Sophia...
"Go on then, birthday girl...open it." Jemma is excitedly urging me to open my gift bag that is from both herself and Zara.
Laughing, I start pulling out the shocking pink shredded tissue with my fingers, eager to see what is inside. "How much of this stuff is actually in here?" I ask with the widest of smiles.
"Well I know how much you love tissue paper, hun." Jem cheekily quips with a teasing little wink.
Agreeing with another one of my smiles, my fingers feel a small present at the bottom of the boutique paper bag. "Oooooo, I've found something." I now look at my two wonderful best friends, Jemma and Zara, with my face displaying much more of my excitement. Pulling out a pretty pink presentation box, I keenly lift its lid. Inside, are two beautiful bracelet charms. One is intricately carved with dazzling flowers of cubic zirconia and the other is a sterling silver heart with an engraved message on. Bringing the tiny charm closer, I start reading it: Three...always one
Feeling so utterly loved, my emotional eyes lift to my faithfully sweet friends. "Thank you, girls...these are so gorgeous." I quickly get out of my seat, to earnestly hug them both. Three...always one, it has always been our friendship motto. We met as spotty teenagers at secondary school, and have been the best of friends ever since. Many say that three is a crowd, but not for us. We don't have any brothers or sisters, so being the only child in our families, has made us appreciate our friendship with one another so much more. Jemma is now engaged with a gorgeous little boy who is two and Zara is married and has five fur babies, of the equine kind. No matter how much our lives have changed, and continues to change, our friendship always remains strongly the same. I honestly love these girls so much. Since my split with Paul, they have been especially thoughtful and attentive. Between them and my parents, they have been ensuring that I'm okay. And I think I am. After nearly two months since the breakup, I am starting to embrace my single status. Time has given me the strength to accept that Paul and I just weren't meant to be. To be honest, I don't know why I journeyed as long as I did with our lacklustre relationship. Something was definitely missing from our being together and I'm now past caring what it actually was. Paul has even texted and called me, but we're over...so I'm no longer interested in anything he has to say.
"There's more in that goodie bag." Zara energetically tells me as I'm sitting back down at our table in the very posh Italian restaurant that the girls have so kindly brought me to.
"You girls are really making me feel special on my birthday." I know I am emotionally gushing, but they really are. Both Jems and Zara have pulled out all the stops to make my thirtieth a fabulous one, and for that, I love them both so muchly.
Zara grins. "Stop being a soppy cow, just open the rest of your presents."
Peeping deeply into the gift bag, I pull out a rectangular shaped present. Unwrapping it slowly, I get more and more excited to see my favourite perfume being revealed to me. "You both got me a bottle of Ghost. Thank yoooooou!" Clutching it appreciatively tight against my chest, I am beaming from ear to ear. "God, I love this stuff so much." I gush some more as I carefully place the perfume down on the table to see what else my fabulous friends have bought for me. Against the inside of the bag, snugly sits an envelope. Pulling it out, I eye up the girls with a faint smile hovering around my lips. As I start to open it, the girls remain unusually quiet. Inside, is a voucher. Slipping it completely out of the white envelope, I am now able to properly read what kind of voucher it is. "Oh my god! You've bought me a spa day at Revival Resort?"
Both friends enthusiastically nod, joining me with their widest of wide grins. "We are all going." Jemma is quick to tell me, growing more excited by the second.
I know we are in a posh restaurant and all that, but I can't hold back how thrilled I am anymore. Trying to quietly clap my hands, I bounce up and down in my seat with absolute joy. "Oh Jems and Zara, this is so lovely...thank you." Once again, I jump up out of seat, needing to give my gorgeous friends yet another grateful hug. Jemma is the first to get a zealous squish first, promptly followed by my dearest Zara.
Just as I am straightening up and smoothing down my pale lemon skater style dress and about to happily go back to my seat, I am suddenly stopped dead in my overjoyed tracks. "Sophia?" Cade seems just as surprised to see me, as I am him.
"Cade?" His name is pleasantly expelled from between my lips, although it's such a shock to bump into him here.
With an enamoured smile, he looks from me to our shredded tissue strewn restaurant table. "Is this your thirtieth birthday that you're celebrating?" His amused green eyes quickly return back to me.
And strangely, they are eyes that I'm so very pleased to see again. "Yes, it is." I glance down at my presents, then briefly at a staring Jemma and Zara before fully looking back at Cade.
Who is actually about to say something, but two formally dressed men come up behind him. "Our table is just over there, Lapley." One of them points to where they are to be seated, and it's not too far from our table.
Cade just nods and lets them pass, keen to pick up our conversation from where we just briefly had left it. "It's a works dinner." He quickly explains, feeling the need to tell me why he is here.
"That's nice." That's nice? Is that all you can actually come up with? I silently tell myself off, on account of my lack of interesting things to say back to him. The truth is, I am taken aback by Cade's kind niceness towards me. I wasn't exactly nice to him the last time I saw him, now was I? And yet, he is nothing but pleased to see me. My smile his way, becomes a jittery one. Jittery, because part of me is feeling embarrassed and the other part of me is feeling excited by the very unexpected sight of him.
Smiling across at my still staring friends, Cade politely nods an unsaid hello to them before bringing his purposeful gaze back onto me. His smile changes from one that is politely casual, to one that is sincerely affectionate. "It's good to see you again, Sophia." Tenderly placing his hand on my shoulder, he then slowly leans in to sweetly kiss me on the cheek. "Happy birthday." With one last heartwarming smile, he leaves me just standing there.
