Life always seems simpler at dawn, the sun rising slowly outside my window, Max’s gentle snores reminding me of the future we’re working toward. Maybe it’s because I wake up feeling light, like a feather dancing in the wind—something that seems to fade as the day wears on. Because I’ll read too much into how Jules’ smile never seems to reach her eyes the way it used to, why seeing Liam and Nikki’s picture on the cover of OK! magazine makes my stomach lurch, and why Max’s snores don’t lure me back to sleep the way they once did—that I’m unable to match my breathing to his when I pull him close. It could be that even though I’m so happy to have him back, there’s a small part of me that hates the fact that I needed a do-over to achieve the happiness that eluded us the first time.
“It doesn’t matter how you did it. Life is complicated. If you and Max are happy here and now, then take it and run, Kate,” Jules tells me later when I arrive at the restaurant where she works before we leave for my bachelorette party. “This is what you wanted. And now you’ll even get the wedding you always hoped for as well. Why are you questioning it?” she says as she feverishly mixes fudge in a large stainless steel bowl. She barely even slows as a tall man sweeps in and dips a small spoon into the mix, the chocolate dangling precariously as he lifts it to his mouth, nodding his head in approval, Jules’ only acknowledgment a quick sideways glance before he disappears into the dining room.
“Who’s that?” I say with a smile. “Supercute coworker alert!”
Jules frowns at me. “He’s one of the owners.”
“How can that be? He looks about twenty-five.”
“He’s thirty.”
I think back to the way his deep blue eyes crinkled at Jules. “He’s adorable.”
“I guess,” she murmurs nonchalantly as she pours the fudge expertly into the waiting pan before placing it in one of the large refrigerators against the wall. “He’s my boss.”
“Really?” I ask. “Because boss or not, he looks as delicious as that fudge you’re making.”
“If you say so,” she answers. “But stop trying to change the subject. I don’t get it. You finally have Max back—you effing traveled back in time to make it happen, for goodness’ sake. So please, tell me why you can’t just go with the flow? Just accept that Max wants to make you happy and that’s why he told Stella to change things back.”
“Maybe,” I ponder. “I guess I’ve come so far with him that I don’t want to go backward again. The first wedding I planned wasn’t at all what he wanted. And I want to make sure he’s happy too.”
“Sometimes you have to give up a little bit of your own happiness to make someone else’s happen. That’s what love is.”
I watch Jules’ face register a series of emotions as she says this. “What did you have to give up to make Ben happy?”
Jules’ eyes narrow slightly. “Don’t make this about me. Anyone who’s been married and has kids would tell you the same thing.”
“Would they? Because I’m only concerned about you.”
“You’ve got precious little time to fix this thing with Max and I’m topping your list of worries?” She walks around and cups her hands over my shoulders. “You need to stop questioning my relationship and start talking to Max about yours.”
I didn’t know why I hadn’t mentioned Stella’s call to Max the night before—it had certainly been on my mind as we ate dinner, as I poured him a glass of the Chianti Classico I had picked up on the way home. The words had sat on the edge of my lips as we opened the gifts that had arrived at our door earlier that day, both of us cringing as we realized the beautiful cherry-red KitchenAid mixer we tore open was from Courtney, who must have ordered it before everything happened.
“How did work go today?” I had asked Max as we sat on the floor together surrounded by light blue wrapping paper. “Did you see her?”
Max’s eyes clouded over as if he was contemplating whether to tell me what he was thinking. “Okay—” he finally says. “I did see her once, in the elevator. She slid in right before the door closed.”
“Oh? What did she say?”
Max’s eyes met mine. “Just that she was sorry.”
“And?”
“That was it. I told her I was sorry too.”
The skin on the back of my neck pricked. “What are you sorry for?”
Max sighed and I could sense him formulating his answer. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did. That two friendships ended. I feel bad about my part in all of it.”
Trying not to read into Max’s words, I’d turned the white and silver tissue paper over and over in my hands, until it dissolved into a small ball that I tossed in the direction of the trash can. “How did she seem?”
Max paused. “Miserable.”
“Good,” I had said under my breath and tried to mean it.