An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) Read online

  “The kids have too much fun,” she said darkly. “They get all hopped up on candy and the party atmosphere. It’s impossible to get any work done. And it’s worse when they’re older, ’cause then you have all the boyfriend, girlfriend drama.” She gave a mock shudder. “I hate Valentine’s Day.”

  “You’re turning into a cynic,” I warned. “Come on! Don’t you love making the mailboxes for their cards? And decorating the room? It’s fun!”

  Susan just rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Ashley. Valentine’s Day at school is no better than Valentine’s Day in my personal life. Both are disappointing and frustrating.”

  “Susan!” I laughed. “You’re married.”

  “All the more reason to hate Valentine’s Day,” she muttered. “Romance dies the second that ring goes on your finger, Ash.”

  I made a face at her. “I hope I never end up so jaded.”

  Susan just laughed. “Oh, you will,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “I know you think you have it made with your cutie pie boyfriend, but just you wait. Once they know they have you, they completely give up on trying to impress you.”

  “Chris isn’t like that,” I said staunchly. Friend or not, I wasn’t going to let her talk crap about Chris.

  “Okay,” she said, clearly unconvinced. “So what does Mr. Romantic have planned for Valentine’s Day, anyhow?”

  I made a face at her moniker but decided to let it go. Not that I was complaining, but Chris wasn’t Mr. Romantic. Far from it. Of the two of us, I was certainly the one who’d gotten the romance gene. But Chris still made an effort to let me know how much I meant to him. What else could I ask for?

  “I’m not sure,” I told Susan. “He says it’s a secret.”

  “I think that’s code for he hasn’t come up with anything yet.” I stuck my tongue out at her and she grinned. “Joking. I hope he really has something nice planned for you. Whenever Ted tells me something is a secret, it usually means he forgot to make plans.”

  I laughed along with her. Susan had been married for nearly ten years now. As much as she complained about her husband, Ted, I knew she really loved him, and their two sons. At least, I was pretty sure she did…

  “Anyhow,” Susan said, standing. “A couple of us are gonna go for burgers and beer. You wanna come?”

  I gestured at my desk. “Maybe next time? I want to get these lesson plans done before I leave.”

  “Big plans this weekend?”

  “Just some friends coming over.” My voice was casual, but I felt a little rush of excitement. I had made plans to spend the evening with most of my favorite people—Chris, Ryan, and Emily. Ryan had been traveling a lot for work lately, and Emily and I had both been spending too much time with our respective boyfriends and not enough time together. The four of us had been inseparable since freshman year of college, long before Chris and I started dating. The fierce foursome, Ryan liked to say. It had been way too long since the whole gang had been together.

  “Well, have fun,” Susan said. “I promise I’ll be in a better mood by Monday.”

  I grinned at her. “I expect you’ll be your old moody self by Tuesday morning, at the latest.”

  Susan snorted and walked to the door. “You know me too well. Have a good weekend, Ash.”

  “You, too,” I called after her.

  I looked down at my lesson plans, sighing a little. Get it done now, and you’ll have the rest of the weekend to yourself. With thoughts of the white wine I was sure Emily would have chilled for me by the time I got home, I put my head down and got to work.

  Chapter Three

  As expected, Emily had a cheap bottle of white wine waiting in the fridge when I arrived back at the apartment. “Hey, Ash!” she called out from her bedroom when I opened the front door. “Wine’s in the fridge. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Hi,” I called back, dropping my bag and slipping out of my heels. Emily constantly teased me for dressing up for work. “You run around after six year olds all day,” she would say. “Why not do it in tennis shoes?” It was hard to explain to someone who didn’t care about fashion how much better a really cute pair of peep-toed heels could make your day.

  I headed to the kitchen, smiling at the sight of two wine glasses on the table. Emily and I often celebrated the end of our workweek with wine. Now that she was running her own business, her schedule wasn’t as regular as mine; lately it seemed like she’d had to stay late on Fridays almost every week.

