ALLIE

I managed to make it mostly through the day without thinking about Jack Darcy more than seventeen times an hour. Not a personal best, but probably not my worst, either.

When late afternoon rolled around, I swung over to our favorite Chinese place and picked up a giant bowl of soup to go. Except instead of the normal Styrofoam takeout containers, I had brought my own Tupperware and asked they package it in there. It’s improv-homemade.

I made it to Caroline’s house without spilling, burning, or otherwise destroying the soup, and took extra care clutching the bag to my chest as I climbed a neat little staircase to a duplex in a medium-nice neighborhood. Not as nice as Jack’s, not as crappy as mine.

Caroline answers the door after a single knock, and her surprise follows seconds later. “Allie? What are you doing here?”

“I brought soup!”

She takes the proffered bag with a questioning glance in my direction. “Soup?”

“You know, so you’ll feel better.”

“I’m not sick,” she says, her free hand reaching for her face and pressing tenderly against her cheek. “I just have a broken nose and a pair of black eyes.”

“I know, and Jack is genuinely sorry about that.” I wince at the sight of her bruises, the dark purple now faded to a shade of tornado-sky green. “How are you doing?”

“You know,” she says with a laugh. “As good as I can be with a face like this.”

“Well, you’ll have to forgive Jack about the soup idea. He’s not very experienced with breaking women’s noses and having to apologize, so he went with the best he had.”

She laughs again. “I suppose that’s understandable. Do you want to come inside?”

“Oh, I should be going. Actually—” I pause, turned halfway around. “I should explain. Jack wanted to be here in person, but the thing is—”

“You said this soup is homemade?” She takes a whiff, smiling sardonically as she peers into the bag. “Does that mean you don’t need your receipt?”

“Er, right.” I briefly flirt with the idea of making up a very convoluted fib about how I ordered the same soup a week ago—which isn’t actually a fib—but I decide Caroline would see right through it. “I have a story about that, actually.”

“I like stories. How about you explain over a bite of soup?”

“I don’t want to be a bother. I just came over here to drop this off for Jack.”

“I haven’t gone to work in a week, and I’m dying for company. Come on in.”

With a nod of agreement, I follow Caroline through the door and into her home. As expected, it’s small in square footage, but neat as a button. It’s almost as if she had been expecting company.

She has no mail of any sort lying on her counter, nor does she have unwashed coffee mugs in the sink. Her throw pillows are adorably arranged on a chic gray couch, and a candle is burning sweetly in the kitchen. The whole house smells nicely of fresh linen, and the soft glow of the television hops in the background.

“Are you sure you weren’t expecting company?” I ask, glancing around. “The only time my counter is free of junk is when I’m having a party. Even then, it’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll decide to actually clean.”

She gives a sheepish smile. “I’m not normally this organized, but I’ve been bored out of my mind. You are welcome company. Let me grab you a bowl. Take a seat in the living room.”

As she nukes the soup for a quick minute in the microwave, I ease onto the couch. I fold my hands awkwardly in front of my body, wondering why in the world I accepted this invitation. I have nothing in common with Caroline except my acquaintance with Jack Darcy and a love of Chinese soup.

“Has school started yet?” Caroline asks, sounding like she’s genuinely curious. “Did Jack say you teach at Kentwood Prep?”

I nod, then realize she can’t see me from the kitchen, and make my way to her. We make small talk about school and my preparations for the year ahead, the hospital, tips and tricks for keeping the counter free of junk—and by the time we’re halfway through our bowls of soup, I’ve decided I quite like Caroline.

Almost a whole meal has passed, and not a moment of silence has shrouded our chat. She’s a great conversationalist and an even better listener. I find myself telling her all about Aimee, about the new math teacher, and our awkward incident with the rollaway wine bottle.

“Stay for a minute longer?” Caroline asks, popping open the fridge. “I have this cookie dough, and if I eat it all myself, it will not be pretty.”

“I can help you with that.”

As the cookies bake and layer the house with delicious scents, we move to the couch and talk more about the hospital. Eventually, one of Caroline’s stories ends with the mention of Jack, and both of us finally stall out in conversation.

“Did you say you had a story about the soup?” Caroline asks. “I figured the note wasn’t from him, either.”

“Really? I thought I was good at forging his signature.”

“The signature is fine,” she says with a wink. “It was the part where he wrote Love, Jack that I figured it out.”

“Oh, yeah. I suppose.” I frown at this massive oversight on my part. “Jack meant well. He came over last night asking for help on how to apologize to you. He wanted to make soup.”

“It was his idea?”

“Come on,” I say with an eye roll. “I tried to convince him otherwise.”

