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She nodded her understanding. “Then I’m glad you came and found me. You should definitely stay.”
“Okay, then,” I said, knowing it was settled. I wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet anyway.
She smiled. “Plus, now you can meet the only man that will ever truly have my heart.”
I eyed her and teased, “Now, is that a fact?” I didn’t know many women who still had a thing for Tom Hanks.
She nodded and batted her lashes, placing a hand over her forehead and swooning for further effect. “Sure, he’s one of the most handsome men in Hollywood.”
“One of?”
“Well, it’s a long list, but I can tell you this, George Clooney will always be at the top of the list.”
I smiled, enjoying this side of her. “So you like older men, huh? How do you explain me?” I ventured, curious about one of the few things we never discussed before.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Easy, you make me feel young.”
I brushed loose strands of hair behind her ear. “I’m not handsome?” I teased.
“Oh, I didn’t say that.” She turned to look at me head-on and winked. “The movie’s about to begin,” she said, her voice falling to a whisper.
Leaning over, I whispered in her ear, “I’ve always had a thing for nineties Meg Ryan myself. But then again I always did have a thing for older women.”
She didn’t flinch, but the scowl that washed across her face told me everything I needed to know.
Now we were even.
When I finally caught her regarding me out of the corner of her eye, I knew I got to her. Exactly like I wanted to. I pointed to the screen and teased, “Wouldn’t want to miss the the opening of Sleepless in Seattle.”
Gemma scoffed. “Of course.”
“So is this your favorite movie or something?” I whispered in her ear again, totally disregarding the movie because it was just too much fun to talk to her, to tease her.
“Of all time. I can watch this movie over and over again. It’s just so romantic.”
“Seems a little silly to me,” I confessed. “She fell in love with the idea of some man. That doesn’t sound romantic, that seems concocted from some hopeless romantic that doesn’t know the first thing about how love actually works.”
“You’re missing the point, but movie aside, I liked the idea of you before we actually met.”
“How so?”
She nodded, then stood up and gestured for me to follow her.
I did and excused myself from stepping on multiple blankets as we walked away from the movie.
“Your sister and her friends won’t mind you just leaving?”
She shook her head as we walked away from everyone. “Nah,” she insisted. “They love this movie almost as much as I do. In fact, the first time my mom played this movie for my sister and I, Soph went on and on about finding a man who looked at her the way Sam looked at Annie in the movie. They won’t even notice I’m gone until after the movie is over.”
Shoving my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t do something stupid, I asked the question that’d been on my mind since she dropped that little nugget. “Good, so what’s this about you knowing of me before we met? What do you mean by that?”
She exhaled and then looked over at me as we walked along the beach, the sun setting in the distance. “Do you remember the day we met? Before that, I was going to see Felicity in her office and you and Mason were in there actually.”
“You were her next meeting?” I asked, surprised to hear how things worked out. It was something else that she and I could’ve actually bumped into each other sooner, and with my son, no less. “Wait, I didn’t see you or anyone that day. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Some woman bumped into me as I was stepping back. I didn’t want you to see me, I was embarrassed for being there.”
Suddenly, the day came back to me with even more clarity than it first had. I snapped my fingers and nodded. “Mason was looking for a valentine for me. You heard that?”
