sure he’d noticed he was still holding hers. She settled for scrunching her shoulders together and trying to discreetly cover herself with one arm.

“You’re freezing,” Jared said as they approached the cross street.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just not sure whether gin goes with this outfit. It’s more of a vodka martini look.”

He untied the flannel and handed it to her. “Put this on.”

When she started to object, he cut her off. “You know me. I’m warm-blooded. Besides,” he glanced down at her breasts, “as a gentleman, I can’t in good conscience let you walk around in a wet, white blouse. As much as I personally might be enjoying it.”

Mortified, she snatched the shirt from him and turned around to pull it on.

“Come on, Lotta,” he scolded. “You’re smarter than that. Putting it on over your shirt isn’t going to help. It’ll just press the cold moisture against you. Take the other one off first, city girl.”

“I can’t take my shirt off out here!”

Jared made a show of looking around at the deserted alleyway. “I think you’re okay. I’ll spot for you.”

She glared, embarrassed to admit that she didn’t want to change in front of him, either. He raised a sandy eyebrow and grinned at her. That damn dimple again. “I think we both know I’ve seen you a whole lot more naked than that.”

“Skinny-dipping ten years ago doesn’t count.”

“Oh, it counts,” he leered playfully. “But if it bothers you, go behind the dumpster.”

“‘Go behind the dumpster?’ You tech tycoons really know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Only the best for you, babe.” He turned his back. “Besides, this is your tour of the city. You’re supposed to show me a good time.” Charlotte sighed and changed as quickly as possible, hoping the bouncers didn’t throw out any more budding cinematographers while she was doing it.

“That’s not our deal, you know,” she said as she emerged, tying the corners of Jared’s shirt into knots at her waist. “I’ve been showing you the proposal tour of San Francisco, not my personal tour… What’s wrong?”

He was staring, mouth slightly open, at her handiwork on his shirt. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that he might not appreciate her tying little knots in it. “The wrinkles will come out in the dryer,” she offered. “Unless you want it back now?”

“Keep it.” He shook his head. “It looks way better on you than on me. Way better.”

Something crackled in the damp night air between them, and Charlotte fidgeted with her necklace, wondering whether she should have gone up one more button. Jared reached for her hand and she gave it to him, cautiously. “Are you ready to call it a night?” she asked tentatively.

“Are you kidding me?” His face brightened and the tension between them evaporated. “I’m ready for the Real Charlotte Bates Tour of San Francisco.”

“But you haven’t picked a proposal site yet,” she objected, as he led her out to the street where a line of cabs waited. “Brianna is going to be back the day after tomorrow.”

Jared looked at his watch. “It’s 11:00 at night. I think you can safely go off-duty. I’ll put in a good word for you at Perfect Proposals.” He opened a cab door and waved her in with a challenging grin. “Unless you’re too tired to hang with an old friend who’s still on Central time?”

Challenge accepted.

Charlotte climbed in the cab. “Taylor and Eddy, please.”

“This should be interesting,” Jared said. “Isn’t that the Tenderloin?”

“Look who’s been studying the map of San Francisco,” she teased, looking him up and down. “You don’t have your internet millions on you right now, do you?”

“It’s not millions,” he corrected.

“Well. Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”

His expression melted into a grin. “I’ve missed you, Lotta Love.”

“Me, too.”

For the next few blocks, the city went by in the quality of silence known only by very old friends.

 

 

 

Charlotte’s favorite spot didn’t look like much from the outside—a matte black cement wall with “PIANO BAR” written in all-caps red paint. The entry door was the same solid color, no windows to give passersby a glimpse of what might be happening inside.

Jared kicked aside the bone of a chicken wing on the sidewalk, his face carefully neutral. “Not that I don’t trust you,” he said cautiously. “But if we go in there and it’s a bunch of Mafia guys playing poker…”

Reckless, she turned to meet his challenge just in front of the door. “What? What will you do?”

“I’ll adjust my internal badass rating for Charlotte Bates, for one thing.” He stepped forward, almost touching her forehead with his. “And, I might just have to kiss you.”

She held his gaze, covering the squirmy feeling in her stomach with bravado. “Good thing that’s not going to happen.”

He inched closer to her, his mouth so close she could feel his breath against her skin. “Yeah. A really good thing. Whew. Shall we go in?”

Jared held the door, and Charlotte made a beeline for the bar, weaving through the crowd and dragging him behind her. “Hey, Tina,” she greeted her favorite bartender. “Two double-bourbons, rocks. Four Roses if you have it.”

“Always.” Tina extended a tattooed hand to Jared. “Who’s your hot friend?”

“Jared, meet Tina.”

“You must be something special.” Tina shook his hand. “Charlie never brings men here.”

“He’s not a man,” Charlotte corrected. “I mean, not like that. He’s a friend from college.”

“And now totally emasculated.” Jared threw a congenial arm around Charlotte. “Better make mine a triple.”

Tina smirked and poured their drinks. There was a three-piece blues band playing at the other end of the room, and people filled the dozen or so bistro tables around the stage. They found a spot against the wall and sipped their drinks.

“She called you Charlie,” Jared said between songs. “You hate that.”

Charlotte shrugged. “It’s better than Lotta Love.”

“Nothing is better than Lotta Love.”

She rolled her eyes and faced away from him, swinging her hips to the music, which was a jazzy, bluesy mix. As the band warmed to their set, the crowd filled in and the lights lowered around the stage. After a few moments, she felt Jared’s hand light on her waist as she danced. She decided to leave it, for now. They were two old friends and the music was good and the bourbon was making her heady and warm.

Everything was fine. She let the ragged wail of the electric guitar roll over her in warm waves of contentment. Let her mind and body drift into the music.

The band wrapped up just after midnight, and Charlotte led Jared toward the back right of the music hall, where there were two small theaters branching off the end of a short hallway.

“This is much better than your first nightclub attempt, I have to say,” he said.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I don’t usually take clients somewhere I’ve never vetted personally. It’s just that it was so highly rated and you seem to be looking for something unusual, and you said Brianna liked trendy places…” She was rambling.

“Ease up.” Jared squeezed her hand. “I’m just giving you crap, Lotta.”

They got to the doorways that led to the theaters. The one on the right could seat about a hundred people, but there were at least twice that many in there now, milling around and chatting, gearing up for the next show. She gestured at the packed auditorium. “On weekends, they rotate between the larger theater and the main hall, where we just were, every hour for most of the night. You can get here at seven and see five or six different music acts before you get back in a cab.”

“Like a mini-festival under one roof,” Jared said, impressed. “This kind of thing would crush it in Austin.”

“We can’t let Austin have all the good ideas,” Charlotte said, teasing. “They already have you.”

“For now,” he said. “I don’t know what will happen, after… Bree and I…we haven’t talked about…”

“This smaller theater isn’t used for music as much,” she interrupted, leading him into the quieter space to the left. It had about thirty seats, and the walls were draped with maroon velvet curtains. The house lights were low, the small stage lighted only by a single floor lamp. A few patrons sat scattered in the seats, eating baskets of bar food and murmuring to one another. “They do open mic poetry here on Wednesdays, and occasional private parties or really small acts.”

“Now this is more like it,” Jared said. “Why didn’t you suggest this for a proposal? It’s perfect.”

“No. This is my place. You can’t use it for…” Charlotte sounded mean and selfish, like a kid who didn’t want someone else in her treehouse.

“Lotta, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s just…this is my sanctuary. I wouldn’t want this place to feel like work.”

They were interrupted by a guy in a black PIANO BAR t-shirt, who walked past them with a tray, calling out, “Charlie! Charlie?”

“Do you mean Charlotte?”

The guy turned, lowering the tray to reveal a giant basket of the house specialty curly fries and two bourbons on the rocks. “Maybe? I’m new, sorry.” He looked at the ticket. “And are you ‘Man who’s not really a man’ or something?”

Jared laughed. “That’s me.”

Relieved, the kid handed Jared the basket of fries and one of the bourbons, giving the other to Charlotte. “These are on the house. Tina asked if you would turn off the lights in Stage Two when the show starts next door.”

“Sure.” Charlotte looked over at the bar. Tina gave her a wave, her ringed lip curling in a half smile. “Shall we?”

They carried the fries and drinks into the theater, where Jared bypassed the smattering of empty seats and hopped onto the little stage, sitting cross-legged on an X made with duct tape. He munched curly fries and looked around the setting with his wide, light-hazel eyes. Charlotte loved that about Jared: the innocent, exploring way he took things in—never judging, never cynical. She imagined that even in very old age he would still have the heart of a seven-year-old boy, finding the world.

Did Brianna appreciate this about him? Was she up for anything, ready to follow Jared on every adventure? Was she everything Charlotte hadn’t been when she’d had the chance?

“I always regretted not staying in touch with you after college,” she blurted.

“It happens.” He lifted the world’s longest curly fry out of the basket and stared at it in delighted awe. “This is a hell of a curly fry. Want it?”

“Go ahead, I insist. You’re a guest in my city.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.” He tilted his head back and lowered the fry into his mouth happily. People were beginning to filter out of the small theater to walk next door. Charlotte heard music start on the other side of the wall, so she turned out the house lights and closed the door behind the last stragglers before she returned to the stage.

“Tina doesn’t like people sneaking off in here during the show.”

Jared cast his eyes around at the warm glow of the single lamp. “I can see why—it’s a pretty romantic setting. In case you decide to compromise your integrity and use it for a proposal one day.”

“Never,” Charlotte said. “This club is my spot, the only place in the city I can go and not think of someone else’s special moment.”

“It’s a weird job you have,” he said.

“Yep. But it pays the bills, for now.”

A speaker at the back of the house came on, and the funky music from next door began piping into their deserted theater. Charlotte leaned her head against Jared’s shoulder, and they sat in silence as he finished the curly fries.

“I wasn’t good at keeping up with anyone,” he said eventually. “After college. Sort of lost myself to the trails for a couple of years there.”

“And it paid off,” she said, thinking how easy it would be to change the subject now, to talk about the success of PathFinder rather than the lump in her throat. “But…you heard that Boyd and I split?”

You heard, but didn’t call.

“Yeah.” He stared at the stage floor. “My younger sister is still friends with his sister. I talked to her a lot from the road. I was in Yellowstone that summer, working as a dishwasher at the park restaurant, hiking on my off days…”

“Spending time with all the cute hiker girls?” She was trying, and failing, to lighten the mood.

He stiffened. “No reason not to.”

“Of course.” Charlotte pushed herself off his shoulder and looked down at her bourbon, swirling the amber liquid so that it coated the sides of the glass. She had no right to know what he’d been doing with his time or who he’d been seeing. She was the one who turned him down graduation night, not the other way around.

“I did think about calling you,” he said softly. “I knew you’d never be able to find me, so if I wanted to talk to you I’d have to reach out.”

“Or, you know, just get married in San Francisco.”

He laughed. “Apparently. But I spent that whole first year thinking long and hard about what you said graduation night, about how you couldn’t see yourself leaving Boyd to be with someone with no plan, no ambition. And you were right. You deserved more than what I had to offer.”

Charlotte cringed to hear her own awful words again after all these years. Jared’s confession had come out of the blue, at a time when everything in her life seemed off-balance. She’d said so many things that night that she regretted. “Jared, I was wrong.” She put a hand on his arm. “I was a twenty-two-year-old idiot who thought I could plan every moment of my life. I’d just found out my dad had cancer, and I had no idea my reliable, safe boyfriend was busy screwing my hairdresser.”

“I’m sorry about your dad. And the hairdresser.” He took her hand. “Even not knowing that stuff, I was an idiot. It was completely unfair, cornering you like that, putting you on the spot. I mean, what could be less romantic than getting drunk and telling your best friend you’re in love with her in her roommate’s bedroom, while her boyfriend and all your families are having a party downstairs?”

“It was romantic, actually,” she admitted. “The things you said…that you thought I was the most beautiful woman you’d ever known, that you loved the way I challenged you to be better.”

“All true.” He picked out a tendril of her hair that had escaped her hasty ponytail and wrapped it around his finger. “Still true, in fact.”

He leaned closer and hesitated, searching her eyes. “You really should keep my shirt.” He tugged on the collar, his voice so low it was almost a growl.

Charlotte held her breath, scared to move, thinking of the hallway at Club YOLO. But this time she wasn’t wrong. He leaned in, and she melted into the kiss she’d passed up seven years earlier. Jared put a hand behind her head and pulled her closer. He tasted like bourbon and curly fries and something she’d never known she was missing. He tasted like home.

“Oops!” came a voice from the other side of the room, bringing light and crowd noise with it. “You do know this locks from the inside, right?”

Charlotte pulled away from Jared and stood up, so suddenly that her head spun. Tina was silhouetted in the doorway, and even without the benefit of light on the bartender’s face, Charlotte knew she was smiling.

They all three talked at once.

“Sorry, Tina. We’ll just…”

“It’s fine, you guys can stay.”

“No, we need to—”

“If you don’t mind—”

“I thought you were gone.”

“That’s all right. I need to get back anyway.” Jared hopped off the stage and offered Charlotte his hand.

She turned off the lamp and followed him out, trying desperately to ignore Tina’s conspiratorial grin as they passed her in the doorway. When they hit the night air, Jared looked for a cab but there were none nearby. “I typically use one of the riding apps from here.” Charlotte pulled out her phone. “They’re easier to get in this part of town than a cab.”

Jared pointed down the hill, toward the bustling Market Street a few blocks away. “How about down there?”

She nodded, and he took her hand, pulling her down the hill at a determined pace. Charlotte almost had to jog to keep up with him. When they got to Market, they turned left toward the large intersection with Powell. Jared still held her hand, but he felt a million miles away.

When they stopped at the busy intersection, she spoke up. “Jared, are you okay?”

“Of course,” he said. “Just a long day and too much bourbon.”

“Can we talk about—”

“No need. We’re fine.” He flagged down a taxi and handed the driver a fifty dollar bill. “Look, I’ve got a couple of early calls with Austin in the morning, but why don’t you text me with where you want to meet up? I should be able to get somewhere by 11:00. Does that work?”

“Of course. You’re not taking the taxi?”

He shook his head. “My hotel is three blocks that way. I’d rather walk.” At her incredulous face, he squeezed her hand. “If you drop me off first, you’ll be half an hour later getting to bed, and I’m expecting to be completely wowed tomorrow. You need your rest so you can bring your A-game to this proposal thing.”

And with that, he’d closed the cab door and she was off, watching him fade into the distance, rubbing his bare arms for warmth.