  I grabbed the pinot grigio from the fridge. As I started to pour, Emily appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wrapped up in her old plaid bathrobe, her hair wet from a shower. “Hey,” she said. “Ooh, you found the wine. Goodie.”

  I barely managed to suppress a sigh at the sight of Emily. Even fresh from a shower, sans makeup and clad in frayed flannel, Emily was beautiful. It was hard not to be jealous of her sometimes. Where I was on the shorter side, Emily was tall and thin with an athletic build I would never manage to achieve, even if I did manage to go to the gym more than once or twice a year.

  To add insult to injury, Emily had long, straight blonde hair that I would have killed for, though she often complained that it wouldn’t take a curl to save her life. I could not relate as I had been blessed—or cursed, depending on the humidity—with an overabundance of mousey brown curls. I did my best to combat the mousiness with regular appointments with a stylist who somehow managed to get golden highlights to peek out through the mess of curls. I had recently let him talk me into cutting my hair into a longish bob. He had assured me I’d look like Sarah Jessica Parker, my style icon, from the fourth season of Sex and the City, when Carrie cut her hair after breaking up with Aidan. On good days, I liked the new style, but on frizzy days, I longed for the sleek control of my best friend’s long locks.

  Emily joined me at the kitchen table. “How was your day?”

  “Pretty tiring,” I admitted. “Kids were hyper. But it’s Friday, that’s typical.”

  “I still get hyper on Fridays,” she said, laughing.

  “How was your day?”

  Emily groaned in response. “I have the whiniest client right now. Seriously, he’s driving me crazy. He never wants to do any work, he complains about every exercise I assign him. I’m starting to dread it every time I see his name on the schedule.”

  I wrinkled my nose at her. “Why don’t you pass him off on someone else?” I asked. “Isn’t that the point of being the boss?”

  Emily laughed. “True. Maybe I will someday.”

  I smiled at her. “Yeah, right. You like the challenge, I bet. You’d be pissed if someone else managed to get through to him.”

  She made a face at me. “You know me so well. So, what’s on the agenda tonight?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Ryan is pushing pretty hard for dancing.”

  “What else is new?” she muttered. Ryan was forever trying to get us to go dancing with him. I was usually happy to comply, since I enjoyed dancing myself, but Emily and Chris were generally much harder to convince.

  “Well what do you want to do?” I asked. “And don’t say something lame like you want to go to the movies. Or stay in. We all barely see each other anymore, I want to go out.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I think we should make a night of it, too. You’ll notice that I took a shower.”

  I laughed. “Oh, lucky us. You actually bathed.”

  She tossed a napkin at me. “Funny. I just meant that I was gonna let you do my hair and makeup. But if you’d rather tease…”

  “No, no, I’ll do it!” I said eagerly. Forever the tomboy, Emily’s personal style could best be described as casual. Maybe even hyper-casual. Whenever she agreed to let me help her get ready, I jumped at the chance. She was way too pretty to be forever dressed down in jeans and T-shirts, though her boyfriend, Elliot didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

  “When are the boys coming over?” I asked, looking up at the clock over the sink. “Do I have time to shower, t
oo?”

  “Ryan said he’d be here around seven,” she said. “You have plenty of time.”

  Since I had so much time, I decided to take a bath instead. I was kind of a sucker for baths. Give me a bottle of bubble bath and a good romance novel, and I was a happy girl. Chris liked to tease me about my ever-increasing collection of exotic bath oils, but I still couldn’t help buying them whenever something new caught my eye. I brought my wine glass in with me and waited while the tub filled with hot water. I added my favorite bubbles and sighed with happiness when I sank into the foamy hot water, enveloping myself in the heady scent of jasmine.

  As I sipped my wine, I found myself thinking about the conversation I’d had with Susan at school. I knew she was cynical in nature, and that her attitude about her marriage probably had little to do with the institution itself. She’d gotten married very early and had struggled to raise her first born while going back to school for her teaching degree. I know it wasn’t easy for her, but I was sure she really felt it was all worth it. It was probably just her way, to complain like she did.

