Lovestruck in Los Angeles (14 page)

“You’re very welcome, Lizzie,” my mother said. “And thank you for the statue. It’s beautiful. We love it very much.”

“I’m glad, Mom.” I didn’t know quite what to think about her use of the word
we
. Was that rhetorical, or was my dad actually pleased with the gift?

“Here,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Someone else wants to thank you, too.”

I held my breath as she passed the phone to someone. And then—

“Feliz Navidad, Elizabeth.”

It was my dad, his familiar, gruff voice sounding so close right in my ear. I clutched the phone tighter. “Feliz Navidad, Daddy.”

“Thank you for this statue. It is beautiful. And very thoughtful of you.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother and I love it.”

“You’re welcome, Daddy. Thank you for the gifts as well. The laptop case is exactly what I needed.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad.” He cleared his throat again. I wanted to cry, to say how sorry I was, how much I missed him. More than that, I wanted
him
to apologize, him to tell me that he wasn’t happy with how things were, that he would forgive me and we could talk again.

Instead, he cleared his throat one last time. “Here’s your mother. Have a good holiday.”

“You too, Daddy,” I whispered. My mother came back on the phone, sounding noticeably happier now that my dad and I had finally talked. She started to tell me all about the grandkids and how much they had enjoyed the Los Angeles t-shirts that I sent them.

I tried to follow her gushing, but it was hard. Just like with Thomas’s gift that morning, I was feeling the strangest mix of disappointment and joy. Disappointment that Dad and I hadn’t said any of the things that we needed to say. Joy that we had talked at all. After she passed the phone around to my other siblings—save Maria, of course—Mom finally came back on to say goodbye. And then I hung up the phone in a daze.

When I looked up, I saw that Thomas was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Had he been watching me the whole time? I realized that he must have been when, without saying a word, he crossed the space to me and wrapped his arms around me.

I didn’t have to explain anything to him, didn’t have to try to parse out how I felt or why. Thomas understood anyway.

Chapter Ten

By the time New Year’s rolled around, I was starting to feel slightly depressed. Christmas in Edinburgh had been beautiful, and I had loved spending the time with Thomas’s family. But I couldn’t deny the ferocity with which I missed my own. Christmas was a huge deal for our family and had always been one of my favorite days of the year. It was really starting to hit me that it would be an entire year before I had the chance to celebrate Christmas with my family again, and it was certainly not guaranteed at that.

We went down to London the day before New Year’s. Meghan always planned something big for the holiday. She spent every Christmas at her parents’ farm in the Cotswolds. By New Years she was ready to “rejoin civilization” as she put it and liked to splash out with a big fancy party. Last year we had attended a really swanky party at a hotel in the West End. It had been nice, but most of the guest list were total strangers to us. This year Meghan had booked an entire restaurant for all of her friends. I was looking forward to it, hoping it would snap me out of my funk. I didn’t want to spend the few remaining days I had in the UK feeling sad.

I fell asleep in the car on the way back to London, waking up only when Thomas parked. I blinked several times, looking around me sleepily. I had no idea where we were.

“What’s going on?” I mumbled, looking over at Thomas. He was grinning at me.

“Remember that Christmas present I said you would get later?”

I scrunched up nose, remembering that he had, indeed, mentioned something like that. “Is my Christmas present in this parking lot?”

He shook his head, laughing, and opened his door. “Get out of the car, lazy,” he called over his shoulder. “Maybe once you wake up you’ll realize where we are.”

I shook my head and climbed out of the car. He was right; I could now clearly see that we were in short-term parking for Heathrow airport.

I felt a momentary rush of nerves, thinking he had maybe purchased tickets to Detroit the way he had last year. I really didn’t think I could deal with showing up in person at my parents’ house, not when I’d only had one two-lined conversation with my dad since the previous August. But this was short term parking, which must mean…

“We’re picking up,” he assured me, catching sight of my face. “Don’t worry.”

“Who are we picking up?”

He glanced down at his phone, grinning. “You’ll see in about five minutes.”