As I numbly sit back down, Zara crudely quips. "Cade Lapley, now there's a man I could happily feed myself with."
Jemma is next to hijack the convo with a very loud whisper, a whisper so loud, it's not actually a whisper. "How in the hell do you know Cade Lapley?" She's eyeballing me with total disbelief from across the table, desperate to hear how I know him.
"I'll tell you both later." I don't know why, but I'm blushing. I don't know whether it's from remembering my one night with Cade or the way his hand and his kiss just felt on my shoulder and cheek.
But they both don't want to drop it. "Soph, how do you know him?" Jems asks, leaning right into the middle of the table.
"Not here, okay?" Awkwardly, my pleading eyes ask for them to stop asking me anymore questions about Cade. I have a tornado of feelings swirling around inside of me, feelings that are being caused by the man that I so hastily turned down. When I did that, I was hurt and confused. But time has been kind. It's allowed me to realise that I wasn't actually nursing a broken heart over Paul, just a broken dream.
Both my friends look at each other, then me, then back at each other. "He was the guy you had a one night stand with, wasn't he?" Zara quietly whispers, a whisper I am so very grateful for.
My eyes start to wander to where Cade happens to be. I don't want to be looking his way, but find I can't help myself. Magnetism emanates from him, it really does. Suddenly, he spots me. I honestly want to drag my stare away from his, but I just need to look at him for just a second longer. With a soft smirk, he is soon the one to break our brief but intense connection as he carries on talking with the company he is in. "It bloody well is." Jemma is following the trajectory of my gaze, nudging Zara hard as she does. "I just caught her looking at him." She says with wide and playful eyes.
Zara does a little gasp, stupidly grinning. "Oh my word! You little dark horse!"
I had told the girls about what happened. I just didn't tell them with whom it had happened. At the time, I just didn't need my two best friends to think that I had just become yet another woman to add to the loooooong Lapley Lay List. I felt bad enough. I didn't need them feeling bad for me as well. So I told them it was just some really cute guy. "Listen, can we talk about this later?" I whisper back across the table, feeling more and more awkward.
"Well, he obviously likes you." Zara says, still grinning at me. "From what I've heard, Cade Lapley doesn't usually dignify his conquests with even a look in their direction. But you, my little dark horse...you got a conversation and a kiss."
With my cheeks turning a delightful shade of cringeworthy crimson, I reach for my much-needed glass of wine. "It means nothing." I mumble, gulping down what is left of my Pinot Grigio.
But it did mean something.
It meant an unknown something.
And that is just what is so bloody confusing—confusing and tempting.
Cade's reputation intimidates me. But it's that intimidation that makes his apparent interest in me, all the more appealing.
There does seem to be an attraction that rightly or wrongly exists between us. But this is Cade Lapley. He is most certainly not the kind of man that a woman like me should get involved with. Particularly a woman who has not long been dumped and had a one night stand with said intimidating man.
One night stands are supposed to be exactly that.
One. Night.
But Cade came back after that one night stand, didn't he?
He came back, asked you to dinner...and you said no.
My straying mind starts throwing thoughts at me. Thoughts that are trying to defend Cade.
"Just be careful, hun." Jemma is the voice of reason, the cautious voice of reason.
And Jemma had every right to worry. I was worried. Because no matter how hard I tried to carry on and enjoy the rest of my birthday with my caring and very sweet friends, I couldn't stop sneaking a peep at Cade. Between the giggles and the calorific desserts, our eyes would occasionally meet. When they did, I honestly felt like it was just me and him in the restaurant. During those confusing and thoroughly thrilling moments, I kept wondering why we were having them? What did the lingering stares and the hopeful smiles actually mean? But what surprised me the most, was just how disappointed I felt when Cade eventually left. In his pleasant and charming way, he had waved and smiled at me before leaving with those who had accompanied him. Then he was gone. He and his distinct green eyes and his attractive smiles, were gone all too soon.
"Right, shall we get the bill?" Zara asks, trying to stifle a yawn by covering it with her flattened hand.
"Yeah, I'm stuffed." Jemma groans, rubbing her now very full tummy.
I too, felt ready to go. As I am checking that I have everything safely inside of my gift bag, Zara beckons one of the waiters over. "Could we have the bill, please?"
"Your bill has already been settled by Mr Lapley."
My eyes suddenly flick up, blinking fast at the waiter. "Mr Lapley has paid?" I quietly ask, a tad stunned.
"Yes, he has."
Struck with an urgent need to thank him, I look to my, just as stunned, friends. "I can't believe he has done that." Slowly putting on my jacket, I still can't believe that Cade has actually paid for our entire meal. What's even worse, he's not even here for me to thank him.
"It was very lovely of him to do so." Zara says with a widening smile.
And Jems quickly agrees. "It really was. Our wine alone wouldn't have been cheap."
Zara is soon wrapping one arm around me, squeezing my shoulder with a sideways glance in my disbelieving direction. "See? He really does like you, Soph."
Then Jemma comes and hugs me on the other side. "I think she's right, hun. I still think you should be careful, but I also think he really does like you. He didn't need to pay for everything this evening, but he obviously wanted to. A guy doesn't do that for just anyone."
I listened and listened well. Before I had even left the restaurant, I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to thank Cade in person. I didn't just want to thank him with words, I wanted to show him how thankful I really was. He had treated me. I wanted to return the lovely favour. And I think I knew just how to do it.