 

 

 

Charlotte had never been so glad that Lily was at home. A large spread of proofs covered their coffee table, and there was a glass of wine on the tile floor next to her. Charlotte dropped her purse and threw herself into the armchair with an exhausted sigh, picking up Lily’s wine and taking a healthy slug.

“Where have you been?” Lily asked, without looking up from the proofs. “You missed all the drama. The Witch came home tonight, and half the neighborhood is pissed at her. Not only did she double-park that monstrosity, again, but she nearly ran over Mrs. Pendergrass’s dog. Didn’t even apologize. Just smiled like it was nothing, even though there were a bunch of us standing there yelling at her.”

The White Witch was their not-so-affectionate moniker for their horrid neighbor on the next block. Lily had coined the nickname after a nasty run-in about the woman’s oversized white SUV, and it also fit with her long, white-blonde hair and flowing outfits. A few of the neighbors had taken it up privately, too, since no one wanted to get close enough to learn her real name.

“She had the lip ring guy with her again,” Lily went on in triumph. “So, I win the pool. You thought she’d bring home someone new this time. Second date, very exciting. Maybe will have little white spawn egging the house soon.”

Normally, Charlotte looked forward to the latest gossip from the block, but tonight she didn’t care whether the White Witch had run her SUV through their actual house. Couldn’t Lily see there were bigger fish to fry?

“I keep telling you guys,” Charlotte said irritably. “If she’s breaking the rules, you should call the neighborhood patrol. It doesn’t do any good to give her dirty looks and bitch about her on the corner.”

“Jeez. Who peed in your Cheerios?” Lily lifted a proof sheet from the bottom of a pile and squinted at it. “I take it the mystery tycoon was your old friend, then?”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. It was my Jared. He just put me in a cab.”

Lily looked up, concerned. “You sound completely shredded,” she said. “What the hell happened?”

Charlotte put down the wine and let her head drop into her hands. “Oh, Lils, it was so much worse than I thought it would be, seeing him again. He’s the same Jared, only…hotter, and funnier, and more muscley.”

“And rich,” Lily put in. “That’s gotta hurt.”

“You know I don’t care about that.” Charlotte moaned. “But I wish you could have seen him. It was like we picked up right where we left off, laughing and talking and having a great time.”

“I thought where you left off was with him professing his undying love to you at the end of college, and you stomping on his heart like it was a cockroach?”

“You’re useless at this comforting stuff, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told. It’s why I avoid intimate friendships with other women at all costs.”

Charlotte stuck her tongue out at Lily and stood to get her own wineglass from the kitchen. “It’s not like I never thought about Jared, you know? After Boyd and I split, I mean. But for the first year I was just licking my wounds and wanted nothing to do with anyone who’d known us in college. And then, well. It was already so awkward between us… After that, calling Jared seemed like a cop-out, even as friends, like I was only getting in touch with him because Boyd was gone and I didn’t have any options.”

“And that’s…changed?”

She glared at Lily. “Hey, I do have options! I’m not still the pathetic jilted girl from Georgia who got thrown on her ass by the man she was supposed to marry.”

“It just seems like maybe you’re having feelings for Jared now… I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but even with my blunted female intuition I can see that you are spinning like the last dreidel of Hanukkah. But he’s about to get married, and you haven’t dated anyone remotely seriously for, what…? Four years? He shows up and after one day with him, you’re mooning like a schoolgirl.”

“One day,” Charlotte murmured. “And one kiss.”

“WHAT?!?” Lily boomed, dropping the proof sheet on the table. “You kissed him? You kissed a Perfect Proposals client while you were planning his engagement? Besides being morally suspect, Ellen will fire your ass in a hot second if she finds out.”

“Technically…he said I was off-duty,” Charlotte said, in the lamest defense ever.

“He said that? When he kissed you? Gross.”

“You’re making it sound all smarmy and weird. It was very sweet. We were at the Piano Bar…”

“Wow, it is serious if you took him there.”

“Shut up. Anyway, we were just out, not planning anymore because every idea I floated for him completely flopped, and it just…happened. I have to say, I think he bears equal responsibility.”

“So, what did he say after this un-smarmy, totally not weird kiss occurred?”

Charlotte bit her lip, wishing for once that her no-nonsense roommate were capable of beating around the bush. Just a little. “He didn’t say anything.”

Lily snorted.

“In his defense, we got interrupted and it was a truly weird situation and…”

“And?”

“He dragged me to a cab and told me to rest up and be prepared to wow him tomorrow.”

“So, let me get this straight…”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Seven years after you broke his heart, you kissed, and then despite your obvious feelings for the guy, he sends you home alone and instructs you to come back and continue planning his engagement to another woman. You must have hurt that dude bad, Charlotte.”

“It wasn’t that bad. And I don’t have feelings for him. We’re old friends.”

“Oh, come on. Any idiot can see it, all over your face.”

“I’m just a little caught off guard, seeing him after all this time. Didn’t you ever feel that way?”

“Don’t try to change the subject.” Lily arched a brow at her. “How many sites did you suggest to him today?”

Charlotte stared at her, not sure how that was relevant. “Twenty, I guess. Twenty-one if you count that terrible nightclub you and Darren like so much.”

“There’s your proof,” Lily said, her cockiness beginning to grate on Charlotte. “You’re Ellen’s go-to girl at Perfect Proposals because you can peg what a client wants before they even know it. I’ve never known you to need more than five options, tops, to give a client what they’re looking for. And those are the pickiest clients.”

Charlotte laughed. “Remember the woman who wanted to propose to her girlfriend while skydiving, but didn’t want the poor girl to know about it in advance?”

“My point exactly. You saved their relationship, and avoided what I’m sure would have been an extremely traumatic airborne incident for everyone involved. And you only had to come up with one alternative to make everyone happy.”

“That was easy, though. I knew the spirit of what she wanted—I just had to figure out how to make it happen. With Jared, it’s different…”

Lily stacked the proof sheets and tucked them into a folder. She picked up her glass and moved to the side of the couch closest to Charlotte. “Babe. Has it occurred to you that there might be a reason this is the only time you’ve had so much trouble finding a proposal spot for someone?”

“Because he’s my friend, and I so desperately want it to be special for him that I’m cracking under the pressure?”

“Or…” Lily said gently, “because you’re secretly hoping if you can’t get it right, it won’t happen at all.”

When Charlotte didn’t answer, her roommate stood and ruffled her hair. “I’m headed up to bed. I do agree with this Jared of yours that you should rest up. You clearly have some things to think about.”

 

 

 

Charlotte picked Jared up in her own car the next day. He was waiting on the curb outside his hotel as instructed, wearing hiking boots and a battered khaki and gray Outdoor Research hat. He had his phone out, but pocketed it immediately when he saw her pull up.

“Morning,” he said as he ducked into her Prius. “You keep a much neater car than you did in college.”

“This is a change of occupational necessity, not personal preference.” She smiled. “Though it is nice not to wonder if I’m really alone in here.”

“So, what’s on tap for today?” He gestured at two bottles of chilled water in the console between them. “Going to make me run laps until I agree to the planetarium?”

Charlotte just smiled, navigating through traffic, until she found an open parking space in front of a pharmacy on the way out of town.

“I have to be honest, Lotta, the idea that I might need medical supplies for this is both exciting and unnerving.”

“Oh, I have all that in the backseat already.” She put the car in park and gestured at the backpack behind her. “We’re stopping now because we need to talk.”

Jared’s cheerful expression faltered infinitesimally, but he swallowed hard and faced her. “Sure. What’s up?”

She took a deep breath. Be professional. “I need to apologize for what happened last night.”

“Charlotte—”

She held up a hand. “Please. Let me say this, okay? I should never have let things go the way they did. It was completely unprofessional, for one thing, and I’d be fired on the spot if my boss knew what happened. Second, I wasn’t being a very good friend to you. I know I hurt you all those years ago, and you had every right to cut me out of your life—”

“Cut you out? I wouldn’t say—”

“Well. You had every right to be hurt. And while I can’t regret…I made the decision I thought was best at the time, and I hope you forgive me. I hope you understand.”

“Of course, I understand, Lotta—”

“Yesterday you let me back into your life, and you trusted me with one of the most important moments in it, your engagement to your girlfriend, who sounds like a completely lovely person…”

“She is.”

“And I violated that trust by letting my feelings—the moment, I mean—get away with me. It was selfish and I promise it won’t happen again. I would be honored if you would let me continue to help you with this proposal, and if we can move forward as friends. But if my behavior has made things too complicated, I would be happy to refer you to my colleague Owen, who is absolutely excellent and has agreed to take over today if needed.”

“You talked to him already? This colleague of yours?”

“Early this morning. I’ve briefed him on what we did yesterday and the plans for today, and he’s ready to meet us at the head of the Bay Bridge to take over if it would make you more comfortable.”

“So, let me get this straight. If I’m so upset that we shared a tiny drunken kiss last night that I want to fire you, you can hand me off to this Owen guy like a kid whose parents have joint custody, is that right?”

Charlotte stiffened. “That’s not how I would put it, but yes.”

“Did you tell Otis what happened at the bar?”

“Owen. And, no. I hope to avoid that, if possible, but it’s your prerogative if you want to report it.”

“If I want to report… Jesus, Charlotte. I forgot how infuriating you are.” He twisted away and dropped his face into both hands, pushing the cap up on his head.

She could hear him breathing—laughing, maybe—but was too afraid to move. Charlotte wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d expected, but this wasn’t it.

He pulled his hands down and composed himself to face her. She could see his effort to stay calm. “You’re done talking now?” he asked, with forced politeness. “It’s my turn?”

“Yes, of course.” Whatever he had to say, she was ready. This was the right thing, for her career and her heart. “I welcome your thoughts.”

“Great. I’m so glad my thoughts are welcome. Because there’s so much bullshit in that speech you just gave, I almost don’t know where to start, but I’ll try.”

“Excuse me…”

“My turn,” he said. “First, I did not ‘cut’ you out of my life after college. I went out on my own, exploring, and I barely kept in touch with my own family, much less my college friends. Yes, it hurt my pride when you rejected my stupid suggestion that we should run away together after graduation, but I got over it. I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but I didn’t pine for you for years or anything. When I saw you yesterday, I saw the girl who was my friend for four years, not the girl who turned me down on a single drunken night.”

Charlotte deflated at his words. He made it sound so simple, so trivial. Had she imagined all the emotion between them? Was she simply projecting her own regrets?

“Second, while I appreciate your icy professionalism regarding what happened between us last night, I have no intention of reporting you to your employer or letting some dude I’ve never met plan my engagement proposal. Charlotte, it was a kiss. It’s not the end of the world. We were a little toasty, having a good time, and we both let the moment get away from us. And you might want to take all the credit or blame or whatever it is, but I’m not going to let you. You seem to be forgetting that I. Kissed. You.”

He leaned closer for emphasis. “I enjoyed it, actually. Always wondered what that would feel like, and now I know. I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry it happened, even though it sounds like you are.”

“That’s not—”

“Yes, it is. And that’s okay. This doesn’t have to change anything about our friendship or our professional relationship. Shit happens. You fix it and move on. You’ve apologized—I’ve apologized. I have no interest in starting over with Owen or anyone else. We’re cool, okay?”

Charlotte swallowed hard. Jared was angry, she could tell, but she’d never dealt with someone’s anger that didn’t also include threats, recriminations, or simply walking away. Her parents had been soft-spoken and mild-mannered, expressing disappointment in her periodically but never full-throated anger. She seldom had unhappy clients, but when she did, they almost always either demanded something from her or exploded and walked away to start writing a nasty Yelp! review. Jared was staying with her, in the moment, looking her in the eye and telling her how he felt, without holding back or escalating. She had no idea what to do with this.

Finally, she brushed imaginary lint from her shirt and managed, “So you’re game for checking out a new spot with me today?”

“Nothing on earth would make me happier.” His smile was so forced as to actually be funny.

Charlotte pulled into traffic and drove a few blocks toward the Bay Bridge in silence. After a few minutes, she couldn’t resist. “You didn’t, you know.”

“What?” Jared turned from where he’d been staring out the window at the colorful facade of a Chinese restaurant.

“Apologize. You said we both apologized. I did. You didn’t. Not that it matters.”

His laugh was loud and genuine, reverberating through her little car. “Not that it matters,” he echoed. “But I am truly and deeply sorry, Charlotte. For all my sins. And I’m sure you could name most of them.”

She laughed with him. “I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.”

“I’m not so bad,” he said. “I mean, I haven’t spent any time in a monastery since I saw you last or anything, but I don’t think I’d be the worst guy out of any ten.”

“Lucky Brianna,” Charlotte said drily, relieved that they were back to their normal banter. “Getting a guy who’s at least the twentieth percentile.”

“I don’t deserve her, at any rate.” He looked at the road ahead. “I’ve never been confused about that. That’s why we’re doing this.”

“Really?” Her heart constricted at the mention of his future fiancée, but Charlotte had been the one to bring up Brianna, so she couldn’t exactly complain.

“Yeah. My dad always said, when you find a woman who’s a better person than you in every way and still wants to be around you, you’d better hang onto her.”

“I always liked your dad,” Charlotte said, remembering the robust accountant with red cheeks and round glasses. “He’s so different from you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Not what I meant!”

“This is definitely going in my Yelp! review.”

Their laughter eased the tension as Charlotte steered them over the bridge to the destination she should’ve thought about yesterday.

 

 

 

Half an hour later, they parked in a tree-lined gravel lot and Jared got out, stretching. She waited for him to make some kind of joke about proposing in the parking lot (“These rocks are going to be hard on the knees!”) but he just took in the scene, smiling in a way that seemed unconscious. She absolutely should’ve thought of this yesterday. If she hadn’t let him rattle her…hadn’t let her imagination run wild.

Never mind—back on track. “Are you wearing clean socks?” She pulled the backpack with the supplies from the backseat. “If not, I have extras.”

“I’m not even going to ask.” He followed her up a small path between the trees.

“It’s the Iron Horse Regional Trail,” she explained. “Have you been here?”

He shook his head.

“Most people don’t use this entrance; there are bigger parking lots by the major trailheads. But this is closest to the Little Blue Shack.”

“Oh, right. The Little Blue Shack.”

She looked at him, surprised. “You’ve heard of it?”

“No.” He grinned. “It’s just nice, when I’m with you, if once in a while I sound like I know what the hell I’m talking about.”

