I know so. I’m going to be such a wife guy, oh my god. I can’t freaking wait.
Me
You’re a real one, Tyler Hansley.
Tyler
Bet your beautiful ass that I am going to have my tongue all over you the second you walk through the door I am.
Me
Never change, my dude. I fucking love you. Forevs, Harry. I’m going to go see some girls about a suit.
Tyler
Absolutely, positively forevs, Sal. Fucking love you back.
“Soph, what the fuck is going on in there?”
At Maya’s question, I shove my phone in my bag and push out of the fitting room. All five of my friends are sitting in a row on a pink velvet couch, and in unison their jaws drop.
“Oh, fuck yes,” Emmy says with a grin.
Sarah nods, taking a sip of champagne from the flute in her hand. “Definitely fuck yes. You are the hottest computer genius I’ve ever seen.”
Maddy literally rubs her hands together with glee. “I knewwe were right to come here. It’s so cool your mom can get the whole place closed down for us.”
Turning to the gold tri-fold mirror set up along one wall of the lavish dressing room in the Shadyside boutique, I study my reflection and decide I absolutely love what I see. “Right? She took a design class for fun one semester before I was born and met the owner. I love it here, and the idea of some dark-colored business suit bores me to actual tears.” I toss my hair back behind my shoulders. “I come by it naturally. I don’t think my mom has owned even one single black suit in her entire legal career.”
Caitlin makes a face as if she’s personally offended by the idea of a lawyer not having a black suit in her closet. “You don’t think it’s too dramatic for an interview?”
I turn back to the mirror and grin. “Nah. It’s better they know who I am right from the start. I’m not a dark suit kind of girl. I mean, I’m not really an any suit kind of girl, but if I have to wear one, it’s sure as shit going to look like me. This way, they won’t be surprised when I wear neon on my first day of work and paint my nails purple.”
The room goes silent, and it only takes me a few seconds to realize what I said.
“So you think you’ll take the job if they offer it to you?” Maddy asks carefully, her eyes studying me as if she might be able to locate the answer I have yet to come up with.
Thinking about taking the job makes me sweat even more than I already was, and I yank off the suit jacket, tossing it onto an empty ottoman before dropping dramatically into a chair next to the couch. Propping my legs up on the coffee table, I do my best impression of someone whose stomach isn’t a tangled mass of nerves and indecision. I can feel all my friends’ eyes on me, and I blow out a breath, dropping my head against the chairback. “I have no clue. I don’t even know if I want to get on the plane tomorrow.”
“You’re getting on the plane,” Caitlin says firmly. “You aregoing to fly to San Francisco tomorrow and take the interview like a total boss. Smart bitches do not turn down career-defining opportunities for anything. You get to decide whether or not to take the job, but you need all the facts to make your decision, and right now, you don’t have them. The facts are in California, so that’s where you need to be.”
Caitlin winces then, looking down and digging around in her bag until she comes up with a medicine bottle. Shaking out a few pills, she swallows them down with a sip from her water bottle.
“You okay?” I ask.
She waves me away. “Got my period this morning. We’re talking about you right now.”
Like they always do, Caitlin’s matter-of-fact words have my stomach unknotting enough to take the full breath that has eluded me as the day of my trip gets closer. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”
Caitlin shrugs. “I’m always right.”
Emmy snorts out a laugh, knocking Caitlin’s shoulder with hers. “So what’s making this hard for you, Soph? Is it Tyler?”
I laugh a little. “I mean, yes? I don’t want to get on the plane because being in California this week means I’m away for our birthdays, and we haven’t spent our birthdays separately in almost twenty years. And taking the job means putting an entire country between us. We were apart for four years throughout college and it almost killed me even though it was temporary, and I wasn’t even consciously aware that I was in love with him. This wouldn’t be temporary, I am extremely aware of exactly how in love with him I am, and three thousand miles is a fuckton of miles. Is that crazy? It feels crazy to consider turning down a major career opportunity for a man. The Sophie of a few years ago would literally never.”
“And now?” Maddy asks gently.
I let my mind drift to Tyler. To falling asleep with his strong arms wrapped around me and waking up to his beaming smile. To movie night and late-night grilled cheeses and to feeling likewe’re both exactly, perfectly, right where we’re supposed to be. Like I am the most myself I’ve ever been, because I get to be who I am with him. “I’ve waited so long for him. Wished and hoped for years he would see me the way I see him. Love me the way I love him. Now he does, and god, you guys, it’s even more amazing than I thought it could be. Even the idea of walking away from him now makes me feel like I’m tearing my own heart right out of my chest.”
