Page 39 of The Story of Us
“Oh, yeah. Ducks.” She spread her arms out wide. “Hundredsof ducks.”
He laughed. It felt good to forget about Ridley for once…to just enjoy the moment with her. “And they, obviously, follow the rules of the road?”
Jamie’s laughter mixed with his, and that’s when he knew she wasn’t thinking about the re-design anymore either. It was just the two of them. Here. Together. “Well, I don’t know if they actually—”
And then, just like that, their moment ended when Chuck called out to him from across the street.
“Hey, Sawyer!” He stood in the doorway of the pizzeria and waved. “Dad wants to say hi.”
Right. Because he was in Waterford to woo business owners, not his high school sweetheart.
“Um…I should…” He pointed toward the pizzeria, but his stubborn feet refused to move.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead.” Jamie nodded, and the somewhat frozen smile on her face made him even more reluctant to abandon their walk back to True Love. But he didn’t have much of a choice.
Besides, she knew the way home. She always had. Sawyer was the one who couldn’t quite seem to figure that out.
He stalled for a moment longer, postponing the inevitable, until Jamie waved him on. Then he jogged across the street, where Chuck’s dad was waiting for him with a welcoming smile and effusive handshake. At last, a shop owner who just might be on his side.
A wave of relief passed through Sawyer, and he told himself not to look back at Jamie lingering on the street corner. But he did it anyway, and the wistful glimmer in her true-blue eyes made his chest tighten.
Who was he kidding? She hadn’t forgotten about Ridley at all. Not for a second.
The meeting at the pizzeria lasted all afternoon. It was more a reunion than an actual business discussion, but after donning an apron and proving to Chuck and his dad that he could still roll out pizza dough and toss it in the air like a pro—or at least like a reasonably competent amateur —Sawyer walked away with a promise that the pizzeria would throw their support behind the Ridley project.
Finally, a small victory. Sawyer would take them where he could get them, so when he returned to Rick’s house later in the evening, he was in the mood for a little celebrating.
Perhaps not on the scale of whatever Rick had going on, though, because when Sawyer walked through the door, he found his friend sitting at the kitchen table in front of six opened bottles of wine. Jazz music drifted from the stereo speakers as Rick swirled a glass of red in his hands.
“Hey. What’s all this?” Sawyer said, scanning the area for another wineglass. Nope, just the one.
Rick barely glanced up at him before picking up a pencil and jotting something down on a notepad. “I’m doing a last-minute Valentine’s-themed wine tasting at the restaurant.”
So. Not a party, then. But at least Rick wasn’t planning on drinking all of this alone.
“What made you think of this? Oh, let me guess.” Sawyer aimed finger guns at Rick. “Lucy.”
“Yeah, Lucy. I saw her down at the park and we talked.” Rick took a sip from his glass, and his eyes went all dopey like they always did when he talked about Lucy. “I don’t know if I’m seeing what I want to see, but I feel like maybe…I mean…”
His tongue was all tied up in knots, and Sawyer knew it had nothing to do with the wine.
Still, the stammering continued. “Probably not, but…”
“Rick.” How many more times was he going to have to say this? “You need to tell her how you feel.”
Rick took a deep breath. “Okay. So I’m going to do a wine tasting. Create a fun, friendly environment where I can tell her how I feel.”
He dropped his head in his hands. Sawyer didn’t believe him for a minute.
Rick looked back up. “You’re going to help me out and make me look good like you did the other day?”
“You don’t need me for that.” Sawyer snagged a bottle of Bordeaux for himself and gave Rick a solid pat on the back.
His presence hadn’t made any difference whatsoever at the cooking class. But at least he could take heart in one simple truth—he wasn’t the only one whose love life was a complete and total disaster.
Chapter Twelve
The next morning, Jamie tookadvantage of a quiet hour at True Love to pop over to Anita’s Flowers and get a few things off of her chest.