They emerged next to the Little Blue Shack, which was exactly that—an old metal storage shed, painted blue and festooned with graffiti. A twenty-something guy stood, leaning into the window, talking to someone beneath a RENTALS sign. The Iron Horse, a paved-over railway line, ran beside the shack until it disappeared in both directions. People flew by with bicycles, rollerblades, dogs, and jogging strollers.

“So, what’s your poison?” Charlotte pulled out her Perfect Proposals credit card. “Bikes or rollerblades?”

Jared grinned at her. “Both. Which is better for you?”

“Neither,” she said frankly. “I have no balance whatsoever and I’ll be crap at both.”

“Then let’s walk.”

“Nope,” she said. “We can’t walk from here and make it there and back in time. There is a walking option I can show you later, but I thought you and Brianna would prefer this.”

He furrowed his brow, but Charlotte kept her face impassive. Secretly she hoped he would choose bikes, because those had brakes. Less likely she’d go careening off a cliff.

“Fine. Rollerblades.”

She flashed her implacable, professional smile. “Excellent.”

Fifteen minutes later, they had handed over their shoes and Charlotte’s credit card to the cute girl behind the counter, and (with the generous help of the boy who was clearly hanging around just to flirt with said cute girl) were strapped in to helmets, pads, and rollerblades that felt about twice the size of a normal shoe. The day was overcast but not rainy, and the trail was crowded. This made Charlotte even more nervous as she clomped toward the pavement on the dirt trail, keeping her blades angled sideways for balance as the guy had suggested.

Jared cruised over the dirt like a pro, and spun in a graceful circle to extend his hand to her when he reached the pavement. “Are you sure about this?” He eyed her speculatively. “I’m totally okay to get the walking version.”

Of course I’m not sure. I’m going to grind my face into the pavement to finish off what has already been the weirdest week of my life. What the hell. “I’m fine.”

He raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t protest, even as she windmilled onto the trail, nearly crashing into a sleeping baby in a running stroller. He simply skidded to a professionally-balanced stop on the other side of the path and waited for her to pick her way across to him.

When she’d stumbled to him, she grabbed his arm to steady herself; Jared discreetly held her hand so the move would look at least partially intentional. They moved forward slowly, with Charlotte staring at the white pavement in front of her and concentrating hard on moving her feet in the technique she’d found on YouTube the night before.

“Well, at least I can be sure of one thing,” Jared said casually after a few hundred feet.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t have to worry that this is a recycled proposal scenario. It’s obviously your first time rollerblading.”

“Told you I’d be crap at it,” she said tightly. “And if you choose this option, I will already be waiting at the proposal site with everything set up. It’s more important that Brianna can rollerblade.”

“She’s great at it.” He gave Charlotte a wink. “Not that you set the bar very high.”

She tried to elbow him in the ribs, but the move threw her off-balance so that she nearly collapsed. Jared had to grab her beneath the armpits to set her upright again. Even with Charlotte falling into him with decent force, nothing seemed to throw him off-kilter. This was the Jared she knew: confident, breezy, water-off-a-duck’s-back Jared. He was in his element now. Further confirmation that she should have thought of this plan yesterday.

“So, you’ll be there?” he asked when they’d achieved a decent rhythm. “At the proposal?”

“Of course. We’re completely full service. I’ll set up everything to your specifications and be hanging out nearby in case you run into any glitches. Lily will take pictures from a hidden spot so she doesn’t spoil the surprise.”

He was quiet for a few strides. She could feel her hand starting to get sweaty in his, but no way in hell was she letting go.

“That’s okay, right? I mean, you’re not surprised that we’ll be there? We’re very discreet, and if you like, we can quietly disappear after Lily has the pictures she needs. Some guys like to keep the pictures a secret until later. And of course, Brianna never has to know that you had help planning.”

“Oh, she’ll know.” Jared smirked. “If it were up to me, I’d have asked her to marry me over eggs one morning. It’s great that you’ll be there. I guess I just hadn’t thought about it.”

The crowd on the trail had thinned out now, and they were going at a decent clip. Charlotte began to relax into her strides, knowing she’d be sore as hell tomorrow. “I mean, if it feels awkward for me to be there…”

“Don’t,” he said. “I mean, of course not. It will be nice having a friend there with me. You’ll be like my second.”

She smiled. “So in the event of your death at the proposal, I would step in and marry your girlfriend on your behalf?”

“It sure would mean a lot to me,” he said, exaggerating his Southern accent. “If you’d care for my woman like she was your own.”

“I won’t let you down, buddy.” She imitated his accent, the drawl she rarely heard since she’d moved to the West Coast. “She’ll never want for nothin’.”

They navigated a wide, sweeping curve of the path toward a small hill and Jared picked up his pace to pull Charlotte up the incline with him. Once they had managed the terrifying prospect of getting back down the hill without Charlotte either losing control or falling on her ass, they lapsed into small talk.

“Tell me about PathFinder. I know it helps hikers find each other along public trails. How did you come up with the idea?”

“When I first came out west, I was alone for the first couple of years. Which,” he glanced at her, “was sort of the point.”

“You’re Cheryl Strayed,” she said. “I get it.”

Jared squeezed her hand in reproach. “But even when you choose a more solitary way of life, sometimes you still need people. Someone to play cards with when you’re stuck under an outcropping in a rainstorm, or to help you out when you’re out of biodegradable toilet paper.”

“You mean? Ew…”

“Hey, those trails get long. You can’t always wait for the next rest stop to do your business.”

“I guess. Still…ew.”

He laughed. “That’s why you wouldn’t have been happy if you’d come with me, right there.”

Stung, she said, “Hey, I could’ve gotten used to it. I’m very adaptable, believe it or not. I never rollerbladed before today, but I think I might start doing it regularly.” She wobbled as she said this and Jared snorted.

“Anyway, I developed the app so hikers can register and find each other along the trails, when they want company or need supplies. It also works like one of those traffic apps, you know, giving you real time updates on the average time it takes to do a certain trail, and so hikers can report trail problems to the park service. When the GPS signals are better, it might even be a way of doing emergency communication, but it’s not reliable enough for that yet.”

“That’s actually…” She struggled for the words. “That’s really innovative stuff, Jared.”

“Thanks. The Wall Street Journal said that, too.” He grinned. “But it means more coming from you.”

“I would hope so,” she said. “How many of those Wall Street guys pretended to be your girlfriend when that girl from Anthropology 101 wouldn’t take no for an answer?”

“Not as many as you would think. Financial reporters aren’t that big on lying, it turns out.”

They came around another small bend and Charlotte saw the spot she was looking for: a hill just ahead with a wide crest at the top, where she knew there was a small clearing off to the left. “There,” she said. “And not a moment too soon. I can already feel the blisters.”

They collapsed into the grass at the top of the hill, both breathing hard from the climb. “So we’ll have to think about how sweaty and tired you’ll be when you get here.” She handed him a towel from her pack. “We’ll make sure you have baby wipes with you. And you should bring her favorite lipstick with you if she doesn’t do it herself. Make sure you mention more than once that you want to freshen up and go straight to dinner—there’s a cute restaurant off the trail, just on the other side of the hill—that way she’ll look great without getting suspicious.”

“I don’t care how she looks, honestly,” he said.

Charlotte patted his hand and began removing her rollerblades, socks, and pads. “I know. And I’m sure she knows, and that’s why we love you. But trust me, when she’s showing Lily’s beautiful pictures to her friends and family next week, she’s going to want to be wearing lipstick and mascara.”

He sighed. “Fair enough.”

She pulled her flip-flops out of the bag and handed him a generic men’s pair she’d picked up that morning.

“You’re like a Boy Scout on steroids,” he said with admiration. “I thought I was the only one who packed for every contingency.”

Charlotte shrugged. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” she said lightly, secretly thrilled by his admiration. She got up and paced barefoot around the crescent-shaped clearing, sizing everything up. “We’ll time it so you get her just before dusk. I’ll string battery-powered lights up around all these trees—there are enough low branches to work with, I think. We’ll have a portable table over here with a white tablecloth and champagne chilling. They don’t allow open flames along the tree line, but I have some flickering votives that will do nicely. There’s not much to it, I know, but I think it meets all your needs: simple, quiet, beautiful, outdoors, and unique.”

“It’s…Charlotte. Wow.” He looked at her with undisguised awe.

She smiled. “That’s totally what The Wall Street Journal said.”

“I can’t believe how perfectly you hit the nail on the head. This is so…me. And so different from yesterday.”

“I am sorry about that. This should have been my very first suggestion, knowing you like I do. It actually occurred to me before we’d even left the coffee shop yesterday. But for some reason…I don’t know. I didn’t trust my instincts.”

“Instincts are tough.” He faced her. “Mine have led me astray before, too.”

Charlotte cleared her throat and turned to the spot where she had placed the imaginary table. “I have some really pretty folding chairs so you can have her sit if you want. Maybe you can pretend to be helping her with her rollerblades or something…”

“Charlotte—”

“I know, that’s too Cinderella, right? You’ll handle it perfectly without my suggestions. I mean, I can help with the blocking and tackling if you need me to. I have done that before. Some guys…”

“Lotta.” He put a hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. She was surprised to see the glint of tears in his eyes. “This is amazing. I never could have come up with this by myself. Thank you.”

“What else is your second for?” She made a mock curtsy. “And if it all goes to hell and you need dueling pistols, I can arrange that, too.”

Jared allowed her to duck out from beneath his touch. She pulled out her phone to look at the compass app. “Tomorrow evening, the sun will be…there. Lily and I will hide out on the other side of the path, just there, to get the best light for pictures. Now, let’s walk over to that restaurant to set up their little VIP room for you. It’s not fancy, but I can do some flowers and candles and it will be lovely. Are you going to have family and friends celebrate with you after?”

“Jesus. I hadn’t thought of that. Do people do that?”

“Not always,” Charlotte said. “It’s really up to you. Some people like to have the families and close friends nearby if they’re in on the proposal. Are your parents still in Georgia?”

He nodded.

“Do they know you’re asking her tomorrow?”

“Uh…no. They’ve never met Brianna, actually.” Despite her professional restraint, she must have looked surprised because he added hurriedly, “I mean, they do know we’re dating and everything.”

“And her family? Are they local?”

“Sort of,” he said. “Her parents are divorced and her mom is here. I have met her mom, once. Her dad and stepmom live up the coast—Portland? Seattle? I’m not sure.”

“Sounds like she’s not that close to her family?”

“I don’t think so,” he said slowly.

“So she wouldn’t expect you to ask her father’s permission.”

He took the baseball cap off and rubbed his forehead, leaving behind a blackish streak from the rollerblade wheels. “Shit. Never thought about it. Should I have asked?”

“It depends on your fiancée, Jared. Some women really appreciate the chivalry and tradition of asking their fathers but for others it’s a dated tradition that is…well, kind of anti-feminist.”

Other than the black streak, Jared looked a little pale and terrified now. “So what you’re saying is, no matter which way I go, there’s a decent chance I will screw it up royally.”

“Welcome to marriage.” Charlotte laughed and pulled out a baby wipe, handing it to him and gesturing at his hairline. “You’re a mess,” she said. “Tell you what: let’s get a cold beer and some food. We can figure all this out when you don’t look ready to pass out.”

They walked the quarter mile to the trailside restaurant in silence, carrying their rollerblades and helmets by the straps. Jared had taken over backpack duty from Charlotte, now that it was stuffed with their pads as well as all the supplies she’d brought.

“Okay, now this is pretty damn cool,” Jared said. The restaurant was above them on the left, tucked into the side of the hill and surrounded by giant evergreen trees. There were no cars outside, just a long row of bikes and a sizable cubby shelf filled with rollerblades like theirs. All these were monitored by a bored-looking kid in Birkenstocks and a forest-green polo with cargo shorts.

“You can drive here,” she explained as they checked their skates. “There’s a short trail behind the restaurant that leads to a road. Which is important if you do have any family coming who aren’t able to navigate the long walk.”

“How is it possible all this family stuff didn’t occur to me before?” he said. “I can’t decide if it would be better to invite them at the last minute and have to deal with that logistical nightmare, or just have it be me and Bree.”

“Either way is fine. It’s nice to have a romantic dinner alone, if you think the family thing will be a hassle at the last minute. I don’t know your fiancée yet, so I can’t help you with what she might want. Has she ever talked about what she envisions for this moment?”

He shook his head. “We haven’t talked much about the engagement or wedding, really. I mean, we’ve only been dating seriously for six months.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “I mean, we’ve known each other much longer than that. We were friends first.”

“So you said.”

A hostess led them upstairs to a large covered balcony overlooking the trail, the woods, and the Bay beyond. Jared whistled softly at the view as they took their seats and menus.

“Friendship is a good foundation, don’t you think?” He looked at the menu. “For marriage?”

“Absolutely. The veggie burger is to die for here. And they have local beers on draft.”

“Great.” He let his menu drop. “Of course, we were more like friends with benefits. Maybe that’s why I haven’t asked her about all this conventional stuff. When we finally realized we wanted to really be together, I already felt like I knew her so well. We sort of skipped the usual dating questions part of dating.”

“Makes perfect sense.” Charlotte gritted her teeth. She’d promised herself to stay professional, to be his friend. But the twinge of jealousy she felt every time he mentioned Brianna was beginning to feel like a cramp instead.

“What would you want?” he asked.

“Hmmm…” she said. “I’m going to start with a pint of Anchor Steam and about a gallon of water. Then I’m between the veggie burger and the lettuce wraps.”

“No, I mean. If we were…if it were you, getting married. Would you want the guy to ask your dad? Would you want family around?”

“It doesn’t matter what I would want, Jared. Your girlfriend and I are probably very different people. You have to do what’s right for your relationship. With her.”

They were interrupted by the waitress, who took their orders and blessedly, brought water to the table without being asked. Apparently even in drought conditions, this place knew its patrons were fresh off the trail and needed hydration.

“I get that you and Bree aren’t the same and I’m sure you don’t usually offer your clients advice on this,” Jared said when the waitress had left. “But seriously. As my friend. Throw me a bone here. I’m spinning.”

She put a hand on his. “Fine. I don’t know if this will help, but… When Boyd and I moved in together after college and I thought he was about to propose any day, I assumed he would talk to my dad first. It’s a tradition I never questioned. I thought it was the mark of a gentleman.”

“So maybe I should ask…”

“But then my dad died before he got around to it. And two months later, the guy I thought was a perfect gentleman left me for my hairdresser, who was pregnant with his child at the time. And you know, I did the math, and she got pregnant within days of Dad’s funeral. So, I had to re-assess what my ideas of what I thought a good man was.”