“I mean, it’s original. I kind of liked it.”

“Me too. We did make an honest effort to cook it from scratch but...” I bob my head from side to side. “Let’s just say I’m down one pot and a bag of veggies.”

She nods, watching me for a long moment. “How often do you and Dr. Darcy hang out?”

“Oh, I don’t know, not a whole lot.” I shift in my seat, suddenly realizing that just about every story I’ve told her, except the ones from school, involve Jack. “Sunday nights we have dinner, but it’s nothing much. Just a habit from growing up together.”

“You know I’m not interested in him, right? I think it’s pretty clear, so if we can move on, that’d be great.”

I freeze as the timer beeps. Caroline stands with a flourish, heading to the kitchen without a backward glance. The sounds of her removing the cookies from the oven shatter the silence, followed by a fresh breath of air that’s bursting with gooey chocolate chips and barely crisped cookie edges.

Caroline returns a moment later with a plate full of dessert and a stern look clouding her face. “Don’t make this awkward, Allie. You’re trying to set me up, and I have no idea why.”

“What?”

“You and I both know that I’m not interested in Dr. Darcy.” Caroline gives a polite smile and shakes her head. “He’s not my type.”

“But—”

“He’s not my type.”

I pause for a moment and give a shake of my head. “Sorry, but what is your type, then? Jack is pretty much everything. He’s smart, he’s handsome, he’s financially secure, he’s a genuine, nice person, and—”

“And he’s a man.”

“Yes, exactly! He really is a man. He’d make for an excellent husband someday, I’m sure of it. We’re basically siblings.”

“You don’t understand,” Caroline says with a half-smile. “He’s a man, therefore, he’s not my type.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh, Caroline, I’m sorry—I didn’t realize...”

She waves a hand and laughs. “I don’t make a habit of announcing it at the hospital. I don’t hide it either, if anyone asks.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have pushed Jack on you so much if I’d known.”

“It’s fine!” Caroline laughs again and pushes the plate toward me. “Not the first time it’s happened. You should meet my mom. She’s still hoping I’ll change my mind or whatever shit she reads. She loves me, she just doesn’t get it.”

I wince. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m really—”

“Girlfriend, you need to chill.” Caroline points to the tray on the table before me. “What I’m more concerned about is the fact that you think Dr. Darcy is like a brother to you.”

“He is,” I tell her. “We grew up together. He looks at me like I’m his little sister or something.”

“Yeah. Right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I’m feeling nervous about her implication, so I grab a cookie and take a huge, boiling-hot bite. The chocolate chips have apparently turned to molten lava, and my eyes water as my taste buds die a slow and painful death. “Ow.”

“Milk.” Caroline pushes a glass toward me.

I bob my head in a thank-you, still in too much pain to speak.

“Well, while you’re putting the fire out in your mouth, let me explain something.” Caroline breaks a cookie in half daintily, and then takes a smaller, more sensible bite. “Neither you nor Dr. Darcy look at one another like a sibling.”

“I think you’re wrong.” I swallow. “With all due respect.”

“I suppose that’s fair, but with even more due respect, you’re fucking wrong.” Caroline grins as I gulp down the rest of my milk. “Exhibit A: Men do not talk about their sisters around the clock. I have three brothers. I’ll bet you my yearly income that nobody at their workplace even knows I exist. Maybe if they listed me as an emergency contact on some form.”

“But—”

“Just believe me on that one. Dr. Darcy? Not so much. Everything is Allie this and Allie that. You’re all he talks about.” She gives me a meaningful stare. “He thinks you’re the funniest person to ever have lived. I’m not saying I disagree, but most men don’t rave about their sister for hours each day. If you’re interested in him, you should give him a sign.”

“I have!”

She raises an eyebrow. “Really? Because I’m almost certain he’d be jumping all over that invitation if you laid it on the table.”

“I have in the past. Not recently because he’s made his feelings clear.”

“How clear?”

“I asked him out on a date.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, a few years ago,” I say. “Very clearly. I told him I loved him and thought that maybe we should be a couple.”

“And?”

“And he said no.”

“Just like that?” Caroline’s face is masked with disbelief. “He didn’t give you any explanation.”

I give a slight shake of my head. “Nothing that made any sense.”

“Nothing that made any sense.”

I roll my eyes. “I know you think I probably am not making a lot of sense right now, but you have to trust me. You haven’t known Jack as long as I have.”

“Maybe not, but...” She stands, leaving her sentence hanging. “I spotted Dr. Darcy carrying around a book on break the other day. I don’t mean to draw assumptions, but he’s never seemed to be the Pride and Prejudice type before this week.”

