Holding out my hand to help Sophie down the stairs, I felt her shaking, and my anger from the other night at Sixes seemed to fade away and all I saw was my Sophie. 

She put on her best frigid bitch face, trying to hide all her emotions. “Carter, I’m glad to see you. Where’s your date?” Really? I just bid on her and won, and she thinks I came with a date? I raised one brow in an attempt to encourage her to rethink her question.

“Right. . .well. . .” She cleared her throat and started over. “Anyway, it’s nice to see you again. I guess that we’ll find each other before dinner, huh?” She moved to take a step away, but I wrapped her in the fold on my arm before she could. My fingers brushed against the exposed skin of her open-back blouse as I escorted her over to the corner. Caging her in, our eyes locked, and she tried to defuse our situation with humor. “You know, you’re crazy for spending seven hundred fifty dollars, you way overpaid. There was probably a coupon online, maybe you can ask for a friend’s discount.” She tried to slide out from my arms, but I moved my hands to her waist and held her in place. “Why did you bid on me? If you’re wanting an apology? You could have saved your money.” I stared down at her hand that she had just moved up and placed on my chest, and she kept talking not realizing what she had done. “I won’t apologize for doing what I thought was best for me ten years ago. The only thing I have to apologize for is hurting you, Carter. So, I’m sorry that happened. I really am. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you or upset you. And if there is anything I can do to make this right, all you have to do is tell me, and it’s done. Just remember that sometimes we have to accept that things happen, and when they do, we have three choices: fight, give up, or change our direction.” She slipped out from between the wall and me and took a single step before I grabbed her elbow gently. 

“Can I talk now?” I asked softly, watching as she bit her bottom lip and nodded sheepishly. My heart clenched as memories flooded me as I remembered the nights she’d sit in my cruiser and I’d grip the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white as I fought back my urge to run my hands over her body. Just the hint of her perfume had me all kinds of twisted when we were young. “I don’t want to fight. I didn’t bid on you just so I could hear some apology, I bid on you to start over. I want to get to know you. Let’s go join the others. I think it’s time for us to go into the dining area anyway. We can call a truce for one evening.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

Thoughtfully, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth again before releasing it to say, “I think I can handle that.”

This time when she turned to leave, I didn’t stop her. Instead, I walked next to her, my hand on the small of her back as we moved toward the main ballroom where a dance floor was set up with a DJ in the corner. Banquet tables were placed in a U-shape five rows deep to seat at least five hundred people. Nestled against the far perimeter of the wall were tables for two, each set up with flowers, candlelight, and a place card stating that the table was reserved.

“I’m assuming one of those is ours?” 

“Yeah. Ariel said the back wall.” Sophie pointed in that direction.

Weaving through couples that stopped us to introduce themselves to Sophia the famous author or congratulate me on the winning bid seemed to take forever, but eventually we found our table. We sat quietly for a few moments staring at each other, I was taking her in, trying to catalogue the differences in her from then and now.

That’s when I realized poets were liars, silence wasn’t golden—it was lonely. I had been lonely for ten years, not allowing anyone to get close. And there she was, the girl who had taken the title of The One Who Got Away. I wouldn’t waste another second being angry, at least not tonight. I wanted to know everything about her, what made her smile, if she still listened to Avril . . . 

“Do you remember that time I pulled you over, and when I got to your car you blamed speeding on a song?” Her face illuminated as she remembered that moment. “When I asked who Avril was, you nearly lost it.”

“You don’t know Avril?” Sophie grinned, delivering the same line from all those years ago. “I was offended, how did anyone not know who she was. I wanted to name my child Avril.”

“As in Lavigne?” I asked, following her lead through our past conversation. 

“Oh my God, you do know her. You were totally redeemed with that acknowledgment. I was speeding because of her song ‘Girlfriend.’ I was at the part where she sang about being a motherfucking princess, and I was playing air drums on my gas pedal.”

“I let you off with a warning because you were a motherfucking princess.” I let out a low chuckle. “I think that was the last night I pulled you over for speeding and not just to talk. God, you were so young.”

“Hey, sometimes I saw you first and pulled up to you,” Sophie corrected me.

I picked up my glass of water and took a long swallow as a waiter set our salads in front of us and a basket of warm rolls between. It was like a fucking Hallmark movie or one of those butter commercials where our hands touched as we passed the rolls. Whatever it was, my dick liked it, and he was fully aware that the woman of our dreams, who was drop-dead gorgeous—was sitting across from us. 

“What’s life like as an author? Do you have set hours or days that you work?” I made small talk as we ate our salad. 

“Not really set hours, meaning I can take off whenever I want. But I’m pretty disciplined, I try to be in my office every morning by nine. I work it as if it were any other nine-to-five job.”

“Does it get lonely?”

“You mean, do I get tired of not having to answer to anyone else, having bitchy coworkers, or having to share breakrooms and bathrooms?”

“Okay, I see what you mean. You obviously like working alone.” Sophie was slowly relaxing, which was exactly what I wanted to see. “Kayson said that you were moving back but not to where? Did you get all settled?”

A smile spread across her lips, and she radiated happiness. “Yes. I live around the corner from him.” She clearly loved her family.

“What is it with Greeks and their houses? Kayson and his brothers all got a house.”

“A lot of Mediterranean cultures do it, sometimes they will pool money to buy newlyweds a house, but if someone in particular can do it—in this case it was Uncle George since he builds homes for a living—then it usually falls on that person. It’s our way of keeping our family close and secure.”

“Oh, you’re a newlywed?” I cringed at the thought of Sophie being married.

“No. My family is just nuts. Or maybe I should say imposing, it’s their way of making us feel guilty so we don’t leave. You know, giving us roots.”

As she finished and set her fork down, I did the same. The server cleared our salad plates and placed our dinners in front of us. The metallic ting of silverware on china roared in the hollow cocoon surrounding the two of us.

I couldn’t help but smile and give a quiet thank you to Kayson’s dad. We fell silent as we ate our entrée. When those plates were cleared, our waiter set our desserts in front of us, cheesecake. He held one of those server things with three bowls, and Sophie smiled brightly. “Would you care for cherries, strawberries, or blueberries for the top of your cheesecake?” he asked.

“Blueberries.” Sophie and I both said in unison.

He drizzled the fruit on top and walked to the next table.

“Why are you smiling?” 

“You know that dish he was carrying?” 

I nodded at her question. 

“Do you know what it’s called?” 

I shook my head. 

“It’s called an olive branch dish because of the way the bowls shoot off from each other like an olive stem.”

“Should we take it as a sign and extend an olive branch?”

“I’d like that. We can give that to each other for this one night, can’t we?”

“Yeah.” What I didn’t say was what I really wanted was for her to give me one real night. Let me know what one night would have been like with Sophie in my arms, the one night we should have had if she had stayed. But I didn’t mention that, of course not, I kept that to myself.