“This is silly. You know that, right?”
“You agreed, Taylor. It’s part of the deal.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Honestly, I don’t have very high hopes. But I promise to give it my best. God knows if there’s a way to avoid the hurt that’s staring me in the face, I’m all for it.”
Well, that was better. Even if Taylor did nothing but follow directions, reluctant or not, Brynn had no doubt that she could make this happen. She’d pulled off harder things in her life than helping a woman fall back in love with a man who used to be the center of her world. Taylor might think it was hopeless, but Brynn was convinced it was a piece of cake. Wedding cake, to be specific.
“Okay. The first step is research. I need to learn all about Ian. More specifically, I need you to tell me everything that ever attracted you to him. What little things does he do to make your heart go pitter-patter? What’s the sweetest thing he ever did? How did you first know you were in love with him? Give me ten words to describe him.”
“Brynn—”
“Taylor.”
“Fine.” With a long sigh, Taylor uncurled from the chair, moved to the bed and stretched out full length.
“Hey! I haven’t even tested that yet. You do not get to be the one to break in my bed.”
“This is serious work, Brynn. Emotionally draining. I need to be supported.”
“Support, my ass,” Brynn said, but she rooted through the box marked Operation Sleeping Beauty and pulled out a notebook and an ancient tape recorder she had liberated from her mother’s basement.
“Is that what I think it is? I haven’t seen one of those in years.”
“Yes, it is, and you seriously don’t want to know how hard it is to find cassette tapes these days. Start talking.”
“Fine.” Taylor wriggled deeper into the pillows, making Brynn grit her teeth in envy. She’d stayed up way too late packing, and that bed was far too tempting. Though if Taylor was on it, Brynn couldn’t sack out and crash, so maybe this was better. “Any particular place you want me to start?”
Brynn glanced down at the notebook full of hastily scribbled ideas. “At the beginning, of course. Your first memory of Ian.”
“Um...let me think. That’s a tough one.”
“Two margaritas shouldn’t lead to this level of impairment, Taylor.”
“Bite me. I just can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in my life. I’ve known him since I was born. My mom and his mom went to high school together.”
“So when you say you’ve known him all your life, you’re not exaggerating.”
“That’s about it.”
Well, this might be a bit more difficult than anticipated. How could she help Taylor pinpoint the magic, when the magic had been with her every day?
“So were you in love with him all your life?”
“No.”
A simple answer, but there was just enough of a twist to the way Taylor drew the word out, almost dubiously, that made Brynn’s ears perk up.
“Elaborate.”
“Well, when we were kids, he was kind of on the outskirts of my circle. We saw each other when our folks got together, but there were two elementary schools, so we weren’t part of each other’s day-to-day lives.”
“You wouldn’t have been anyway, right? Isn’t he a couple of years older than you?”
“Right. He’s Greg’s age. And since you know how much girls like to hang out with their older brothers when they’re growing up...”
Brynn snorted. “Tell me about it. Sam couldn’t decide if he was supposed to protect me or sacrifice me to the hockey gods, so he usually did both.”
“How did he do that?”
She shrugged. “Put me in goal, shot pucks at me, then swooped in with an ice pack when I got hit.”
“Oh, that must have made for a secure childhood.”
“It had its moments.” At least, until it fell apart. But they weren’t supposed to be talking about her. “Okay. So when did you know that things had shifted with Ian?”
“Um...oh, hell. Promise you won’t laugh?”
“I swear.”
“Well...I was seventeen. It was his first year of university, and I hadn’t seen him since the summer, maybe earlier. He walked into church and he looked so...different. It was like he’d been... You know how, in the movies, the king will pull out his sword and tap the dude on the shoulders and say, ‘I dub thee Sir Fancy Pants,’ and they stand up and you could swear the guy’s standing a little taller? It was like that.”
Brynn had to swallow the lump in her throat. “That’s beautiful, Taylor.”
“Yeah, it was a pretty amazing moment.” Her laugh was short. “But, Brynn, I was seventeen. And it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who had been glad to see him come home. His old high school girlfriend had finally slept with him just the night before. So all I was seeing was afterglow.”
“Must you try to kill any hint of romance that ever existed in the world?”
“Well, no. Because like I said, I was a kid. It was all very romantic and magical, and I fell like that.” She snapped her fingers. “The thing is, I don’t think I was falling for Ian the person. I was falling for the whole idea of love and romance. He was just the rack that I hung my dreams on. Not like—”
Taylor bit her lip and Brynn knew what she was going to say: not like with Carter.
“It wasn’t like that with him, was it?”
Taylor shook her head. “But we’re not supposed to be talking about him.”
Brynn sat on the bed, a small corner of her brain noting how utterly sinkable the mattress was beneath her. She couldn’t wait to curl up beneath that fluffy comforter and indulge in an hour of reading when this day was over. “You’re right. Talking about Carter won’t be helpful.” She drew in a deep breath and hoped she wasn’t shooting herself in the foot. “But it might be good for me to know what draws you to him. So for the next ten minutes, you can tell me all about him. Anything. How it happened, how you knew things had shifted, the whole works. We’re going to lay it all on the table so we can deal with it. And then we’re going to stop talking about stupid men and finish off those margaritas and laugh for a while, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Okay. Ten minutes. Go.”
“I won’t need that long.”
This was interesting. Taylor had always needed at least three sentences to say what Brynn could say in one.
“Go on.”
Taylor pulled a pillow onto her lap and hugged it close. “Ian is a wonderful, wonderful guy. Honestly, if anyone were to put him and Carter together and rate them on their amazingness, Ian would probably win, hands down. He’s more classically attractive, he’s great with kids, he’s more outgoing and charismatic. He’s got this air about him that makes people just, you know, like him.”
“And yet?” Brynn twisted her fingers and waited. Whatever this was, it was key. If she wanted to help