“I should have come home and kicked his ass.” Jared looked miserable.

“Probably.” Charlotte took a long sip of water, trying to re-center on the subject at hand. “If it helps, I do think Boyd asked Mimi’s dad for her hand before they made it official at the courthouse. I have no idea if there were firearms involved.”

“I’m sorry.” Jared slumped back in his chair. “And, you’re right. There are no answers.”

“Look. It can be a very sweet, thoughtful gesture if you do it. I don’t buy in to the idea that if a man asks your father, it means he sees you as property, but I understand why some women feel that way. I also don’t think it’s the kind of hurdle a guy should have to go through to prove he’s worthy. If it’s important to a woman that her man do that before proposing, she should let him know early in the relationship. If it’s important to her, you’d probably already know that.”

Jared leaned forward. “So maybe not a huge deal?”

Charlotte shrugged. She hated giving opinions on these things. It wasn’t her place. “Look. I see dozens of couples get engaged every year. Sometimes he asks the dad first, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes it’s the woman doing the proposing, or a guy asking another guy. Sometimes it’s an arranged marriage and they want to add a touch of romance and surprise to the engagement.

“From my view, proposals are always a reflection of who they are as a couple. And they mostly work out…at least the ones who keep me updated. I have hundreds of postcards and Christmas cards and baby announcements in a box in my office, and every one of them is perfect in its own way. I’ve never seen any evidence that a man asking permission to propose makes the slightest difference to the success of the marriage.”

“What you’re saying is, based on your evidence, that I’ll probably be okay either way?”

“Exactly. Oh, thank God. The food!”

Charlotte dived into her veggie burger as if she hadn’t eaten in days. She’d had no idea rollerblading would be such hard work, or that hot food and cold beer could taste so excellent. Jared seemed to relax, too, and she was glad her speech had comforted him.

“Let’s get the rest of the details handled,” she said, “while you figure out the whole question of family. Last-minute plane tickets will be expensive if you need them, but fortunately, you have my favorite kind of budget.”

He laughed. “Well-funded and unfocused?”

“Yep.”

As they ate, she went over a few details of the plan, making notes on her pad as she went, and creating a list of tasks for him to complete. Charlotte agreed to a second round of beers after lunch, stalling against the painful prospect of putting her rollerblades back on. She added Band-Aids and blister cream to her list of essentials to send with Jared the next day.

Once the details were ironed out, Charlotte texted Lily to confirm the time and place of the proposal.

Lily: “Found the perfect spot for your toughest client?”

Charlotte: “YES. Thanks for the push in the right direction.”

Lily: “So when are you going to tell him you’re in love with him and that he should marry you instead?”

Charlotte fumbled, nearly dropping the phone onto the table before she could grab it and shut it off.

“Okay, there? Anchor Steam going to your head?” Jared asked.

“I’m fine. Did you want one more?”

“I do, actually, but I think I’d rather have it after I’ve made the grueling trek back.”

“Speaking of that,” Charlotte said, slightly embarrassed. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to walk back. There’s no way I can put those things back on over these blisters.”

 

 

 

They walked slowly, rollerblades dangling. Charlotte’s legs and back felt like jelly, but a breeze had come up to dry her sweaty clothes and push away the clouds, leaving perfect afternoon sunshine.

Strange: normally with a mere two days to pull off a proposal, she’d be running around like a madwoman, barely eating, cruising on her cortisol high from all the stress. But just now, the casual stroll felt like the perfect pace. Whatever tension Jared had been feeling about the engagement seemed to have left him, at least for now.

Then again, Jared had never been much for worrying.

“So, I guess I haven’t asked yet…” he said after a while. “I mean, maybe I assumed, because…” He coughed.

“What’s up?”

“I mean, I assume you’re not seeing anyone now,” he said, “but what’s your story, since you moved to San Francisco? Have you been breaking all those hearts people keep leaving here?”

She laughed. “Why do you assume I’m not seeing anyone?”

“Because…” He went red, obviously thinking of their kiss the night before.

“I’m not,” she said, letting him off the hook. “Honestly, I don’t have much time to date these days. So many of my evenings are spent helping other people get engaged, the idea of romance at the other end feels exhausting. When I do get a night off, I’d rather just go out with friends to the Piano Bar or sit home on the couch and watch old movies.”

“You’re still into those black-and-white movies? You used to make us watch those for hours.”

“I never made you guys do anything. And yeah, I still love the classics.”

He looked thoughtful for a minute. “So, no big relationships for you? No heartbreaks?”

“Just Boyd,” she said. “That was enough to last me for a while.”

Jared was quiet, watching their shadows lengthen on the path in front of them. Before Charlotte knew it, they had reached the Little Blue Shack and the small trail to the parking lot. Grimacing, she slipped out of her flip-flops and into her sneakers while Jared laced up his boots. “I know this is probably a stupid idea,” he said. “But would you like to have dinner tonight?”

“Don’t you need to…do anything? For tomorrow? Make calls?”

He looked confused.

“Did you decide about the families?”

“Oh, that,” he said. “Yeah, I should’ve said that earlier. Sorry, I’m bad about making decisions in my head and not verbalizing them. Drives my team crazy. The families can wait. This is our moment. And, I mean, what if she says no?”

Charlotte had to stop herself from saying, “She won’t say no,” because it was against the Perfect Proposals’ rules to make promises on which they couldn’t deliver. In five years of doing this, there had been very few prospective spouses who had said no. Usually by the time someone got to the point of contracting for her services, they were pretty sure of the answer. But you never knew.

Still, she couldn’t imagine anyone turning down Jared. Objectively, he was rich and handsome and brilliant and funny. Plus, he was…Jared. Never in all her years of knowing him had she once been unhappy to see Jared. Who wouldn’t want to wake up to that every morning?

“Lotta? You okay?”

She was staring. Shit. “About dinner, I’d better not… I have to make sure there are batteries in all the string lights, call the staff and…everything.”

He gave her the same look he’d given her when she tried to bluff at Texas Hold’Em back in college. “Don’t you think we can handle that in the morning? I mean, far be it for me to tell you how to do your job.”

“I just…”

“Come on, Charlotte. It’s my last night as a single guy. I’d like to spend it with a friend.”

It was as if someone had taken every conversation from their college years and created this one from the same mold. Jared, I can’t—I have an early class. Jared, we all have finals. Please, Jared, we’ve hiked ten miles already today… None of those excuses had ever worked, and nothing she came up with tonight would either.

Besides, hanging out with him on his last night before proposing might be cool. Sort of the boy-girl version of a bachelor party. Except just dinner. No strippers. She was drawing the line at strippers no matter how damn persuasive he was.

“You have a pathological fear of being alone,” she said by way of answer.

“Only in cities.” He grinned. He knew he had her beat. “I’m never lonely in the wilderness, but cities are lonely places.”

He was right about that.

“Just dinner.” She pointed a finger at him and slid into the driver’s seat. “And then I really have to get home and prepare for the most important moment of your life.”

He did a victory fist pump before he slid in next to her. “You won’t be sorry. It’s my treat tonight, no company card.”

“You know we’re just going to expense all this to you anyway, right? It’s in your contract.”

He laughed. “Well then, tonight we’re going off contract. Where’s a place for good pizza?”

She drove him to one of her favorite places near Union Square, a rustic place with a brick oven, chalkboard menu, and huge windows that opened to the sidewalk outside. It was crowded but there was a high-top table near the open window, where they squeezed in and ordered a pitcher of beer.

Charlotte rubbed her sore legs. “Does your app have some kind of drone mechanism that will rescue people who are too tired to keep walking?”

“Not a bad idea,” he said. “Maybe a few years off, though.”

“Too bad. I will need something like that tomorrow for sure, just to get to that clearing.”

“I thought you were using the restaurant access path?”

She swigged the beer. “I am. Still think I may need assistance. I try to stay somewhat fit, but rollerblading is my new nemesis.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but his phone lit up with a picture of a grinning Jared cheek-to-cheek with a blonde woman in a baseball cap. Charlotte only saw the image for a second, and it wasn’t the best picture, but something about it struck her as vaguely familiar.

“Bree. Sorry.” He picked up. “Hey babe! Found a spot in the woods that has decent reception?”

The woman on the other end was so loud Charlotte could hear her side of the conversation as well as Jared’s. She cut right to the chase. “I left you a message earlier. I thought you said you weren’t coming to town this weekend?”

Jared’s brow furrowed. “I wasn’t,” he said carefully. “Are you back already?”

Brianna’s voice was clipped. “I’m back, and I’m standing across the street from the pizza place where you appear to be having a pitcher of beer with another woman.”

Charlotte, whose seat faced the street, glanced over his shoulder and saw three women clustered together on the sidewalk across the street. They all carried pricey handbags and were dressed for a girls’ night out. One of them wore a long, colorful sundress and oversized sunglasses with her white-blonde hair in braids.

Shit. Shit. Double shit.

“The White Witch,” Charlotte said softly, just as Jared turned around to wave.

“Hey there babe!” he said cheerfully into the phone, sounding genuinely happy to see Charlotte’s horrible neighbor, whose real name she had not known until right this minute. “Come on over and say hello. I had some meetings come up today. I didn’t know you were back. I was going to surprise you at the airport in the morning.”

Across the street, Brianna covered the phone to say something to her two companions, who both turned to look at Jared and Charlotte. They conferred briefly and then turned as a group toward the crosswalk at the end of the block. “We’ll be right there,” Brianna said, and hung up.

“Wow, that’s—”

“What are we going to do?” Jared interrupted. “Do you have a plan for this?”

A plan. Sure. “I usually plan to say I’m a business associate, or an old friend, whichever is less suspicious. In this case, I guess both are technically true.”

“Does it work?” Jared was pale with agitation.

“It’s only happened once, to be honest. In that case, we were in a crowded museum so I just slipped away into the crowd.”

“Shit.”

“Jared, relax.” Charlotte tried to be reassuring. “Let’s just stick to the truth—I’m an old friend from college; we bumped into each other at the coffee shop.”

His brow furrowed; he was running calculations. She’d never seen him flustered like this. Where was the guy who’d crashed a super-exclusive sorority fundraiser on a whim? Who’d climbed onto the roof of the school coliseum in the wee hours of the morning, for a better view of the stars?

“Okay,” he agreed. “But you can’t be you. Your name can be…Lisa.”

“Why do I have to have a different name?” Charlotte kept a smile plastered to her face as she discreetly eyed the three women, who were starting across the street.

“Because if you say your name is Charlotte she’ll know immediately who you are, and won’t believe this is a random meeting.”

“She… you’ve told her about me?”

“Bree can be a little insecure about other women sometimes. She’d be really upset to find out I’m at dinner with a woman I used to be madly in love with. Please, Lotta?” A sheepish grin. “I mean, Lisa?”

“Madly…” she started, but saw the pleading look in his eyes. “Fine.”

“Thank you.”

His relief was so palpable, his desperation to keep Brianna happy so acute, that Charlotte felt it tug painfully in her own chest. She took a sip of beer, and within a few seconds, their time was up.

Brianna entered the restaurant in a swirl of tan shoulders and colorful cotton, her white-blonde hair draped in long braids over each shoulder. She was flanked by the other two women, who both wore jeans and tops designed to show off their cleavage. As she neared their table, Brianna’s pretty face screwed up as she tried to place Charlotte. Before recognition could fully dawn, Jared was on his feet, enveloping Brianna in a massive hug and full kiss that lasted a bit longer than you’d expect in a family restaurant.

Charlotte smiled nervously at the two women behind the couple, hoping to commiserate on the awkwardness of the moment, but they both glared at her with narrowed eyes. Sweat began to prickle the back of her neck.

When Jared released his future bride, Brianna had the stunned, hypnotized look of an angry bear hit with a tranquilizer dart.

“Brianna Tarkington,” Jared said, before she could recover. “This is Lisa…”

“Jones,” Charlotte finished for him, extending her hand. “Lisa Jones.” It occurred to her that Brianna might have heard Charlotte’s real name through their mutual neighbors.

“I know you…” Brianna said slowly, perhaps thinking the same thing. She didn’t reach for Charlotte’s extended hand, but examined her sweaty clothes and ponytail as if those might be clues to the mystery. “Don’t you live on Twenty-Seventh?”

“Yes, I believe we’re neighbors.” Charlotte let her unshaken hand drop. She felt a little sick, as though she and Jared had been caught in bed together, rather than having pizza and beer. “Nice to officially meet you.”

Jared’s eyes went wide. He shot Charlotte a “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?” look, while she tried to keep her composure.

“Don’t you live with that crazy lesbian? With the short brown hair?” Brianna rolled her eyes toward her companions. “This woman screamed at me once for double-parking, like I’d murdered her only child. It went on for hours.”

Charlotte remembered the occasion vividly, when Brianna’s gas-guzzling white Hummer had been parked in front of their house for almost a week, taking up two of the already scarce street spots. Lily had been forced to lug her photography equipment four blocks in the rain from the nearest open space. It had been Charlotte herself who had suggested Lily politely confront the White Witch. It had not gone well and the Hummer was more frequently parked in front of their place after that.

“She’s not a lesbian,” Charlotte said quietly, but no one seemed to be listening.

“Remember that, babe?” Brianna turned to Jared, running a fingernail down his arm. “It was the first time you came to stay with me, and we didn’t leave the apartment for days…?”

“What a coincidence!” Jared went crimson; another thing Charlotte had never seen him do. “Speaking of coincidences, Lisa here is an old friend from college. We just ran into each other at a coffee shop. Isn’t that crazy? Just a random coffee shop. I had no idea she even lived in San Francisco.”

He was rambling; Charlotte kicked him lightly under the table.

Brianna pursed her lips. “But why are you here? I thought you weren’t coming until tomorrow?”

Maybe Charlotte was imagining it, but she thought Brianna’s friends exchanged a look, maybe worried that a boyfriend in town was going to ruin whatever they had planned for the evening.

“I flew in early for a meeting,” Jared said. “Thought I’d surprise you at the airport tomorrow.”

“Oh, babe,” Brianna whined, encircling his neck with her thin, tanned arms. “You know I hate surprises.”

Well, that’s good news, Charlotte thought, since he’s planning to propose to you tomorrow while you’re rollerblading.

“Since when?” Jared sounded hurt. “Besides, you’re back early, too.”