  I, on the other hand, had always believed firmly in true love. Emily teased me for being too romantic, but I couldn’t help it; I had always been that way. It wasn’t my fault, not really, not when I grew up in the house that I did. My parents had the perfect marriage, the perfect relationship. They had been high school sweethearts and had stayed together ever since, neither dating anyone else. They’d been in love since the moment they laid eyes on each other. Now they had the perfect life, the perfect house, three happy kids, and a full social life filled with friends. I felt a happy little thrill, thinking about them. I knew that a lot of people didn’t think that kind of fairytale love existed anymore, but how could I doubt it? It was impossible when I grew up watching it in real life.

  The best part was that I had now found my own fairytale romance, my own perfect love story. It had been love at first sight for Chris and me, too—though it took us years to admit it. Now that we were together, I realized that every other relationship that I’d ever had was a joke in comparison. Chris and I were the real deal.

  I felt a little pang of discomfort, which I tried to ignore. Though I was hopelessly in love with Chris, and generally pretty happy with my life, it was hard not to admit that I was ready for more. I had been thinking about it more and more since dinner with my Mom the other night. Chris and I had talked about marriage, of course, but despite my mother’s proclamation that it was coming, I knew he wasn’t ready yet. He loved me, I was sure of it, and I was trying to be patient. I wasn’t nagging him, or anything, but secretly, I wished he would propose.

  Emily always told me I had an overactive imagination. She was right, of course. It was silly to sit here in the bath and imagine the life Chris and I would have when we were married. I had it all mapped out: the cute little house we would get—a fixer-upper so we could bond over decorating together; the vacations we would take; the children we would have. I never told Chris any of this, of course, but I was pretty sure he suspected that I thought about it. He knew me so well.

  Stop worrying about the future, I told myself firmly, leaning forward to let the water out of the tub. You’re about to spend the evening with your best friends and the guy you love. Enjoy it.

  Determined to follow my own advice, I climbed out of the tub and went to get ready with Emily.

  * * *

  The four of us ended up getting dinner in nearby Clawson. The Black Lotus Brewery was one of our favorite restaurants. They served great beer and better burgers and their location was perfect, only about ten minutes away from our apartment in Royal Oak.

  “Best burgers in Detroit,” Chris said happily when we were served. “Seriously, you can’t beat this.” He looked over at Ryan’s plate and raised his eyebrows. “I can’t speak for whatever that is.”

  “It’s a vegan mushroom veggie burger,” Ryan said, attempting to look smug about his superior choice and failing miserably. Ryan had been on a vegan kick ever since he found out his most recent crush was a health nut, but I doubted he would last too much longer. Already he was staring at Chris’s greasy burger with a look of longing on his face.

  “How’s Chase?” Emily asked, a knowing smile on her face. Ryan’s face tightened somewhat.

  “He’s all right,” he said. “Still refusing to go on an actual date with me, but that didn’t stop him from making out with me in the coatroom at the Rainbow Room last night.”

  I frowned at Emily. Ryan deserved so much better. He was one of the sweetest, most loyal people I knew. He was also totally gorgeous and had the best dress-sense of anyone, with the possible exception of my mother. I couldn’t understand why someone amazing hadn’t snapped him up. But he would probably mess it up somehow—Ryan had a tendency to be incredibly self-destructive in his relationships. Which is why I wasn’t at all surprised to hear he was pining after some hipster vegan who wouldn’t give him the time of day in public.

  “That’s bullshit,” Chris said, looking at him over his hamburger bun. “You shouldn’t put up with crap like that, Ry. You deserve better.”

  I saw something flicker across Ryan’s face, but he quickly hid it with a laugh. “Are you going to give me advice on guys now, Chris?”

  Chris just shook his head. “I don’t see why it matters if it’s a guy or not. He’s treating you like shit. What else do I need to know?”

  I felt a rush of affection for my boyfriend. He was such a good friend to Ryan, to all of us, really, always looking out for everyone. Chris and Emily had both come from a really small town up in northern Michigan, and I knew a lot of the guys they had grown up with had a pretty primitive opinion about guys who dressed and acted like Ryan, never mind the gay thing. But Chris had never let any of that bother him. He and Ryan had been best friends from the day they first met, as roommates back in college.

