To Sir, with Love

Perhaps because my heart knows it would have to choose.

I finish pouring the glasses and hand one to Sebastian.

He hesitates. “You really want to be drinking champagne? With me? Tonight?”

“This is a strange little twist of fate, to be sure,” I say, looking around at the empty store. Empty because of him. But because of me as well. “But fitting, wouldn’t you say?” I lift my glass. “To Bubbles.”

He lifts his as well. “To Bubbles. To new beginnings.”

I nod, about to sip, but he adds one more. “To the unexpected.”

Sebastian catches my eyes as he says it, our gazes holding as we click our glasses and sip. The wine is outstanding. And has nothing to do with the butterflies in my stomach. The dryness in my mouth. The slight fuzziness where logic should be.

“This is incredible,” he says, finally seeming to register his beverage. He reaches for the bottle and blinks. “And very expensive.”

I shrug. “For all my preaching to my customers—former customers—about treating every day like a special occasion, I guess I’m old school. I’ve been saving this particular bottle for an extraspecial occasion, bittersweet as it may be.”

“And here you are, sharing it with a man you hate.”

I quickly shake my head. “I don’t hate anybody.”

“Extreme dislike?” he asks with a grim smile.

I exhale. “Closing Bubbles was likely inevitable,” I say softly. “But I won’t claim that the constancy of your letters and your sheer persistence didn’t shove me along. Perhaps before I was ready. Or perhaps I should be thanking you. I’m not quite sure, to be honest.”

His gaze flickers with regret. “Ms. Cooper—”

I quickly shake my head. “I don’t want to talk business, Mr. Andrews. Not tonight. That part is done. I had my attorney handle everything for a reason.”

“What reason?”

“So I don’t come to hate you,” I say, giving him a quick grin.

He looks off-balance for a moment, then lets out a quiet chuckle. “You did warn me during our first meeting that you share your every thought.”

Not my every thought.

I pull a stool over and hop onto it. I point at the other stool, but he shakes his head. I shrug and reach for the lamb gyro, smiling a little as I realize I’m about to combine cheap New York street meat, extraordinarily expensive champagne, and Sebastian Andrews.

A strange blend that is surprisingly… perfect.

“Want to split this?” I ask, unwrapping it.

“I don’t believe there’s a knife.”

I shrug and take a bite, then hand it to him. Sebastian hesitates only a second, looking vaguely nonplussed, as though sharing food is a novelty. Then he takes a bite—a large one that makes me think he skipped dinner or had a salad—and hands it back.

It’s about as intimate a meal as I’ve had in recent memory, yet nothing about it feels weird.

“So,” I say, taking a bite and wiping my chin. “How’ve you been?”

He takes the gyro and stares at it, though he’s not really seeing it. “Fine.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Uh-huh.”

He still hasn’t touched the gyro, so I take it back and take another bite.

“You could try it my way,” I say with a grin. “A little more babble, a little less stoicism.”

“All right,” he says slowly. “You asked how I’ve been. I’ve been conflicted.”

“Oh man,” I say, lifting my champagne flute in a toast. “I hear that.”

Sebastian apparently changes his mind about sitting, because he moves around the counter and pulls out the second stool after all. He drags it across the hardwood floor until it’s across from me. He sits. Takes the gyro out of my hand.

“What are you conflicted about?” he asks.

“Nope. You started it. You go first.”

He takes his time chewing and swallowing, his expression guarded when he meets my eyes again. “It’s about a woman.”

My stomach tightens in unmistakable jealously, which I remind myself is unfair.

I smile and shrug. “Mine is about a man. Maybe we can help each other.”

His eyes flash for a minute before he exhales and nods. “I care about her. I think about her more than I should. In fact, I find I’m thinking about her almost always. And yet, recently when I’ve thought about taking the next step, moving forward, something stops me. As though the moment isn’t right. Does that make sense?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” I say ruefully, thinking of Sir’s most recent message. “But you want my thoughts on the right moments in life?”

“You’ve got kind of an Amazonian warrior gleam in your eye, so I’m not really sure,” he admits skeptically.

“Here’s what I think,” I proceed anyway, balling up my napkin and tossing it into the plastic bag. “I think relationships are a lot like champagne. This bottle here”—I lift it and pour us each a little more—“it’s crazy expensive. My dad got all of us Cooper kids a vintage from the year we were born for our twenty-first birthdays and told us to save it for the right time. We always interpreted that as save it for a special occasion. Engagements. Weddings. Celebrations. Baseball, if you’re my brother.” I hold the neck of the bottle, study the label. “But my dad didn’t say save it for a special occasion. He said save it for the right time. It’s a crucial difference, I’m realizing.”