“Hmmm? Oh. I finished up early and the girls texted about dinner.” Brianna released him and turned to gesture at her companions. “This is Madison and Keely. We were just headed out for sushi with some friends. I’d invite you and, um, Lisa, but…”

Brianna took in Charlotte’s sweaty athletic clothes with a wrinkled nose.

“Oh, that’s okay,” Charlotte said. “I have other plans, too. Later. Not with Jared. Just me. I mean, with other friends you don’t know. Plans to go out. Obviously, I’ll shower first.”

Now she was the one rambling, but Jared didn’t kick her; he just looked a bit stunned by the whole experience.

“Well, then. I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Brianna said, clearly satisfied that no one as verbally incontinent and badly dressed as Charlotte could be making a play for her man. She did, however, give Jared a thorough, intense kiss before she spun on her sandaled heel and led her friends out of the restaurant.

Charlotte watched them go, thinking Brianna looked very polished and purposeful for someone who had just returned unexpectedly from a kids’ summer camp.

The White Witch was Jared’s girlfriend. How was this possible? Not that she knew her or anything, but Brianna didn’t strike Charlotte as the serious relationship type. Didn’t Lily say Brianna had brought home the guy with the lip ring just last night? Maybe they were just friends. Coworkers. Out of town visitors were always looking for free places to stay in San Francisco. Maybe lip ring guy was Brianna’s brother from Omaha…

“You okay?” Jared asked. “Sorry to make you lie on the spot like that.”

“It’s fine.” Charlotte came back to the present as the waiter delivered their white pizza with buffalo chicken. “I hope she won’t be angry when she finds out the truth.”

“Nah. Once she gets that ring on her finger, nothing else will matter.”

They dug into the pizza. The long white bands of cheese dripping off the edges made it easy to focus on the process of eating rather than talking. The shock that Jared’s future wife was Charlotte’s despised neighbor had distracted her from something else important, which was now bubbling back to the front of her awareness.

He’d talked to Brianna about her. He’d told his girlfriend that he’d once been madly in love with Charlotte. This contradicted everything he’d said earlier today. He’d made it sound as if he asked her to run away after college on a whim, and that his disappointment had been easily healed by the comforts of being alone—and not alone—on his adventures.

If that were the case, why would he have told his girlfriend of six months about it?

“Brianna doesn’t like surprises,” she said, opting for a safer topic. “Do you think she has any idea you’re going to propose?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. She’s been hinting about it. Talking about the house she wants me to build for her, that kind of thing. You know…”

“Sure. She’s probably picked a good school district, right?”

“She didn’t seem worried about that. Actually, we haven’t talked about kids at all. I guess it’s sort of at the fantasy stage, you know? A house on a cliff overlooking Monterrey Bay, that kind of thing.”

“So you’ll be moving here?” Charlotte’s chest tightened. “Isn’t the business staying in Austin?” She couldn’t decide whether she desperately wanted him to live nearby, or the exact opposite. Would he move in four doors down from her? Would she have to watch his whole damn happy life unfold out her miserable window?

“We haven’t really gotten that far.” He took another slice of pizza from the metal tray between them. “Lots of options. But she has to say yes first.”

Charlotte set down the crust of her first slice and took a long sip of her beer before she selected another piece.

“You still don’t eat the crust,” Jared observed. “What a waste. You know the whole pizza is made on the same crust, right?”

“As you reminded me twice a week in college.” She took an extravagant bite of her new slice.

“I’m always cleaning up after you.” He swiped the abandoned crust from her plate. “Just think, if I do move here, we could have pizza every week like we used to. It would be like old times.”

“How would Brianna feel about that?” Charlotte regretted the question as soon as it came out of her mouth. Too close to the elephant.

He stopped chewing momentarily, then spoke casually. “Fine. She’ll love you just as much as I do. We’ll double date with you and…”

“Whatever poor sap I can find at the moment?”

“Sure,” he said. “You can even bring the real Lily and her DJ boyfriend. We’ll find a place that does trivia night or something.”

Charlotte’s heart ached. It was beautiful picture: the casual, comfortable friendship she’d been missing ever since she’d watched his battered Sentra pull away after graduation. That was college friendship, though, and they had both left it behind years ago.

Besides, did Jared really think Brianna, who hated both her and Lily long before they’d known each other’s names, was going to want to hang out with them every week? Or even let him hang out with them, after he’d apparently told her about his feelings for Charlotte back in the day? If she were in Brianna’s place, there was no frigging way.

She shook her head. “You make it sound like you’ll just move here, and then I’m going to find some amazing guy, and we’ll take turns grilling out at each other’s houses. Our kids will go to the same preschool and we’ll play cards on Saturday nights.”

“Why not?” he said. “You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend. Why shouldn’t we hang out together?”

She stared at him, searching for an answer.

Because I can’t stand your girlfriend and I think you’re making a huge mistake.

Because there’s no way I can stay so close to you when you’re married to someone else.

Because maybe I chose poorly on graduation night. And maybe I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

“Because…that’s just not how things work out. Not in real life. Even the Jared Kunitz Effect has its limitations.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, how you skate through life, doing whatever you feel like doing, and somehow the universe just paves the way for you.”

“I do not skate through life,” he said testily. “I’ve worked hard for what I have.”

“I’m not talking about money, Jared. I’m saying, while the rest of us plan and budget and worry, you just follow your instincts. You think you can just do whatever stupid, impulsive thing strikes you and somehow it’s all going to work out perfectly.”

“Stupid and impulsive, huh?” He downed the rest of his beer and slammed the glass on the table. “You mean like deciding not to become an insurance salesman like Boyd did after college? Deciding to make my own destiny? Just because you didn’t want to be a part of it doesn’t mean it’s wrong…”

She cringed. “This has nothing to do with that. I mean, impulsive like marrying someone you barely know, in another city, with no idea if you even want the same things in life. You haven’t talked about marriage or kids and you have no idea which city you will live in when you get married—but you hired a proposal planner to make this big production out of your engagement? That’s just so typical of you, Jared. Make a big splash, get by on your charm, don’t worry about responsibility or doing the right thing. And I’m supposed to be here to watch it all go down? I’m going to have to tell whatever poor idiot who marries me that we’re already committed to playing cards every Saturday night with someone I hate, because that’s what you want. And God forbid Jared Kunitz doesn’t get what he wants!”

He stared at her. “Someone you hate?”

“She drives a fucking Hummer, Jared! And she double-parks it. All the time. In San Francisco. You don’t do that here.”

“Let me get this straight—you’re yelling at me in a restaurant because I want to marry someone who drives a Hummer?”

“And double-parks it! And she…. There are all these guys. Maybe they’re friends or whatever, but… It’s hard to explain. She’s just…not a good person, Jared.”

He glared at her. “That is unbelievably unfair, Charlotte. You don’t know her. Who are you now, Mrs. Kravitz, the nosy neighbor? Bree has a lot of friends, men and women; I’m cool with it. It’s one of the things I love about her. And just because we haven’t discussed every little detail of our future doesn’t mean our marriage is doomed. Not everyone has to plan their life down to the minute like you do.”

“I don’t—”

“I’m not finished. Because you know what I think this is about? No matter what you say, I think this is about that stupid kiss last night, and you reading more into it than was there. I think this is about you realizing that you made the wrong choice seven years ago, now that I’m….” He clenched his fist, anger keeping him from finding his words. “Now that I’m successful; the kind of guy you might consider a life with. Now that you know you’d be safe.”

It was as if he’d punched her.

He was still talking, but she couldn’t make out the rest of the words. The wind had been knocked from her chest. Never once, in all her ruminations about Jared over the last two days, had Charlotte considered his financial situation as a factor. Not in her feelings, not in whether she should share those feelings with him. She had never once considered that being with Jared could mean a house on a cliff overlooking Monterrey Bay or anywhere else. Charlotte had only been thinking that her best friend was back in her life, and that being with him would mean being with him. It was what she had wanted years ago but had been too afraid to accept, and now that she had…

Their confrontation had cleared the fog from her brain, and given her a clear view into what was now the smoking, gaping wreckage of her heart.

It had been stupid of her not to think about the money. Or at least to know that he would be. Then again, she’d done a lot of stupid things in the last thirty-six hours. She watched his mouth moving. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she tried to tune in to the words.

“This isn’t some competition where the best person gets to have me, Charlotte. I know it may be hard for your Type A brain to understand, but I am in love with this woman. She double-parks her SUV? Fine. I snore really loud and my feet stink. This is the crap we learn to live with when we marry someone, right?”

“Jared, please. I didn’t mean…”

“Look. Maybe you’ve had some epiphany. Maybe you realize now that I would have loved you better than Boyd, which I think we both knew, even that night.”

“I didn’t. I mean, part of me always…”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said abruptly. “Even if you did want me, now that I meet your standards for a successful life, I’m with Brianna now. The kiss last night was a mistake, and I’m sorry. I never intended for you to misinterpret what was happening between us. I guess it was…you know. Pre-engagement jitters.”

Another jab. “So, you could have kissed anyone last night?”

Something in Jared’s face softened. “No. It’s just, you and I have history. It felt like…unfinished business. You know, like confronting the bully who used to put your head in the toilet, kissing the girl you could never have for breaking your heart.”

“So this was some kind of revenge fantasy?” A horrible thought struck her and the tears began to roll. “Did you know I worked for Perfect Proposals? Did you do all this…on purpose?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not. I was just as surprised yesterday as you were. And it wasn’t a revenge fantasy. Jesus, Charlotte. You’re my friend. I care about you. I’d never hurt you on purpose. If I’d known you had these kinds of feelings, I…”

Somewhere at her center, Charlotte found a hard core of calm civility. “Did I say I had feelings for you?” She almost added, “out loud” but managed to hold back.

“No.” He paused. “I guess you didn’t.”

“Maybe I’m just a concerned friend who doesn’t want you to get hurt.” She wiped frantically at her eyes.

“Well, thanks for your concern,” he echoed. “But I’m a big boy and I can handle myself. I’ve managed just fine for the last seven years without you.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “But I need you to know one thing. When I turned you down on graduation night, I didn’t say all the right things because you surprised me. And you’re right, I was scared. But I wasn’t scared of being poor with you or falling in love with my feckless friend whose life had no direction.

“I was scared of jumping in a car and leaving my sick father to worry about when he might hear from me. I was worried how he’d react when he found out I wasn’t in love with Boyd, whom he adored, and whose parents he’d already met. My dad died believing I was about to marry a nice boy with a nice stable family; he died with pictures in his mind of what his grandchildren would look like.”

The tears were flowing now, and Jared’s eyes were red, too. “As far as Dad knew, Boyd had every intention of taking care of me forever. I could never have given him that if I’d upheaved my life on graduation night and gone to live in a tent with you. However badly I might have wanted to.”

“You knew that day, that your dad was sick? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t stick around long enough, did you? I had just found out a couple of days earlier. We were just trying to process it and get through graduation. And you were gone before brunch the next day. I never saw you again.”

“But if I’d known—”

“You would have stayed. I know that. Even as a friend. But Jared, I was so confused then. I’d told myself since fall of our freshman year that I was in love with Boyd. Told my family that, and his. My feelings for you were terrifying and different and I had no idea how they would turn out, except that they were going to tear apart everything I felt sure of, while my dying father had to watch. Dad’s cancer was scary, but I had a pretty good idea how that was going to turn out. I couldn’t ask you to put your dreams, your adventure, on hold. Not for something so unlikely to end well.”

“So if I’d waited…”

It was her turn to shrug. “Who knows, Jared? But I’m glad you didn’t. Because that wouldn’t have made you happy. And now…you are. You clearly love Brianna, and I’m sorry if I did anything tonight to sully that. You’re right. I read too much into our kiss. I guess I had more unfinished business in my life than I realized.”

She stood and patted him on the stubbly cheek, trying desperately to be the woman who could take the high road. Sling her lipstick case into a holster on her hip and saunter out with her head held high. She flashed him what she hoped was a sophisticated, Lauren Bacall smile. “You’ve always been my road not taken. Every girl needs the one who got away.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to call Owen to brief him on the plan for tomorrow. You deserve the most spectacular engagement ever, and you can’t have that with me in your way. It was unprofessional of me to try, if I’m honest.”

“Charlotte, wait.” He grabbed her arm.

“I think we’ve said enough, don’t you?” She patted his hand. He had to let go or she was never getting out of here with her dignity intact. “It was beautiful to see you again, Jared. I wish you every happiness.”

Only when she was halfway to the door did it occur to Charlotte she hadn’t paid for her half of the pizza or beer. That might diminish the “high road” aspect of this, just the teensiest bit. Also, they were in her car. He’d have to call for a ride home. Would Lauren Bacall have paid for her own pizza? Maybe Charlotte was more of a Deborah Kerr.

Too late now. It was better not to look back. Every movie she’d ever seen confirmed it. What was she hoping? That he’d follow her out and profess his undying love?

Still, just as she crossed the threshold of the door, she needed to know.

But Jared wasn’t following her. He was leaning on one elbow, propped on the table, looking away. She turned back toward the street. “That’s why you never look back,” she muttered, and went on, pulling out her phone to call Owen before she even got to her car.

 

 

 

“Tell me you didn’t just willingly hand over your richest, most connected client to Owen.” Lily stared at Charlotte as she handed her a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.

“Did you miss the part where I said his girlfriend is the freaking White Witch? She’s like, your nemesis.”

“I know, and that’s awful. But giving up like this. It’s just so…not like you.”

“Are you trying to say that I’m normally cutthroat and ambitious?”

“I wouldn’t have said that,” Lily said, carefully. “At least not to your face. It’s just that you typically aren’t so easily defeated.”

“What makes you think I’m defeated?”

“You’re watching An Affair to Remember. That means either a huge professional setback or severe PMS.” Lily kicked off her shoes and sank into the other end of the couch. “And I happen to know we’re still eight days from the latter.”

Charlotte’s spoon froze in midair, the Chubby Hubby suspended momentarily as she stared at her roommate. “We’ve been living together for way too long.”

“So…I guess that makes this an okay time to tell you that Darren asked me to move in with him?”

“Ha, ha. Way to kick the perpetually single girl while she’s down,” Charlotte said, watching Deborah Kerr order a pink champagne cocktail. Now that was a drink order. Deborah Kerr wouldn’t drink gin and tonic from a giant plastic cup. “Maybe I should start drinking pink champagne like a classy broad. What do you think Brianna orders at bars? Something fruity maybe, with an umbrella?”

Lily didn’t respond.

