Heat bloomed in her cheeks and she took a sip of her tea to cover it.
"Well, regardless of how much he loved or didn't love me going on a date with someone is moot."
"You don't hear the word moot used enough," Ursula remarked thoughtfully. "But I think you're wrong. I think it's the opposite of moot."
"Inarguably," Bess supplied.
Eloise pointed at her. "Nice. But again, may I remind you he won't date and I get why. I would be crazy to entertain that."
She was crazy. She was entertaining it daily. Hourly.
Ursula's green eyes held a hope that only someone who loves you so deeply can carry. "But you would entertain it. I mean, he's the kind of man that would make you would want to."
Eloise sat there and stirred a sun-bright honeysuckle around her glass. "I'm scared to even say this, but I've never felt so settled as I do when I'm around him. It never feels like there's the possibility of the other side of the coin with him. There's no guesswork. I think we like the idea of men speaking poetry to us, but the idea of them being poetry-level complicated and twisting in and out of ambiguity is exhausting. He's a book you can sit and read with ease, the words honest," she smiled the slightest, "and funny."
Eloise thought of him seeing her from a distance as she slipped under the willow tree, and walking, through the dark meadow, just to see if it was her. He had made her feel like he'd hoped to see her. What a simple, honest, lovely thing.
"You're reading poetry again, aren't you?" Ursula turned to Bess. "When she starts reading poetry in the mornings she gets poetic herself."
Eloise sighed. "I'm working through Walt Whitman, actually."
Ursula's Cheshire smile made Bess laugh and Eloise shake her head.
"Anyways, yes. I like him but I can't think too much on it."
"Or too eloquently," Ursula pointed out.
She smiled. "Or too eloquently," she agreed softly.
"But you like him."
Something blossomed inside of her chest. It was the tight bud of the peony bursting into its full bloom. It happens just like that in a woman's heart; what starts as a marble softens over time and then the suddenness of the bloom is like it's own arrhythmia, it can be so alarming.
"I do," she nearly hiccuped, like the words could barely contain themselves and tripped coming out. "Damn it," she whispered, lifting her iced tea and drinking it like a hard liquor.
"Just tell him," Ursula said. "Worth it to at least be honest and see."
"Yeah, Ursula broke my uncle's curse and thank God it was her, because there were some women circling him that would have made me scream."
"Love you too," she said to Bess. "But you," she pointed to Eloise. "What do you want?"
"Him," she said it so easily like she didn't have to pay anything for the answer.
"Okay, then."
"Okay."
"We need one more can of this to finish up the chairs," Jenson said. "But then give them overnight and they should be good to go."
"You guys really came through. Thank you," Eloise said. "Coffee on the house for the foreseeable future."
Jenson grinned as he pulled Ursula into his side. Seeing her best friend fit against him so easily made her smile. "Bess already gives me free coffee."
"Hey!" she threw a rag at him over the coffee bar. "That was our secret and now it's revoked."
He laughed and threw it back at her. "Well, now I have free coffee because I'm so helpful."
"Yeah, we'll see who you get at the till," she replied.