  “Maybe it’s my lot in life to always be wounded in love,” Ryan said, smiling at me, his voice light. Was I imagining an undertone of pain there? I reached over and took his hand under the table.

  “Chris is right,” I said firmly. “You deserve better.”

  “Well, until I meet Mr. Better, I guess I’ll just have to make due with stolen coatroom moments with the hot personal trainer,” he said, grinning at me.

  Knowing we weren’t going to get him to be serious about the subject, I decided to move on. “So how’s the new fitness regime going, anyhow?” Ryan had met Chase at his new gym. He was training to run the Detroit marathon in the fall, and had joined some way over-priced, fancy facility downtown to help him get in shape. Chase was a spin instructor.

  “Pretty good,” Ryan said, his face lighting up. “My time is down three seconds on my mile.”

  “You should give up that gym and just start running with me,” Emily said, popping a fry in her mouth. Em had been a track star back in college, and she kept in shape by running three miles every day, without fail. She, too, was training for the marathon, though I couldn’t really imagine her being in better shape than she already was.

  I looked over at Chris and smiled, knowing instinctively that he was thinking the same thing as me. Chris and I weren’t exactly what you would call athletic, though Chris met Ryan and a group of guys for a game of basketball every week. My own fitness routine was limited to walking around the mall in search of sales. The idea of running more than twenty-five miles in one morning sounded, frankly, insane to me.

  As Emily and Ryan started a debate on the best way to train for a distance race, Chris scooted his chair closer to me and put his hand on my leg. “How was your day?” he asked softly, looking into my face. “I barely talked to you back at the apartment.”

  I felt my stomach flip slightly, the way it always did when I was close to Chris. After more than two years of dating, that feeling had never gone away. I thought back to my conversation with Susan but pushed the memory away. I wouldn’t lose the stomach flip, no matter how long our relationship lasted.

  “It wa
s okay,” I told him, smiling. I loved looking at Chris’s face. Somehow I could see all of his kindness, his loyalty, and his easy-going nature in that face. He had the most beautiful blue eyes behind his glasses, and his curly brown hair was usually messily brushed across his forehead. He smiled easier than anyone I had ever met.

  “I’m glad,” he said, leaning forward to kiss me softly.

  “How was yours?”

  Chris’s face lit up. “Great,” he said, looking excited. He started in on an explanation of his day, of the breakthrough he had made in his research. Chris worked at Wayne State in downtown Detroit. He did research in the molecular nutrition lab, a subject that was way over my head. Chris was like, mega-smart when it came to science stuff. But somehow, as complicated as it was, when Chris explained it to me, I always understood just what he meant. It was one of the things that I loved about him, the way he could take something so big and complex and narrow it down to the important point.

  Once we had finished our burgers, we all ordered another round of beers. The restaurant was filling up around us, and a light snow had started falling outside. The street was lined with white twinkle lights, and people rushed down the sidewalk in pairs and groups. Next to me, Chris slouched comfortably in our booth, his arm slung lazily across the back of my seat, a smile on his face. I felt cozy and content in the warmth with my friends and sipping a good beer, while Emily made us all laugh with stories of clients at her physical therapy clinic.

  “That reminds me,” Ryan said. “My office is throwing a party next Friday. They’ve rented out the entire Edison restaurant at the Dearborn Inn.”

  Chris whistled. “That won’t come cheap.”

  “No,” Ryan said, rolling his eyes. “It’s a little overboard, but they’re celebrating the new account.” Ryan worked for Quicken Loans, a big mortgage broker downtown. Unlike Chris, when Ryan tried to explain what he did on a daily basis, I rarely knew what he was talking about. But I did know that he had a fancy office and that he made good money, allowing him to dress in the high-end suits he adored. “Anyhow,” he continued. “You guys all have to come. I can put you on the VIP list. It should be pretty fun, real swanky.”