“You’re right,” Charlotte went on, scraping the side of the ice cream carton with her spoon. “She’s more like the shot of wheatgrass kind of girl. She probably doesn’t drink at all. Maybe that’s our problem, you and I. Maybe we should give up the wine and booze and start doing yoga at four a.m.”

When Lily didn’t laugh or protest vociferously, Charlotte finally turned to look at her. Lily was pink. She never blushed.

“Oh my God. You’re serious.”

“It’s crazy, right? Too soon.”

“No! Lils, you’ve been dating the guy for over a year and you’re both paying San Francisco rent. Of course he asked you to move in with him!” Charlotte put down the ice cream and threw her arms around her roommate. “I’m so happy for you!”

“It’s not like we’re engaged or anything,” Lily said, though the tears sparkling in her eyes belied the emotional significance of the moment. “But since I have no intention of having some big dramatic proposal after working this job for so long, I guess it’s the closest thing I’ll get.”

“How did he ask?” Charlotte said, in spite of herself.

Lily looked sheepish. “Technically, he didn’t ask.” She reached beneath her collar and extracted a length of red twine, with a shiny silver key dangling at the end. “He just slipped this over my head when he left to go to the club tonight. He said that he didn’t have to look for a new roommate next month if I didn’t want him to. He said there’s plenty of room for both of our equipment in the extra bedroom.”

“So…he asked you to merge equipment?”

“It was sweeter than it sounds. For a DJ and a photographer, equipment is a big deal.”

Charlotte laughed. “I don’t know how I didn’t realize this sooner. Darren’s a DJ, you’re a photographer. You’re half a wedding or bar mitzvah.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “You can be the wedding planner. We just need to find a caterer and a seamstress and we’re all set.”

“Ugh. NO weddings. I’m not even sure I want to do proposals any more. I’m fed up with other people’s disgusting happiness.” She hesitated, then looked at Lily. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“This Jared guy has you really upset, huh?”

“I know. It’s stupid.” Charlotte threw herself back against the chair and put her hands over her eyes. “I thought I’d left my college drama behind.”

“Yeah, you’ve barely mentioned this guy since I met you. You’ve talked a tiny bit about Boyd…”

“Boyd,” Charlotte echoed. “Yet another man who I trusted with my innermost self, only to have him wind up marrying someone else.”

Lily opened her mouth and closed it, picking at imaginary lint on their spotless white couch.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Lily.”

“Okay, it’s just…I hate to argue with you when I know my job as your friend is to feed you ice cream and tell you he’s a jerk…”

“But?”

“But you didn’t trust him with your innermost self, did you? You didn’t track him down after he left Athens, or even after you left Boyd. And these last two days, have you told him how you feel? I mean, in a way that didn’t come off like a criticism of his girlfriend?”

“You hate his girlfriend! And I—” Charlotte started to defend herself, but stopped talking as she considered whether Lily might be right.

“And, if I can challenge you a little further.” Lily gently rested a hand on Charlotte’s knee. “He’s also not marrying someone else. Not yet. Not tonight. He won’t even be engaged until tomorrow night.”

“What are you suggesting? That I make an even bigger ass of myself than I already have? Track him down and throw myself at him, when I’m not even sure how I feel? We’re in this business, Lils. We know what a big deal it is to ruin someone’s proposal.”

“I’m suggesting,” Lily stood and put the lid on her Cherry Garcia, “that I’ve never known you to accept defeat so easily. And maybe if your feelings are this strong, you should go after your own happiness instead of resenting everyone else’s.”

She bent down and kissed Charlotte on the forehead. “I’d tell you to get some rest, but I think we both know that’s not happening tonight.”

“I really am happy for you and Darren.”

“I know you are. And I’m counting on you to take my side when it comes to giving my equipment space in our apartment.”

Charlotte watched her shuffle off toward the stairs and bed, wondering how she would have survived her first five years in San Francisco without her implacable, weird roommate.

 

 

 

Charlotte woke up early the next morning and threw on a comfortable jersey skirt and ratty t-shirt. She spent Saturday focused on conspicuously normal things. She walked to the corner bakery for her favorite coffee and croissant, and forced herself to sit at a sidewalk table with the newspaper, though she found her eyes strayed constantly from the words to the people passing. Had Jared spent the night with Brianna? Were they going to walk past her any moment, hand in hand?

She did every bit of her laundry, including the hand wash items. Perhaps in response to her first time ever being fired by a client, she re-organized her proposal portfolio, updating the book with some of the recent engagements that made her the proudest.

There was the Giants fan who’d recruited his family and friends to wear t-shirts that spelled out “MARRY ME SUSAN” during the seventh inning stretch at AT&T Park. The musical theater star who proposed to her boyfriend by singing “What About Love?” from The Color Purple in the middle of a crowded BART train. The Renaissance Faire proposal that had involved flaming swords and minstrels and one particularly randy grandfather in a kilt.

Charlotte paused, smiling, on her favorite proposal of the year. Bernard was a painfully shy IT executive who’d somehow managed to walk onstage in front of five hundred strangers to propose to Tim, his middle school band-director boyfriend. Together, she and Bernard (and a very accommodating band booster club) had recruited the kids to play a surprise wedding march at the end of their annual eighth-grade concert. Somehow, the parents, and a helpful chorale teacher down the hall, had coordinated having the kids rehearse the extra song in secret, so that just when he was ready to relax after the concert, their beloved director got the shock of his life.

Lily had captured the moment beautifully—shock, tears, laughter, kiss, applause. Charlotte ran an affectionate finger over the glossy, happy faces of the couple, surrounded by kids cheering and hoisting their instruments in the air in triumph. Her heart swelled with pride. This was what she loved: bringing people together.

Was that what Charlotte did?

In her best moments, she felt proud of creating unforgettable moments, stories that would be handed down to children and grandchildren as part of the family lore.

But in her worst moments, like this one—alone in her apartment, trying desperately not to look at the clock as the time to Jared’s big night ticked away—she sometimes felt she had the silliest profession on earth. Her clients already knew who they wanted to be with. Presumably if her services were not available, they would find other ways of proposing. Like the traditional candlelit dinner or the ring hidden in the cake. Or just turning to each other in a quiet moment and saying, “Let’s do this.” Was all the pomp and drama really necessary? What did it prove?

In the stack of photos from the middle school—Lily had taken hundreds, apparently—there was a shot of three girls from the woodwind section, grinning faces pressed together, holding a congratulatory sign that all the kids had autographed. Charlotte had not looked closely at this shot before, but now she noticed Tim and Bernard in the near distance behind the girls, faces pressed close as they shared some snippet of private conversation. Bernard was still splotchy from the embarrassment of declaring himself in front of all those people—poor thing, he’d been so terrified backstage that Charlotte had almost offered him a Xanax. Tim looked delighted, of course, but his hand on Bernard’s shoulder conveyed something else.

Pride. Tim’s future husband had extended himself way, way outside his comfort zone to declare his love. That was what meant the most, Charlotte realized. On top of the kids, and the sweet drama of surprise. Bernard had done what was hardest for him, what was riskiest. That was love.

Scrambling up to find the tissues and her keys, Charlotte glanced at the clock. Six thirty, just an hour before sunset. She would never make it, but she sure as hell had to try.

 

 

 

Just as Charlotte was careening out the door, phone in hand, she nearly slammed into Lily on the front stoop. Lily was on her phone with her back to the door and Charlotte was trying to text Jared as she flew toward the car. Please wait. We need to talk.

“Where are you going?” Lily ended her call. “I was just coming home to see if you wanted to go out for a drink.”

“Not now.” Charlotte dodged past her. “I have to go break up an engagement.”

“Are you serious?” Lily’s face was bright with astonishment. But she shook her head. “I can’t let you do that.”

“I’m just doing what you said last night,” Charlotte said. “Screw professionalism. Screw etiquette. None of it means anything if you can’t tell someone you love them, right?”

“Right,” Lily agreed. “I’m totally in favor of this weird, career-sabotaging long shot of a romantic gesture. I just can’t let you do it alone.”

They grinned at each other and Charlotte tossed Lily her keys. “You drive. I’ll navigate.”

 

They pulled up by the restaurant on the Iron Horse Trail where Jared and Charlotte had eaten just the day before, leaving the Prius with the valet and scaling down the embankment around the back. Charlotte heard laughter from the downstairs area of the restaurant as they passed its open door, but she refused to look in. If they were already celebrating, she didn’t want to know. Hard facts and painful realities could come later. She had to see his face, had to make him understand.

For now, she focused on making it to the clearing, and ignoring the fact that she was leaving Lily farther and farther behind as she hit the trail and began the uphill jog toward the clearing.

Her legs were sore and the flip-flops rubbed painfully between her toes as she ran. She should’ve taken the time to trade for sneakers, but physical concerns were the last thing on her mind right now. Were they here? Would she see them in the clearing when she crested the hill? Or were they still rollerblading up? She glanced at the setting sun. The thought of Jared down on one knee, or kissing Brianna in the dusk beneath the string lights, was too much. She broke into a run.

When her feet pounded into view of the clearing, her heart lurched as her vision struggled to adjust. The string lights glowed in a gorgeous semi-circle, just as she’d imagined, and there was a white linen tablecloth off to the side with a metal ice bucket, just as she’d instructed the Perfect Proposals staff. In the middle, a couple danced slowly, as though the rest of the world—including a few late passersby on the trail oohing and aahing as they went past—did not exist.

Charlotte’s heart shattered.

She nearly collapsed on the concrete path as memories assaulted her, from the last two days, and from college before that. Jared, leaning over her at the techno club, guarding her body, with his face so close to hers. Jared, holding her hand on a park bench after she and Boyd had some stupid fight in college. You know I love the guy, she could still hear him say, but I’m not sure he’s good enough to love you. How had she not known then? Why hadn’t she leaned in to kiss him right that minute and forgotten about stupid, cheating Boyd?

Jared, face contorted with anguish, as he kissed her on the forehead and drove his old Sentra away to start his life’s adventure. Jared, face clouded with anger and hurt as she undermined and ruined his happiness—yet again—last night.

Oh, God. I’m a terrible person.

Charlotte turned away from the clearing, shame pricking at her eyes. For the last five years, she’d prided herself on bringing happiness to others, but when it came to the person she loved most, she’d brought him nothing but heartbreak and disappointment. How could she have been thinking of breaking up the happiest moment of his life? How could she ruin her best friend’s proposal to the love of his life?

Worse than a terrible person.

A terrible engagement planner.

She turned to walk back down the hill, seeing Lily on the phone a few paces ahead, shuffling toward her at a lackluster pace. She couldn’t hear what Lily was saying, but her smile told Charlotte she was likely talking to Darren. Charlotte felt a twinge of amused happiness, followed by an irrational urge to shove that phone down Lily’s smug, happy little throat. Followed by the sinking feeling that perhaps she wasn’t a very good friend to Lily, either.

Lily saw her and ended the conversation as they closed the distance between them. “Everything okay?” she said cheerfully.

“Of course not,” Charlotte said bitterly. “It’s already happened. They’re dancing in the clearing like the end of a freaking Hallmark movie. Can we just go before they come this way?”

“It’s…already happened?” Lily looked genuinely confused.

“We knew it was a long shot. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Lily. I’m sorry, but I’ve done enough damage here. He’s engaged to someone else and I have to go home and cry in my wine. Maybe figure out how to be a better human.”

“That’s…” Lily wrinkled her nose. “That’s a weird thing to say. But I meant, are you sure that’s Jared in the clearing? Did you see his face?”

“Yes. Wait…” Had she?

Lily grabbed her hand and dragged Charlotte up the hill. “You know what? We came a long way for this and there’s a lot at stake. Let’s go for visual confirmation, shall we?”

Charlotte allowed herself to be pulled up the hill, hoping Lily would look first. If that was Jared in the clearing and she had to see it for herself, she might never recover. But if it wasn’t…

“See?” Lily said triumphantly while Charlotte stared at her aching feet at the top of the hill. But she couldn’t look up. “They’re like, in their sixties, girl. Either your friend Jared has aged a lot in the last twenty-four hours, or we’ve got a case of mistaken identity.”

Charlotte looked more closely now, seeing that the couple was indeed much older than she’d originally thought. The man wore a plaid button-down, shorts and Birkenstocks, but now that she was paying attention, his hair was certainly silvery. And the woman was not only half a foot shorter than Brianna, with wider hips beneath her broomstick skirt, but she was also clearly African American. Both wore dull gold wedding rings that shone just enough to be visible in the fairy lights. Way to go, Charlotte. You’re a genius.

As though they felt the scrutiny, the couple slowed and drifted apart at their approach. The man’s grin was sheepish as he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Sorry. Did you have something planned here?” He gestured at the clearing. “We always walk out here and this little spot looks so pretty all decked out. It just seemed like it needed dancing.” He paused and gently pushed the woman forward. “My wife talked me into it.”

The woman stepped back and smacked him lightly on the arm. “I did not, you old liar. I told you there was something planned here.” She looked at Charlotte. “It’s beautiful like this. We pass this clearing almost every day and I’ve never noticed how pretty it is.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Charlotte said, delighted. And it was. The trees. The lights. The mosquitos and ticks and blisters between her toes. Everything was lovely again because Jared wasn’t here, getting engaged. Charlotte didn’t know what it meant. But for now, hope was enough. “Please keep dancing. We don’t need this spot anymore.”

As they turned to make their way back to the car, Charlotte tried not to be annoyed that Lily was staring at her phone, swiping and typing instead of watching where she was going or helping Charlotte brainstorm their next move. Probably texting Darren or shopping for furniture for their new place together. Charlotte waited patiently for a minute or two: slowing her own anxious, shuffling steps to match Lily’s meandering, and twice pulling her out of the path of speeding bicycles.

On the third near-collision, Charlotte broke. “For the love of God, Lily. I’m happy for you and Darren, but can’t you just focus on what the hell we’re going to do next? I have no idea how to find Jared. What if he’s getting on a plane right now and I never get to see him again?”

“That’s what I’m doing, actually,” Lily said, more triumphant than hurt. “I just downloaded the PathFinder app and I’m guessing at Jared’s username. Since that will show us exactly where he is.”

“Oh.” Charlotte was floored. Why hadn’t she thought of that? “Brilliant idea, Lils.”

Lily pretended to be insulted. “Once in a while, I can get things right.”

They stopped on the side of the darkening path, staring hopefully at the screen between them as it loaded.

 

“This can’t be right.” Charlotte buckled her seat belt as Lily steered the Prius out of the restaurant parking lot.

