Last Call (Cocktail 5)

“Yes. All of those things.” He nodded, looking very serious.

I smothered a laugh, rising on tiptoe to press a very loud kiss just below his ear. “You tell this potential fiancé of mine that if he wants my real answer, he has to ask the real question. Until then, this is all chitchat on a balcony. And I’ve had enough chitchat for one evening.”

“How about sex on a balcony?”

“See, now that sounds more like it.” I grinned as his hands slid down my back and around my bottom, pressing me into his hips. As his lips met mine, slow and unhurried, I thought about kissing this specific man for the rest of my life. How could anything possibly be better than this? Simon and me, about to be naked and sexy—could anything top this?

And then I had a vision of this moment happening sometime in the future, but instead of Simon unbuttoning my shirt, he was untying my corset. And instead of sliding my jeans down, he was slipping a blue lacy garter down my thigh. And instead of calling me Nightie Girl as he licked a path from my belly button south, he called me wife.

If he was at all surprised by how aggressive I was with him on the balcony, he didn’t let on. He simply enjoyed it. Twice. Three times . . .

“But three? Seriously, three?”

“It’ll be fun!”

“It’ll be chaos! How in the world are you going to manage three puppies, a newborn, and Neil?”

“I’m nesting. I’m hormonal.”

“You’re psychotic.”

“Also a distinct possibility,” Sophia admitted as we sat in the back of the Rover on our way back to San Francisco. Simon and I had driven back to Chloe’s ranch earlier that morning to say good-bye to her and Lucas and the puppies, and to pick up Sophia and Neil. They’d be heading back down in a month or so, when the puppies were old enough to leave their mother and begin their new city life.

Though I adored the puppies, I thought she was getting in over her head with so much change too quickly. But, as she was fond of telling me, sometimes it was okay to “shut the fuck up and the back the fuck off,” and just let them figure it out. But I still told her she was psychotic.

“Speaking of psychotic, I tried to call you last night to tell you Psycho was on the late-night movie.”

“Oh?” I asked innocently.

“Yeah, I called you like three times in a row.”

“Something else was happening, three times in a row,” I said, speaking out of the side of my mouth so the boys didn’t hear.

“Nice,” she said, also out of the side of her mouth, while sliding me a sneaky low-five.

“Yeah, all that marriage talk at the dinner table last night made me a little panicky, which made me go inside my head a little too much. Ended up okay, though. I think Simon might be on the marriage train.”

“Oh, you think? Forget the marriage train, come and join me on the obvious train—he’s totally going to ask you to marry him,” she said, which prompted me to put my hand over her mouth to shut her up.

“Everything okay back there?” Simon called, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

“Totally, how’s it going up there?” I asked, singsongy.

“Awesome, Simon’s letting me drive the radio!” Neil cried out, turning up Def Leppard to an obscene level.

Which thankfully was loud enough to drown out what Sophia was saying, but was even too loud to continue the conversation. So we did what all adult women do . . . we moved it to the text box.

Way too loud with that train shit, preggo . . .

Oh please, like this isn’t obvious.

Less obvious than you yelling about him proposing.

You’re the one who said marriage train. I was just pointing out the obvious fact that your mister will eventually be making you his missus. DUH.

Yes, we talked about it. In a more concrete way last night than we have before. Last night was the first time we didn’t dance around it—we kind of danced right through it.

That’s so exciting!

Yes, it is. But no one has a ring yet, so settle the fuck down.

Oh don’t make such a big deal out of this, of course he’s going to ask you. He loves you.

I love him.

Okay, this is getting trite.

Totally. We should probably start talking again; they’re going to wonder what we’re up to back here.

Are you kidding? Listen to them singing. They love this ’80s rocker bullshit. They’re happy as clams.

We still have to start talking again.

What should we talk about?

Doesn’t matter, something random.

Okay.

“Did you know they’re talking about expanding the Vera Wang boutique on Geary?”

I hate you . . .

Chapter three

Monday morning found me arranging flowers in my office as usual. Cream roses with the very tips tinged peach and raspberry. Gathered in a spiral in a clear glass vase, surrounded by hydrangea leaves for the green around the stems. Set on the far left of my ebony desk, covered with neat stacks of color-coded manila folders. Each folder represented a different private home, office, or public space, and held cost estimates, value projections, palettes, swatches, clippings, and samples. Each one told a story of a new design, a new life being breathed into a space, either existing or brand new. And today was the day that I’d debrief Jillian, just back from Amsterdam.

She’d begun a small consulting business in Amsterdam, taking on a project here and there for new friends in her and Benjamin’s new city, and she seemed to be adapting well to a multinational life.