“He actually brought the book?” I gape at her. “A real paperback book with pages between covers?”

“Come with me.”

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I leave the warm cookies behind as I follow Caroline out of the living room, past the kitchen, and into a little nook that might be used as a dining room.

Instead of the typical dining room table and chairs, however, this space has been filled with overflowing bookshelves stacked floor to ceiling. A happy little antique desk sits nudged against a corner with a worn chair pushed against it. A small collection of teapots and teacups sits on the only shelf not lined with paperbacks, hard covers, or limited edition copies I’ve mostly seen online.

“Wow,” I murmur, and the approval is clear as my fingers itch to run along the spines. “I had no idea you were one of us.”

“One of us,” she says with a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. So, tell me: did you have anything to do with Dr. Darcy’s change in reading material? When I first started at the hospital, he read nothing but textbooks. For fun.”

“I could tell you, but then he might kill you.”

“How’d you do it?”

“What? Oh, the books?” I lose track of the conversation as I find an old favorite on the shelf and lovingly remove it to read the back cover for the hundredth time. “I offered to teach Jack a few lessons.”

“What sort of lessons?”

“A Romance Academy of sorts.” I wrinkle my nose and reshelf the book as I realize how dumb it sounds. “Let’s just say Jack needs some practice being around women. You know, in a non-professional, romantic sort of way.”

Caroline reaches for her nose, flinching as her fingers land along the bruises. “You don’t say.”

“Exhibit A: Black and Blue,” I say, nodding at her face. “I don’t know what it is with him. He’s too honest for some people, or too forward, I guess. It doesn’t bother me, but the man has ruined more shirts than I can afford in a year.”

“Where’s he meeting them?”

“Mostly online. Which is why I tried to get him interested in you,” I say with a sheepish smile. “You’re pretty and nice and smart, and I thought he might have more luck with someone he already knew.”

She clucks. “You’ve almost made me feel bad for telling you I’m not straight.”

“Better you ruin my plans sooner rather than later,” I tease back. “This way, I can set my sights on someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“To pair him up with someone else. There’s this gala thing he’s going to for his mother’s award, and she’s determined to have him set up with Sandra Swank by then. Don’t worry, she doesn’t have babies penciled in until next year.”

“That’s ridiculous. What year is it?”

“Tell me about it.”

“Why not you? You could go with him. Even as a friend.”

I shake my head. “I’m not Jack Darcy dating material. His mother is looking for someone with great breeding. Her words, not mine.”

“That’s very weird.”

“Yes, I know. Plus, I’m a teacher. Jack deserves to be with a genius or something.”

“I don’t know...I think Jack deserves to choose who he’s with.”

“Fair enough. But I’m just giving him the tools to be successful when he finds a woman he wants badly enough to chase after.”

“I want in.”

“What?”

“I want in,” Caroline says again with a smile. “I want to help. Romance Academy and all that.”

“Jack would kill me if he knew I’d told you about this. He likes to keep his professional life separate from his private life.”

“Behind the scenes help, then,” she says. “I’m picking the next book he reads.”

I grin at her. “I respect that.”

“You should write this stuff down for him.”

“I was thinking about that...” I hesitate, still uncertain whether I’m ready to bear all with Caroline. “A lot, actually. I like that idea.”

“Well, you should. I haven’t had a date in too long; I could probably use a refresher course, too.”

“Really? You’d be interested?” I can hardly keep the skepticism out of my voice. “I had this idea actually. It’s stupid.”

“If it’s so stupid, why are you telling me?”

Caroline’s so blunt in her response that I’m forced to stop and think. “I’m not sure. But I guess now I have to tell you.”

“What’s the idea?”

“A blog.” It feels good once I’ve said it. “I know it sounds silly, and I’m sure that nobody out there would want to read about—”

“I would.”

“I haven’t even told you what it’s about yet.”

“We have the same taste in books, judging by the way you’re eyeing my collection. I don’t really care what you talk about, I’ll probably like it.”

“Well, this is what made me think of it. I was thinking of taking Jack’s name out, but including bits about Romance Academy. You know, the books we read, the silly rules—you know, Rule Number 9, don’t—”

“I’m sold. You should do it.”

“But what if...”

Caroline waits for a long moment, but I never finish my sentence, and eventually she prompts me to continue. “What if...what?”

“It fails?”

She shrugs. “Then nobody reads it and nobody’s the wiser. Just do it anonymously at first if you’re so worried, or leave off your last name.”

“Huh.”

“What’ve you got to lose?” She selects a book from the shelf and hands it over to me. “Rule number whatever-the-hell-you’re on: Romance isn’t complete without a little fairytale.”