who cross hell and high water for a damsel in distress? Who face every danger and pay any price just to win a lady’s favor?’
‘Sorry, haven’t seen any of those around in a long time!’ Tim admitted with a grin and turned toward the door. ‘But, Lauren, since you’re not going to sue the diner after all – perhaps we could, as compensation for my lack of heroic chivalry, go grab a coffee sometime?’
He was leaning in the doorway, waiting for her answer, and his ice-blue eyes were holding her captive. He engulfed her, wrapped her up in his smile, in his scent, and in his easy, noncommittal words. So what if she met up with him for coffee?
‘And what are you going to tell your girlfriend?’ she ventured.
Tim took an audible breath and ran his hand over his tie. Only then did he look up again. ‘You mean Caroline? From the diner?’ He hesitated. ‘She’s not my girlfriend. We . . .’
‘You’re just having sex?’
He curled up the corners of his mouth and raised his hands in an exasperated gesture.
‘That’s one way of putting it, yes.’
‘She’s . . . very pretty.’
Tim smirked. ‘So are you.’
Lauren felt the heat in her cheeks and a flutter in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t fail to notice that he was coming on to her.
‘So she wouldn’t have a problem with us seeing each other from time to time?’
Now it was his turn to sheepishly rub his chin.
‘Exclusivity is not a requirement in our . . . relationship.’ He winked at her. ‘We can see each other – if you like.’
Lauren didn’t really know what to say. She didn’t want to muscle in on someone else’s relationship, but Tim was a great guy, and she felt drawn to him. On the other hand, what could really happen with a man who was somehow involved with someone else?
‘Lauren?’ he followed up on his question and glanced out the door, saying hello to someone who was passing in the hall. ‘So, what do you say? Will you go out with me?’
‘Fine!’ she caved in and pushed herself off the table. ‘But if the coffee is too hot again we’ll turn this into a class action suit. Art doesn’t pay, you know.’
A smile was dancing around his lips, and with a wink he disappeared into the hallway.
‘Lauren Latham,’ she scolded herself after spending several moments staring at the spot where Tim had stood only seconds ago. ‘You are not going to be silly and fall for a guy who is so obviously a womanizer!’
Deep in thought, she opened the first binder and pulled out a pile of documents. Then she started the shredder and spent several hours turning old minutes of proceedings into strands of paper spaghetti. In her mind she was still standing in the elevator with Tim Parker. And the more thinly cut paper strips the shredder spat out, the clearer it became to Lauren that Tim had to absolutely come to her birthday party. And if she had to invite the entire law firm just to convince him, then she would do that, too.
* * *
‘You’ve always been the kind of person who takes what she wants. And you have no idea how glad I was when you took the initiative,’ Tim admitted as he looked around. The people gathered here tonight had been a part of Lauren’s life for so much longer than he had. And he was full of gratitude that he was allowed to be one of them. Rachel, her brother Chris, and Lauren’s family were his family today, too. He knew, come what may, they’d be there for him. He knew he was going to need them, and soon. And he also knew that they would give him the support he needed when the time came.
‘That’s girls for you,’ Rachel chimed in. ‘If you guys can’t get your act together, then we need to take our fate into our own hands.’
She got up, bent forward, and threw a couple of pieces of wood into the flickering flames. Nobody here wanted the fire to go out – tonight, it held them all together. Then Rachel took her seat next to Lauren.
‘That’s just how we are. We decide what we want.’ There were tears in her eyes, but her smile was full of warmth and love. She was no longer speaking about what happened then. She was speaking about what was going to happen. She understood – and this was so endlessly important to Lauren.
Carefully, trying not to wake Alyssa who was sleeping in her lap, Lauren leaned over and hugged her best friend.
‘No tears today,’ she reminded her, but could nevertheless feel the hard lump in her own throat.
Rachel nodded and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. It was black with smudged mascara.
‘All right, fine, distract me. Tell us how the story continues,’ Rachel asked.
‘Oh lord, it’s been such a long time! I’m not sure I can get all the pieces of memory to fit together,’ Lauren admitted and furrowed her brow in concentration. She was trying to keep her composure, for the night was still young. She did not want the mood to turn sour. ‘You guys were all there. Help me. What’s the next bit of the story?’
‘Well, that’s easy,’ Tim said, coming to her aid with a big grin. ‘You were smitten with me.’
Lauren smiled. Under the blue night sky, in the soft, romantic light of the bonfire, it was easy for her to agree with him.
‘Yeah, I had a crush on you – I had fallen for you big time,’ she admitted, and amidst her brother Ben’s cheers Tim pulled Lauren backward and leaned in. Giggling like a schoolgirl, she gave in to her husband’s passionate kiss.
Suddenly, the night no longer felt cold. And for a moment she even forgot about the throbbing pain behind her temples. She was filled with a feeling of warmth and happiness, and it made her heart speed up. A feeling too rarely felt these past few months.
‘Oh, yes, the party! I remember it well. Mia honey, your mother used to throw lots of wild parties down here by the lake,’ Peter Latham explained to his thirteen-year-old granddaughter with a twinkle in his eye.
‘For real?’ Mia prodded without hesitation. Lauren could almost see her mind calculating whether this piece of information could somehow be of use to her.
‘Well, they weren’t that wild!’ Lauren objected, but her dad only smiled into his silvery beard.
‘All right, so maybe the parties weren’t that wild,’ he conceded, amused. ‘Otherwise I would never have allowed you to invite your whole tribe all the time.’ He let his eyes wander from face to face by the fire. Everyone knew that he considered his daughter’s friends to be part of the family.
‘Do you remember what you used to tell us back in the day?’ Rachel turned to Peter. Her black hair had an almost blue sheen in the moonlight, and with her raspy voice she sounded like a fortune teller. She waved at Mason and offered him a grateful smile when he walked over.
‘Truer words were never spoken, Peter. We should have taken them to heart much sooner,’ Rachel remembered and reached for her beloved’s hand.
The