He took my hand in his mittened one and pulled me toward the entrance. “Who’s coming to London?” I asked, my nerves turning to excitement. “Is it Callie? ‘Cause I already know that they’re coming into town for the party.”

He shook his head. “Be patient. You’re worse than a little kid.”

I scowled but allowed him to lead me to the arrivals gate. Once inside he glanced at his phone again. “Right. This way.”

The airport was as crowded as ever, and we darted around the returning passengers until we reached a bench outside the carousals of luggage returns. Standing there, a rolling suitcase handle in hand, was my cousin Sofia.

“Lizzie!” she yelled, spotting us. “Hi!”

I stood in shock, completely unable to react. Sofie was here? In London? Then she was running toward us, her bag rattling behind her, and my shock gave way to a rush of joy. She was
here
.

I grabbed her in a fierce hug, tears streaming down my face as I took in the familiar smell of her perfume. “Sof!”

“I missed you.” She sniffled, and pulled back to examine at me. “Look at you! You’re all tan, you bitch.”

“Shut up,” I said, staring at her. “I just want to look at you. I missed
you
.”

She grinned broadly, and I could see that she had tears in her eyes too. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

“How are you here? And why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked over my shoulder, smiling. “Ask your man over there.”

I spun around to face him and found him smiling at me. “Surprise.”

“You arranged this?”

He nodded. “I thought you girls would want to spend the holiday together.”

“Thomas.”

He waved his hands at me, as if encouraging me to go back to my cousin. “I just want you to have a happy New Year’s. Both of you.”

Sofie threw an arm around my shoulder. “I think I can deal with that. What do you say, cuz?”

I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. “That sounds freaking fantastic to me.”

***

Sofie talked a mile a minute the entire way back to Thomas’s flat. I demanded that she tell me everything about home, and she took the request to heart, pausing only to marvel at the landmarks that we passed.

“There’s time to talk about London later,” I said. “Tell me about your parents. And my mom. How is everyone?”

I wanted to drink in every word she said. Seeing her was amazing, of course, but it also filled me with a strange kind of pain. Sofie meant home to me, and she had just come from sharing the holiday with my loved ones. I yearned for her to connect me with everyone back in Detroit.

We curled up in front of the fire at Thomas’s flat while he volunteered to go stock the place with groceries. Meghan and Sarra had been taking turns coming over to air the place out and dust while we were in L.A. so it was clean on our arrival, but it still felt strange to be back there. After the Malibu house, Thomas’s small and cozy flat felt downright tiny. But it still felt more like home than the beach house had yet managed to.

Once Thomas was gone, I leaned in close to my cousin. “Okay, were you at the house when I talked to my mom? Did she physically force my dad to get on the phone or what?”

She shook her head, eyes wide. “No, she didn’t. She didn’t say a word, actually. Which is really weird, since I’ve heard her demand that he call you at least a dozen times and I don’t even live there.”

“So what happened then?”

“When she was on the phone with you, once she thanked you for the gift, he walked straight up to her and held out his hand. Just like that. Like he’d been meaning to do it the whole time.”

“Wow. I was sure it was her doing.”

“I would have thought so too. I was standing in the kitchen helping with dishes when it happened, and I almost broke my mom’s blue flowered serving dish, I was so shocked.”

“Crazy.”

“I wish you could have seen his face when they opened your gift. Your mom took one look at it and burst into tears, but your dad read the card first. Then he just stared at it for a full minute, like he thought it was going to start talking or something.”

I smiled. “Well, I was going for meaningful.”

“I think you succeeded, chica.”

“So what else is going on at home? You’ve barely told me anything.”

Her face lit up. “Ooh. We think Laura might be pregnant!”

“
What
?”

My sister Laura, third oldest in the family, had been trying to have a baby for years. She refused to talk about it though, not even to my mother, as far as I knew, so we had no idea if it was an infertility issue or what.

“Yeah. Get this, she and Frank have totally stopped arguing about their kitchen renovation.”

I raised my eyebrows. “That’s your big proof?”

“Come on, you know they always fight when they’re stressed about the baby stuff.”

“We don’t know that, actually. We assume that based on family gossip.”

