Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 133034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“We’ll go for a bottle of De Chante, please.”
Josh raises an eyebrow. “All out celebration. Makes sense.”
“It warrants it,” I say.
“De Chante?! Excellent!” the maître d’ says. “What is this? A birthday? Anniversary?”
“Just us, being us,” I reply, and take my boyfriend’s hand across the table.
“Well congratulations on that,” the maître d’ says, and grins before he leaves us to peruse the menus.
To be fair, I couldn’t care less about what’s on the menu. All I want is to stare into Josh’s eyes and soak in the ambience of the room around us. There aren’t that many diners in here, but there is enough of a vibe to create a thrum.
A thrum I’ve been missing so bad, it’s like a void is being filled up inside me.
Josh pretends to scout the room, with his eyes just over the top of his menu.
“I think we are safe, you know. No paps in sight. Not a single one.”
“I dunno about that. What about her?” I tip my head towards an older couple eating pasta together.
She looks like a sweet little grandma in a lemon floral dress and grey perm.
It makes Josh laugh and put the menu down.
“Hmm. Could be. We can check out social media when we get back home, see if she’s been posting about us.”
The vibe in this place is magical, but the vibe of being out of the Airbnb and in this place with Josh wins hands down. It sure is worth a De Chante.
We clink glasses with another to us when the bottle arrives, and then we order our meals. I go for Calamari and lasagne. Josh goes for an obscure sounding chef’s special, and a couple of random side dishes, discussing them with the server at length.
I watch him, engaged, loving how nobody in this place seems to be whispering about me. Not right now.
What a welcome relief.
And I can’t help but wonder… if someday, somehow, we will ever be with another piece of our puzzle brought back to life. With someone who attracts even more attention than I would have at the peak of the chaos, just without everyone screaming obscenities…
Last time Josh and I drank De Chante, when we were celebrating life and having serious fun, we were in… we were with…
I look at my boyfriend and can’t help but picture the way he’d be laughing with Heath at this dining table after a few drinks. The way Heath would lean into him when they were sharing a joke. Bumping elbows.
I get churned up when I remember the way Heath looked at me… when he was plotting something… something filthy. Or just making a fruit salad for breakfast.
I gulp down some De Chante to fix my composure. This is not for now.
But as the server departs, Josh lets out a sigh.
“To us,” he says and raises another glass. “And to our fellow De Chante drinker, wherever he may be.”
My eyes widen.
“You were thinking about him, too?”
“I saw you were thinking about him. Call me telepathic.”
“Telepathic? You must be.”
Josh shakes his head. “There was a way you’d look at Heath, then look down at the table, feeling all, I dunno.” He takes my hand and strokes his thumb across my knuckles. “School-girly. You did the same thing just now. I saw you. Memories.”
“I do the same thing with you.” I grin. “I must do. I get butterflies around you all the damn time.”
He nods, slowly. “Yeah, I get a whole rainbow of incredible expressions from you, all for me. But we all have certain looks we share with certain people. Certain people that are special to us, don’t we? There is no one size fits all.”
I know what he means.
It’s not a competition and it never would be. Heath is special for being Heath. We both have our special ways of interacting with him.
And being out here, with De Chante… feeling safe in this space, even though I’m around plenty of strangers…
It’s great. It’s amazing.
It would just be so incredibly amazing if our missing special could share it with us. It’s been a long, long time.
“I’ve been thinking,” Josh says, before our starters arrive. “With you sprinting back to your confidence, and with the reassurance Orla has given you, I reckon that next time, if there is a next time, should be time to click accept.”
The hairs on the back of my neck feel like static bristles. My heart starts thumping.
“You’ll click accept? If Heath sends a proposal?”
Josh nods. “That’s if he sends a proposal. And it might be to you, not to me. Who knows?”
I know. In my heart of hearts, I know.
It’s Josh that Heath will be sending a proposal to, and there will be one. No doubt about that.
“What do you think?” Josh asks me. “Do you think it’s time? It’s your call as much as mine.”