“That’ll only last for so long. Because, Sophie, honey, he’s into you. He wants to know everything there is to know about you.”
Just hearing the words made Sophie squirm. “And therein lies the problem.”
“You don’t think you could ever talk about your family?”
“I don’t talk about my family. They’re dead to me.” Or they had been until they’d tried to make her dead. Stuffing them back into that category was proving difficult.
“Bad stuff?” Iona asked, a sympathetic look on her face, and Sophie answered with a nod.
Iona refilled their mostly empty glasses. “We all have skeletons, Soph. Stuff we hate. Stuff we hate to admit to. Every last one of us.”
“Maybe.” Brothers who tried to kill their sisters, not so much. Dads who cared so little about their kids that they were able to walk away without looking back and move on to a new family, not so much.
“Tell me something, Sophie. Be honest with me. What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie.
But Iona didn’t call her on it. If she had, it might’ve been easier to argue, to convince both of them she wasn’t scared. Instead, her friend took a silent sip of wine and waited.
Having emptied her second glass enough that it wouldn’t spill, Sophie spun it around by the stem. “Maybe I am,” she conceded quietly.
“Maybe?” Iona’s question was gentle. Sympathetic.
“For sure.” There wasn’t enough wine in the world to make this not suck.
Iona touched her hand again — she was more touchy-feely than Sophie had ever realized — and leaned forward. “News flash, Sophie. When it comes to love, everybody’s scared. Love is scary.”
“I didn’t say a word about love.”
“Potential love. If that potential wasn’t there, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Again, Sophie couldn’t argue. Her knee bounced up and down, and she broke a cookie into bite-sized pieces and stuck them into her mouth one by one.
“Are you afraid of losing a guy you care about?” Iona asked.
“Well … of course.” Because, yeah, she cared. In the past, she hadn’t worried about it because there hadn’t been a guy she’d felt particularly strongly about. By her design, no doubt.
“And you think talking about things that are important to you will scare Nate away?”
“I guess so.”
“Sophie, I don’t know a lot about your family either, but if this guy is as crazy about you as he sounds, then I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Sophie pursed her lips and shook her head.
“That’s not enough to convince you, huh?” Iona said with a sad smile. “Maybe the timing just isn’t right for you two.”
“Maybe.” Which was still a big bucket of suck. “I’ll get over it,” she said, sitting up straighter. “Thanks for hearing me out. I really didn’t come over here to go on about him. I want to hear about something happier. Like that little baby boy your brother’s wife just had.”
“I have a new picture,” Iona said, perking up and pulling her phone out. “Cutest. Thing. Ever.” She flipped through photos with her thumb, then handed over the phone to Sophie.
It was a professional studio shot of the family of three. Iona’s pretty sister-in-law sat holding the tiny baby, who was decked out in a darling baseball outfit, and pressed her lips to the little guy’s forehead while Daddy stood behind them. But what really struck Sophie was the look of utter love and adoration in the man’s eyes as he stared at the mother of his son.
The knot of sadness balled up in Sophie’s throat again and pulsed with every beat of her heart. That’s what she was missing out on if she couldn’t just get over herself and open up to the right man someday.
The problem was … what if Nate happened to be that right man?
15