“Yeah, well, she also didn’t have a single glass of wine the entire time I was with her.”

“Wow. That’s definitely not like Laura.”

“Right? Anyhow, Maria is convinced that’s what it is and you know I don’t like to agree with Maria, but in this case I think she’s onto something.”

My face tightened at the sound of my oldest sister’s name, and Sofie shot me a sympathetic look. “Let me guess, her highness didn’t call to wish you a Feliz Navidad, did she?”

“No, she definitely did not. And when I asked my mom to pass the phone around so I could say hi to all my siblings, guess which one just happened to be out the room?”

“She’s a brat,” Sofie said flatly. “A bossy, controlling, judgmental brat.”

I sighed. “Yeah. But she’s also my sister.” I ran a hand through my hair, silently begging God to let Laura call me and tell me herself if she really was pregnant. I couldn’t imagine not being one of the first to hear news like that. The very thought depressed me.

“Hey,” Sofie said, apparently catching onto my mood. “Don’t let it get you down, girl. They’ll come around. I plan to go home and tell every single person in the family how great you’re doing, how happy you are, and how polite and amazing your boyfriend is.”

I laughed. “But you don’t even know if any of that is true. For all you know, I’m totally miserable in L.A. and Thomas has turned into a work-a-holic egomaniacal celebrity nightmare.”

She shook her head firmly, leaning back into the couch. “He went to buy us groceries, Lizzie. After a day of driving. In the freezing London weather. You’re not fooling anyone—you have the perfect boyfriend.”

***

I had a fantastic few days with Sofie in London. Thomas got us comp tickets to a friend’s West End musical, which we both loved. We ate at a few of my favorite restaurants, including Mr. Idoni’s place. He hugged me when he saw me, encouraging me to move back to London where it was normal, and even let us peek up into the currently unoccupied flat above the restaurant so I could show my cousin where I had lived.

We also spent a lot of time shopping, Sofie’s very favorite past time. When Callie got to town she joined us, and the three of us had a wonderful time banging around Harrod’s and Covent Gardens looking for dresses for New Years. We showed Sof a few of the more famous tourist destinations as well, including Westminster Abbey and the London Eye. Sofie wanted to tour Buckingham Palace, sure she’d get a glimpse of William, and we had to convince her that he didn’t even live there, nor would the tour ever come anywhere close to an actual Royal.

New Years Eve was one of the coldest days we’d had in any of my time in London. It was even cold inside the flat, though Thomas kept the fire going all day. “Drafty old building,” he muttered, throwing another log into the fireplace. “Malibu is looking better and better every day, Lizzie.”

I was regretting my decision to wear sleeveless, but the look on Thomas’s face when he saw me in my red cocktail dress changed my mind. “God,” he said, standing in the doorway to the bedroom as I put my earrings on. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling at him in the mirror. He came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “Seriously.” He kissed my bare shoulder. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. How did I get so lucky?”

I turned in his arms so I could wrap mine around him. “I think I’m the lucky one in this relationship, mister.”

He shook his head. “Don’t even think it.”

Thomas cleaned up pretty well himself. He was dressed in a slim- fitting black suit, no tie, his white shirt unbuttoned at the very top to give a brief glimpse of his tan skin. I buried my nose in that spot, kissing his skin, delighting in the way he shivered at my touch.

“Screw the party,” he said, reaching for the zipper on my dress. “I have a different idea for how we can ring in the New Year.”

I grabbed his hand. “My cousin is in the living room. And we promised her a fun New Year’s party.”

“She can go without us. Even better.” He buried his face in the mess of curls on top of my head. I had considered straightening my hair since Sofie was there to help me, but in the end I decided to leave it wild and piled up on top of my head. When his fingertips traced down my neck I was glad I’d made that decision.

“I want to see Meghan and Sarra and everyone,” I said. “I miss our friends.”

He sighed loudly and took a step back. “Why do you always have to be so reasonable, my love?”

“One of us needs to be,” I said, arching an eyebrow and making him laugh. I held out my hand. “Come on. I want to eat good food and have brightly colored drinks.”