“I know.” Lily fumbled to adjust the driver’s seat. “You can’t tell until after you’ve tipped the valet whether they’ve completely screwed up your seat placement and changed your radio station. It’s one of the great injustices of modern life.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “No, I mean, this says Jared is at the Children’s Creativity Museum, and they’re not open this late on Saturday. Unless…” She got a sick, tightening feeling in her stomach. Unless Owen had suggested it as an alternate proposal site. Of course he wouldn’t use the Iron Horse spot after the argument with Charlotte. “The carousel area is gorgeous at night.” She cringed. “They do rent out for private events.”

“No,” Lily said firmly. “It would never have been available last minute. Even for your friend Richie Rich.”

Charlotte bit her lip, doubtful. Jared could pull off just about anything he wanted. He wasn’t a “take no for an answer” kind of guy. Which was exactly what she was afraid of.

“I’m sure there is another perfectly reasonable explanation for him being on that particular corner. Maybe the app isn’t as precise as we think.”

Charlotte let it drop. There was only one way to find out what Jared was up to, and that was to see for themselves. They were forty minutes from the city, and guessing in advance would only make her feel worse. Still, as they exited the Bay Bridge, she found herself staring at the tiny blue hiking boot that represented Jared on the map, thinking how lovely the glass-encased Children’s Museum carousel looked at night.

“Wait!” She smacked Lily’s leg as they turned onto Fourth Street. “He’s moving! Turn right.”

“I can’t turn here—it’s one-way. And a mess.”

Traffic on the next block was snarled, as blinking construction signs forced drivers into a single lane and evening commuters refused to let others get over. A large dump truck ahead was backing forcefully into the road, careless of the congestion. Seeing a gap in the lane next to them, Lily jammed the wheel hard to the right and floored it. Charlotte covered her eyes as the car in the next lane stopped inches from her door. They sat at an awkward angle across the lanes for two cycles of the light while impotent horns blared and no one moved around them.

“It’d be faster to walk,” Charlotte said abysmally. “He’s two blocks away already. Do you think they’re together?”

When she looked up, Lily was hurriedly shoving her own phone under her leg. “Seriously, Lils?”

“Just seeing where Darren is playing tonight. You know, for after…”

“That’s illegal, not to mention… Wait. He’s stopped again. Second and Hubbard? What’s there?” Charlotte zoomed in on the map until company names appeared. “The LinkedIn headquarters? What on earth would he be doing there?”

At a snail’s pace, they made their way toward the blue boot through creeping traffic, only to find that once they were a block away, Jared moved two blocks up the street to a spot that appeared to be a recruiting firm.

“Is he conducting business? Maybe Brianna accepted, and now he’s introducing her to his network?” It didn’t make sense, even to Charlotte’s paranoid brain.

“Maybe he’s out for a run,” Lily countered. “Or she said no, and he’s doing a pub-crawl to drown his sorrows.”

Charlotte said nothing. None of those explanations made sense either. “Hang on,” she said as they passed the towering LinkedIn building. “He’s changed direction again. But he’s definitely not running—he’s moving way too fast this time.”

The boot was blinking now, weaving quickly through the little streets in the museum district, as though carried by a veteran San Francisco cab driver. She and Lily would never be able to track him down if they had to chase a cab. Neither their navigation or driving skills were that strong. She watched Jared moving on the map, wishing she could reach into the phone and pin down the damn little boot to make it stand still.

“He’s stopped again,” she said. “At the Wells Fargo near Union Square. Turn left.”

“Maybe he’s stopped at the ATM?”

“Maybe…” The light above them turned green—they were just a block away from him now. “But he’s been standing still for a while. I guess it could be a long line?”

“Wait a second…” Lily looked thoughtful. “He’s at the Wells Fargo building? And before that he was at LinkedIn?”

“No, before that he was at some recruiting office—something with an M?”

“Magley and Associates?”

Charlotte was astonished. “How did you know that? Are you living some secret corporate life I don’t know about?”

Lily laughed. “No, but I have lots of friends who are artists. And I think I know where he’s headed next.” She pulled the car into the next open garage, where they pulled a ticket for four dollars an hour. “We can walk to Union Square.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Charlotte promised as they exited the garage onto the sidewalk. “I know you hate paying prime parking rates.”

But Lily just tugged her across the side street. “This way—let’s cut the corner. We won’t catch him at the bank, but at Union Square we’ve got a shot. There are three of them there.”

“Three what?”

“The heart sculptures!” Lily’s look of triumph was undeniable. “The Hearts in San Francisco installations. I have a friend on the artist selection committee and she’s always talking about who’s bought that year’s sculptures. There’s one at the Children’s Creativity Museum and another at LinkedIn.”

The light was coming on in Charlotte’s foggy brain. She knew the sculptures, of course. The giant hearts, individually created in different styles by various artists, were San Francisco landmarks and a staple background for engagement proposals.

“See?” Lily waved the phone at her as they dodged other pedestrians on the sidewalk. The blue boot was moving again. “Jared is going from heart to heart!”

Charlotte stopped cold, putting her hand on the nearest building to steady herself. In the fervor of the chase, Lily was several paces ahead before she noticed her friend had fallen behind.

She looked a little annoyed as she returned to Charlotte. “What is it?”

“I know you said not to obsess about it, I’m not supposed to guess what he’s doing, but…Lily, let’s get real. There’s only one reason a man with a serious girlfriend would be touring the Hearts in San Francisco on a Saturday night. There’s only one reason a man contracts the services of a proposal planner. He’s in love with Brianna, and whatever I do next is just going to disrupt his happiness. I can’t do that to him again.”

Lily looked exasperated. Charlotte took a half-step backward as though her friend were going to smack her. Not that she could blame her…she’d dragged Lily all over the Bay Area tonight looking for Jared and now that they knew where he was, she was chickening out.

But her friend took a deep breath and spoke calmly. “What did you say to me, three years ago, when I told you I couldn’t do professional event photography? When I was ready to move back home to Oklahoma and work at Glamour Shots?”

“I don’t remember. I just knew how good you were and I thought you’d be great…”

“You said, ‘You’ll never know what you can do until you take the risk.’”

“I said that?”

“Those were your exact words. I remember, because I thought about them the whole time I was unpacking my duffel bag.”

Charlotte smiled at the memory. “I am very wise, if I do say so myself.”

“You are. So let me give you a little of your own wisdom back. You have to try, Charlotte. This isn’t about friendship or being polite or ruining someone’s special night. This is about all the rest of the nights after this one. You have to tell this guy how you feel about him, even if it doesn’t change anything.”

“But Brianna—”

“Forget Brianna.” Lily grabbed her hand. “If you confess your love and Jared chooses her anyway, she can spend the rest of her life crowing about it to her friends. You’ll be giving her the best wedding present ever.”

Charlotte laughed, mirthlessly.

“But, trust me, honey. If you let this go, you’ll regret it forever. And since I won’t be around every night with Ben & Jerry’s to weep at old movies with you, I can’t have that on my conscience.”

Lily had a point, and in her heart, Charlotte knew that Brianna wasn’t right for Jared, even if Charlotte wasn’t right for him either. But she was terrified of causing more pain. To anyone.

Seeing her hesitation, Lily changed tack, holding up the phone, pointing to where the blue boot was at one corner of Union Square. “Let’s put it another way. What would Lauren Bacall do if it were her man on this map?”

“Right.” Charlotte walked ahead, hating and loving her friend in equal parts. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

 

 

According to PathFinder, Jared was at the northwest corner of Union Square, but when they arrived at the colorful heart sculpture, panting with exertion, he was nowhere in sight. A small group of tourists clustered in front of the sculpture, dressed for an evening out. They were taking turns snapping pictures of one another, and Lily gamely offered to assist while Charlotte stared incredulously at the app, triple-checking that they were at the correct corner. Just in case. She exited and re-opened the app, thinking it might refresh the location of Jared’s boot, but nothing changed.

“I don’t understand,” she whined in frustration. “He should be here.”

“For once, I have to agree with you,” said a familiar voice behind her.

Charlotte spun to find Owen, emerging from behind a nearby palm tree. He held up his own phone and smiled at her. “I told him the hearts were much more romantic than what he had in mind. But he insisted.”

“What are you…?” Charlotte started, but the words failed her. It was too much to process. “Is that Jared’s phone?”

“I wish.” Owen came closer and tapped the screen. “Have you seen that guy’s phone? Top-notch. I mean, not surprising, but still…”

Charlotte barely had patience for her coworker on a normal day, let alone the most intensely emotional night of her life. “Owen. Explain. Now.”

He smirked. He was enjoying his moment of power over her. But there was also something else in his expression. Affection, maybe? Pity? Please don’t let it be pity. “My client,” he said importantly, “asked me to log into his PathFinder account for a couple of hours tonight. He had something important to do and didn’t want any casual hiking buddies to bother him. I’ve just logged off, so I bet he’ll be himself again momentarily.”

“Casual hiking buddies?” Charlotte was wounded. Whatever she was, it wasn’t that. “Did he ask you to distract me so he could propose to Brianna in peace?” Her throat felt thick with confusion and hurt. Maybe Jared knew her better than she thought, knew that she’d end up following him. The familiar panic and humiliation threatened at the corners of her.

“I’m just telling you what my client asked me to do,” Owen said gently. He glanced over Charlotte’s shoulder. “What he asked us to do, I should say. We’re always a team at Perfect Proposals, right, Lily?”

Charlotte spun to face her roommate, who grinned sheepishly and backed dramatically away. “Now, honey, let’s not lose focus. I think the important thing to remember is that Owen’s logged out of the app now. Which means Jared’s real location could be available to you. Romance first, bloody revenge on your roommate second!”

Bewildered, Charlotte lifted the phone dangling from her hand and swiped down on the screen to refresh PathFinder. The little blue hiking boot she’d been staring at for what seemed like hours disappeared from Union Square and reappeared at the corner of Taylor and Eddy.

She glared, aghast, between the two of them. “You knew?”

“Should I get the car?” Lily asked.

“Faster to take a cab,” Owen suggested.

They both had irritating, knowledgeable smiles on their faces now. Traitors. How long had this—whatever it was—been going on? Charlotte had the absurd impulse to take off running and outpace both of them for the four or five blocks it would take her to get to Jared, but her organized mind (and blistered feet) had to concede that it wasn’t the best plan.

“Owen’s right,” she said grudgingly. “I’ll murder both of you later. For now, we’ll take a cab.”

 

 

 

The Piano Bar was packed when the three of them arrived, ten minutes later. “Stage Two,” Lily yelled. “Good luck!” She and Owen melted into the crowd toward the bar, where Tina winked conspiratorially. The bartender was holding court with a big group of women who’d all ordered a purplish cocktail. Charlotte had a strange longing to join them, for this to be a normal night at her favorite bar, for her stomach not to be tied in irreparable knots with anticipation and…yes, it was there: fear.

Her feet carried her down the crowded corridor toward the two stage rooms. The door to the larger room on the right was open, and people filed in and out while a guitar screamed on the blue-lighted stage in the distance. On the left, however, the door was closed, blocked by a very large bouncer with a goatee and arms folded menacingly. There was a sign behind him that read “Private Event” in lavish script. Charlotte recognized the bouncer but couldn’t think of his name. Obviously, he recognized her, too, because as soon as she was within a few feet of the door, he opened it and wordlessly gestured for her to enter.

People nearby gave her odd looks, and murmured to one another. Clearly the door had been closed for a while and left them wondering what could be going on inside. Charlotte tried to smile as she picked her way among the well-dressed clubbers to the door, painfully aware of her laundry day wardrobe and cheap pink flip-flops. Lily had forced her to put on lip gloss and mascara in the cab, and knotted her disheveled hair into something slightly more presentable, but Charlotte still felt too small for this moment. Whatever it was.

Except she knew what it was. It was her job, after all.

But she couldn’t be sure. Her heart wouldn’t let her be sure.

Until she saw the stage.

The door closed behind her. She could feel the same look of bemused wonder on her own face that she’d seen on so many others in this exact moment. Free floating in that empty space between knowing and not-knowing, between hope and fear and certainty. The fact that the expression was an everyday familiarity to Charlotte did not make the feeling itself less visceral, less powerful.

Plus, Jared was nowhere in sight.

And, she realized, there was music. The room was dark now, except the stage, which had been transformed. The lush velvet maroon curtains she loved were covered in curtains of white fairy lights. Colorful umbrellas hung suspended from the ceiling, mixed together at various heights, and backlit so that they threw shafts of color down to the stage, and looked as vivid as a cartoon drawing of themselves. The house lights were off, and except for the fairy lights and the magical umbrellas, the only other light came from a candle in a jar on the stage, next to a picnic basket. It took a moment for her to realize that the music she heard was not from the next room, but that there was a piano in the far corner a few feet from the stage, playing a soft jazz standard she couldn’t quite recognize.

Letting her eyes adjust, Charlotte made her way carefully around the rows of seats and up the side aisle opposite the piano. Her heart pounded in her throat. She was tempted to call out for Jared, held back by a tiny wedge of suspended disbelief. She had the idea that somehow if she broke the spell, this would all disappear and turn out to be a horrible mistake. As if there’d been a miscommunication and this was Brianna’s magical picnic, not hers.

Doubt evaporated, however, when she heard Jared’s voice. “I told you I would know the right place when it when I saw it.”

He stepped out from behind a side curtain, holding a bottle of wine in one hand. Casually—as if he’d just stepped out to grab it and was pleasantly surprised to see her there. As if he hadn’t spent the last several hours orchestrating this moment for her to walk in to. He grinned and looked around the set. “I know you would’ve done better. Just…try not to look with your professional eye, okay?”

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Breathtaking, actually.”

“Joe helped.” Jared nodded at the pianist in the corner, whom Charlotte now recognized as the piano player from one of her favorite jazz ensembles. Joe nodded to her without stopping his playing, and she gave him a sheepish wave.

Jared extended a hand to help her onto the stage, and she noticed that both their palms were sweaty with nerves. Otherwise, though, he looked like his usual calm self. As if this was exactly what he’d been expecting to happen when they met again at the coffee shop three days ago.

“You made me watch this movie in college, remember?”

“What…?” She was looking at him, trying to find her footing in this new reality. It was a confusing question. “Oh! The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.”

“Yeah, remember? Boyd bailed and you were so upset because you didn’t want to go alone.” Jared took a step toward her. “Honestly, we both should have known right then. If a twenty-one-year-old straight dude is willing to see The Umbrellas of Cherbourg with you on a Saturday night, with absolutely no possibility of sex afterward, he’s probably in love with you.”

