could stay with her for a few months, so this is something I should have done ages ago.
My plan is to start in Paris for a few weeks and then spend time in Italy and Switzerland. Um, hello…swiss chocolate! Maybe I’ll go to Spain for some tapas and England for some high tea. The sky’s the limit. But I plan to keep things open with the overall goal to basically take a food tour of Europe and come back to America weighing four hundred pounds. It will be worth it. I’ll feed my face and my creative soul, and when I return, I’ll launch my franchise, full steam ahead.
And who would have thought that the woman to inspire this crazy idea would be Elaine Donahue? Knock me over with a feather.
I stride into Pearl Street Pub and glance around the dark, dingy bar before I spot Nate at the bar in a black suit, clearly having come straight from the office. I tug my jean jacket around my shoulders like a coat of armor and make my way to him.
“Norah,” he says and stands to offer me a hug.
I accept because…well, I’m weak. “Hey Nate, how are you?”
“I’m good.” He holds the stool out next to him. “What are you drinking?”
I sit up straight when I say, “Champagne if they have it.”
The bartender rolls his eyes at my request but brings me over a glass of champagne. I look at it with a smile because I could be drinking bubbly in Paris in a month if all goes well with the Denver bakery.
“Cheers,” Nate says and clinks his glass with mine, shooting me a sheepish smile. “Congrats on your second location.”
“Thank you,” I reply and take a tentative sip because I’m certain it’s horribly cheap. It is…but I’m too excited to care.
“It’s a huge accomplishment.” Nate nods enthusiastically. “And then going to Paris too? Damn, you’re living the dream, Norah.”
I laugh shyly. “I’m trying to have some fun. I’ve focused on my goals for so long, I kind of forgot to refill the creative tank in my head, you know?”
“I’m an accountant, so I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” he says with a laugh. “But it sounds amazing.”
“I hope so.” I roll my glass in my hands, and Nate’s eyes bore into me.
“I have to tell you again, Norah, how incredibly sorry I am about that dinner,” he rushes out like he could barely hold the words in a second longer.
I take a deep, cleansing breath. “I get it, Nate, but it’s not something you can apologize your way out of. It was so inappropriate, especially because I had a boyfriend at the time.” I quickly take another sip while trying to ignore the sting of reality that I’m not stating out loud: My boyfriend was fake. Very fake. So fake that the idea of us not being fake anymore sent him running for the hills.
But the reality is, nothing about what Dean and I had felt fake to me, which was likely the problem all along. He was living in reality, and I was living in a fantasy.
Nate sets his beer down and pins me with a grave look. “I hope my actions aren’t why you and Dean broke up.”
“It’s not,” I state through clenched teeth, still smarting over the fact that Nate knew about my breakup at our business meeting because my mother told his mother. My mom and I may have had a great heart-to-heart, but Elaine Donahue is still painfully on brand.
“There are no secrets between our mothers, I’m afraid,” Nate says with a shrug. “And that’s part of why I lost my mind at that dinner. You have to understand that my mom has been talking to me about you since the moment I told her I was moving back to Boulder. She told me how successful your bakery was and how you were more beautiful than when we were kids, which I couldn’t believe because you were the prettiest girl in our high school.”
“I was not,” I huff, shaking off that weird compliment.
“You were, Norah. You were stunning and hyper-focused, knowing exactly what you were going to do with your life. I was this French-horn-toting loser you were way too kind to.”
“Nate, you weren’t that bad.”
“Oh my God, I was,” he replies with wide eyes. “I was horribly awkward, and you were so nice to me. I couldn’t believe you wanted to even…”