Page 69 of March

“Yes. Bryce wrote entire blog posts about you and how you met. I’d love to hear it from your perspective. How did it feel when you first saw her? How did it feel when she got pulled away? What happened after that for you?”

“Oh,” Sophie let out. “That’s a lot.” She glanced over at Bryce.

Bryce reached for and took her hand.

“How did it feel when you saw me?” she asked softly.

“Like magic,” Sophie replied. “Intense.”

“How so?” Victoria asked.

“How so?” Sophie chuckled. “I don’t even know how to answer that one.”

“Intense, like something was about to happen that mattered,” Bryce said. “That’s how it was for me; like I needed to pay attention.”

“Yeah, like that.” Sophie smiled at her again. “Like in movies and books, how they talk about the whole world disappearing around them and that person coming into complete focus; like a camera was only pointing to Bryce, and everything else dissolved and got blurry behind her.”

“That’s how it was for you?” Bryce asked her.

“Yeah. You?”

“Why do you think I couldn’t find the bar? Other than that sofa, I couldn’t remember much about how it looked inside or outside. You were all I could see.”

“For me, too,” Sophie said.

The interview continued for well over half an hour, with Victoria asking questions and Sophie turning to Bryce as if she needed a translator, but Bryce knew it was because she was nervous, so she looked to Bryce for help.

“Well, this was fantastic,” Victoria said. “Thank you. I’ll get this typed up and posted soon. I’ll send you the link when it’s live, and you can feel free to put it on your socials, Bryce. Sophie – you, too, if you have any.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Sophie said. “I’ll leave that up to Bryce.”

“I’d love to set a date for us to follow up. I’m not sure what your plans are after Bryce’s visit, but I know readers will want to hear back from you on how it’s going.”

“Plans?” Sophie asked, but it was more to herself than Victoria. “We haven’t talked about that yet.”

“That’s okay. We can just set something up for a few months from now, and if you need to postpone or cancel, we can do that then. I’ll have my assistant reach out to Bryce to coordinate, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Bryce said. “And we have to run now. Sophie has a commitment this afternoon that she can’t miss.”

“Of course. Thank you again,” Victoria said.

Bryce ended the call and closed her laptop before she turned to Sophie and kissed her on the top of the head.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No,” Sophie replied. “Easier than I thought.”

“Don’t worry about the follow-up thing. We don’t have to do it. I can put her off if I have to.”

“It’s not that. I don’t mind. It’s weird, talking about myself and us with someone I don’t know, but it’s fine. I just… That’s in three months.”

“Yes,” Bryce said as she stood and pushed her chair back to the table. “And that scares you?”

“Not because it’s three months of us, but because you don’t live here, and I don’t live in Tennessee.”

“Soph, I blog for a living. It’s a short flight, really, or an eight-hour drive. And I like long drives, remember? I have some family obligations and things I do for my aunt that I might need to work around, but I’m not worried.”

“Right,” Sophie said, but she looked contemplative still. “Kyle and Monica both just moved here.”

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