His voice cracked on the last words. Charlotte felt her insides twist with elation and terror. He was in love with her. He remembered The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It was the most romantic thing ever.

But wait.

“Boyd didn’t bail on me. He was sick. He had pneumonia that whole weekend. I brought him soup.”

Jared grimaced, shaking his head. “He wanted to watch the LSU game, but didn’t want you mad at him.”

“That rat bastard!” Charlotte said, even though she knew it was stupid. Nothing should surprise her about Boyd, after the whole “getting the hairdresser pregnant while we were living together and then marrying her” thing. Certainly, ditching out of a movie paled in comparison. Yet, the tiny betrayal still stung all these years later. And not just Boyd’s betrayal. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me he was lying?”

Jared set the wine down next to the basket and put a hand on her shoulder, expression still playful. “First of all, it was none of my business. He was my friend and you were my friend, and it wasn’t my place to get in the middle of it. Second, I was—as I may have mentioned—madly in love with you. Like, pathetically, gut-wrenchingly in love with you. I had a chance to sit alone with you in the dark for two hours and I wasn’t about to give that up to my good-for-nothing roommate.”

“And third.” He kissed her on the forehead and Charlotte’s shoulders softened. “I knew it would upset you, and if I can be honest, you are absolutely freaking terrifying when you’re pissed off.”

Indignant, she opened her mouth to respond, but he moved faster. He covered her mouth with his own, putting his hands on the side of her face, as though to physically contain her reaction. His cheeks and chin were lightly stubbled; Charlotte was surprised to find she liked the rough feel of it against her face. As he kissed her, she could feel his silent vibrating laughter pressing against her mouth. He loved getting the better of her.

She bit his lip lightly in defiance, and the laughter stopped. Instead, he let out a low, hungry groan that echoed into her throat, through her core and down to her toes. And then she was kissing him back, hard, matching his intensity with her own. Her arms snaked under his and around his neck of their own accord, to pull him closer. All these years. She’d been blind not to see it clearly in college, a fool to let him drive away at graduation, an idiot to think she could leave her regrets behind when she moved to San Francisco.

“Jared,” she whispered. “I’m sorry… About everything.”

He pulled back to look at her, hands on her shoulders. “You mean Bree?”

Oh, God. Brianna. She hadn’t thought of the poor girl in hours. “Well, yes. Her too.”

“We weren’t right for each other. You knew it, and deep down, she and I both knew it. It just took one person to be honest. So, thank you for that. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

Charlotte smiled. “Can I just say that you are also pretty terrifying when you’re pissed?”

He laughed. “Fair enough. Points for bravery as well as honesty. You win.”

And then they were kissing again, lost in each other. He tasted faintly of salt and whisky—liquid courage—and Charlotte couldn’t get enough. At some point, Jared sank to the picnic blanket on the stage floor, pulling her with him, and somehow they were still kissing, and she wondered why she hadn’t been kissing Jared every single day of her life since she’d met him. What else could have possibly been more important? Working, eating, shopping, breathing?

She noticed, distantly, that the piano music faded to a halt. She heard the creak of the door as Joe left. A momentary intrusion of the electric guitar and crowd outside, and then they were alone. No longer a deserted stage in a nightclub, what they had was a colorful paradise, their personal glowing nest within a dark, cavernous room.

Charlotte thought of their conversation here the other night, over curly fries, with bar patrons drifting in and out. It felt as though years had passed since it had gone so wrong. She let herself lay back on the blanket, which smelled vaguely floral, maybe like whatever store he’d bought it from this afternoon. She pulled Jared closer, encasing him firmly with her arms to protect this moment. As he shifted with her, Jared’s hand grazed lightly against her outer thigh, just skimming the hem of the knit skirt she’d thrown on earlier to do laundry.

His touch had the simultaneous effects of making her crazy, and reminding her that Lily and Owen were still in the bar outside.

“Are they…is anyone, um, waiting for us?” she said carefully, feeling a thrill run up her spine as his hand moved another inch upward.

She was a little embarrassed to ask. Even though it had been pretty clear earlier what Jared’s purpose was tonight, she now wasn’t entirely sure. Owen could’ve been wrong. Maybe this wasn’t a proposal, as they’d assumed, but just Jared’s idea of an awesome first date. Really, really, awesome.

Even if it was more than that, wasn’t there was something indelicate about pressing the issue? Ruining the romance by rushing him?

Jared grinned, sensing her discomfort. “You want to know, after I ask you to marry me, is anyone going to come barging in here with flowers and balloons and want to take pictures?”

She coughed. Marry me. He’d said it. It didn’t matter how many times she’d heard those words as a professional. Hearing them—even sideways—from the man she loved was more exhilarating than she’d ever imagined.

“Let’s put it this way,” he said into the hollow of her throat. “I’m paying that big dude outside a hundred bucks an hour to keep everyone but you out of here until we open the doors. So I think we’re good.”

“You’re going to ask me to marry you.” She said it quietly, awed, more a statement than a question.

Jared looked at her then, and the roguish smile faded from his lips. “I should have asked you years ago. That was my mistake, graduation night. I told you how I felt about you, and asked you to leave everything comfortable behind for me, and I thought that was enough. I thought because you were my best friend… Like I was Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites. Anyway. I thought it was stupid romantic.”

“It was,” Charlotte assured him. “No one has ever said anything so wonderful to me in my life.”

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have taken no for an answer. I should have stayed to prove myself to you. I drove away with my wounded pride, hit the trail, and never looked back. I will always regret that.”

She laughed. “That worked out pretty well for you, I’d say.”

He shifted off so that he was next to her, propped on one elbow. The hand that had been toying flirtatiously with her skirt came to rest on her hip and pulled her to face him.

“I need you to understand that I would give up all of this—the money, the success, whatever—if it meant I could be with you.”

Charlotte sighed. “Oh, God, Jared. You don’t get it. I’m the one who should be trying to convince you. I’m the one who regrets that night. A big part of me desperately wanted to get in that car with you. I’ve replayed that moment in my head so many times, always wondering what would have happened if I’d been brave enough. It was more than disappointing Boyd, and my family. That stuff was true. But I was also afraid of stepping into the unknown.” She paused and toyed nervously with a button on his shirt, avoiding his eye. “Afraid of my feelings for you.”

She’d never admitted it before, not even to herself. Jared had scared the crap out of her that night. Although she had enjoyed how it felt to be Boyd’s girlfriend and fantasize about marriage, part of her had always known Boyd’s feelings for her were basically shallow. Safe. Family-approved. Picturesque. What she felt around Jared was terrifying because it was real, and messy, and scary as hell.

He put a hand under her chin, making her look at him. “Are you still afraid?” he asked. “Because I bought a pretty damn expensive piece of jewelry today, thinking how perfect it would look on your finger, how the sapphire would look with your eyes, and—frankly,” his voice dropped, husky and alluring, “how amazing you would look wearing nothing but my ring on your finger.”

She breathed in sharply. His face was so close, and the air sizzled electric between them. He was holding something back. Charlotte sensed it. There was something he didn’t want to say.

Are you still afraid?

I would give up all of this…

I asked you to leave everything behind.

When it clicked into place, it was Lily’s voice she heard. Have you ever actually told him how you feel?

Charlotte took a deep breath and let her hand rest on Jared’s heart. She felt it pounding hard, like hers. “I am in love with you, Jared. I didn’t fully understand it seven years ago, but it’s been clear these last two days. I love you. I don’t care about your money, I don’t need a big house, and if you want me to sign some kind of prenup—”

“That’s not…”

She put a finger over his lips. “We can stay here, or I will move to Austin. And I will sign anything you want me to sign, to prove that whatever this is between us is exactly what it’s supposed to be.” Then she smirked as her practical side kicked in. “As long as it doesn’t bother you that I’m going back to school. I’m getting out of the proposal business. And you promise to always take care of our children.”

“Our children,” Jared repeated, voice cracking.

“I want to have your babies, Jared.” She smacked his chest and laughed. “I just realized it, just this minute. Isn’t that stupid? The whole time Boyd and I were together, all I could think about was how he would propose, what our wedding would be like. Like that would mean I was really grown up—a wedding. Since he never proposed, I guess I got stuck in that place, you know? Planning the moment I never got, for other people. Over and over.” She made a face. “It’s sort of twisted, actually, now that I think about it.”

He smiled and covered her hand with his. “You’re talking to the guy who gave up indoor toilets for the better part of two years after you rejected him. If there’s some hidden symbolism to that, I sure as hell don’t want to know what it is.”

She kissed his chin. “I love you, Jared. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I love you… I love you…”

Her words were interspersed with soft, intimate kisses that lingered between them like ozone that hovered in the air before a lightning storm. In one smooth motion, he pulled her tight against him and rolled on top of her, kissing her deeply and murmuring “I love you,” over and over, his deep voice vibrating against her mouth and skin.

Soon Charlotte found herself looking up at the bright swirls of the umbrellas above her as he unbuttoned her shirt and freed her breasts from the crappy beige bra she only wore around the house anymore. So much for the manicure, perfect lingerie and photo-worthy dress, she thought with distant amusement. He covered one nipple with his mouth, sucking and gently tugging at it until Charlotte thought she would go insane. She pulled his head up to meet her frantic, searching mouth again, unbuttoning his shirt as fast as her trembling fingers would let her.

“Should we wait?” he whispered, eyes flicking to the picnic basket.

There was a ring in there, she knew, something gorgeous and tasteful that he had picked out just for her. There was Lily outside and even Owen, and their parents to call and so many questions left to resolve.

But when she looked in his eyes, she saw the man who had loved her in silence for so long, who had stood by their friendship even when it meant having to watch from the sidelines. The man who had served his heart up to her on a platter seven years ago, like a little boy with a shiny rock; who loved her too much to face her after she rejected his gift. The man who could still make her laugh, still give her butterflies, still call her on her bullshit better than anyone, even seven years later.

She grabbed the sides of his shirt in her hands and pulled him down to her. “I think we’ve waited long enough, don’t you?”

When she looked back later, she would remember how it was the unromantic details that made this moment between them even more perfect. One of the beautiful umbrellas still had a price tag dangling from its supports—apparently Joe and Jared had missed that one in their rush to get things ready. Charlotte’s disheveled hair, laundry day skirt and cheap pink flip-flops were not what she’d imagined wearing when she made love to her future husband for the first time. The blisters between her toes from chasing him around the city all evening in inappropriate footwear.

And there was the hilarious fact that Jared kept a condom in a small first-aid kit, nestled beneath the wine glasses in the picnic basket.

“I can’t believe you brought a first-aid kit to an indoor picnic,” she said from behind her hands, unable to hide her laughter despite being mostly undressed on a picnic blanket on a wooden stage.

“Old backpacker’s habit,” he said indignantly as he returned to her. “Lucky for you, too.”

“Oh, lucky for me, eh?” she teased, as she wriggled out of the skirt. It was odd that she felt no self-consciousness around Jared at all. “You didn’t think tonight would go this way?”

He sat at her feet, letting one hand drift appreciatively up her calf. “I hoped,” he said, with a touch of awe in his voice.

“I didn’t shave,” she observed, watching his hand. She wondered if the real Charlotte would measure up to the girl he’d imagined she was in college.

“Couldn’t care less,” he said flatly, and he let the hand travel around her knee to slide up her inner thigh. “God, you are even more beautiful than I imagined.”

She gasped lightly as he reached her panties and dusted lightly across them, barely touching, until his hand found the other thigh.

“I did hope,” he resumed, watching the path of his fingers as it raised tiny goose bumps on her flesh and made her squirm with anticipation. “Which is why there’s a suite at the Ritz going to waste right now.”

“Seriously?” Charlotte said in spite of herself.

He arched a light eyebrow. “That’s where my big first-aid kit is.”

She laughed, throwing her head back, and it was as though it flipped a switch inside him. He moved with sudden seriousness to cover her body again with his own. He kissed her mouth and throat hungrily, cradling her head with one hand and working her panties off with the other. They made love for the first time—both knowing it was their last first time—on a blanket, on a stage, beneath the Umbrellas of Cherbourg, in the heart of San Francisco. The place where neither of them had anything left to hide.

 

She woke some time later, wrapped in Jared’s arms with him curled close behind her. The low thump of the music next door had died down. How long had they slept? Was the club closed? Had Lily and Owen gone home? Was that poor bouncer still standing at attention outside the door?

Charlotte tapped his arm, loving the way the familiar light-red hairs and freckles on his arms stood out against her naked skin. She’d known him intimately, even back when she hadn’t noticed him properly.

“I think we should go, don’t you?” she whispered. “Do we need to take down these umbrellas?”

Jared didn’t answer, but tightened his arm to prevent her moving.

“Jared, wake up. We can’t stay here.”

He grunted. “Not yet.”

Charlotte smiled and pinched his arm softly. “I know you prefer sleeping on hard ground, but I don’t think Tina would appreciate us keeping her here all night. Let’s go to the hotel.”

“In a minute,” he said groggily, pulling her naked body against his, strong and solid.

“All we have to do is get dressed and into a cab,” she coaxed, kissing his arm. “And I promise to make it worth your while.”

“Mmmm…” he said, not moving. “Tempting.”

She was about to try again to wake him, when he shifted, and she felt something move against her chest. It was solid, but light, with the fuzzy feel of…velvet. The ring box. He’d retrieved it while she was sleeping.

“Jared,” she whispered. She couldn’t think what else to say.

Without letting her go, he shifted onto one elbow so his voice was next to her ear. “Believe me, I have every intention of getting out of here and figuring out what you meant by ‘making it worth my while.’”

She laughed and tried to turn toward him but he held her still.

“But I came here tonight to ask you a question, and we’re not leaving until I get an answer.”

How many times had she heard the words? Thousands. Literally. They’d become almost routine. She’d thought so often about exactly how she’d want to hear them herself, and never came up with a hypothetical moment that could outshine all the others. Now that the moment was here, she realized none of it mattered. They’d both known what he wanted to ask, and she’d already given her answer in every way that counted.

She pulled the box gently from his grip and rolled to face him. To face their future.

The ring could be spectacular later. There would be clothes and the Ritz and phone calls and celebrations.

For now, it was just the two of them, naked and alone on a bare stage, surrounded by light and possibilities.

And that was enough.

Charlotte kissed her best friend lightly on the lips.

“Yes.”