Midnight Valentine(47)

“Depressing as hell, I know,” I say drily. “I’m a laugh a minute, aren’t I? Sorry I blurted that out. My head’s all over the place this morning.”

“Don’t get down on yourself.” With a tender, motherly gesture, she tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.” She hesitates for a moment. “Are you still seeing a therapist?”

“I was, right up until I moved here. But honestly, Suzanne, no amount of talking in the world can change the past. We’re all stuck with our scars and our sad stories. I think the more I talked about my pain, the worse it got, like picking at a scab so it could never heal over. Now I’m just resigned to the fact that all my happy years are behind me.

“But I’m luckier than most. That’s what I tell myself on the bad days: in a world full of temporary things, I have this love that will last forever. Even though Cass is gone, our love isn’t. And that’s how I live.”

“Oh, crap.” She blinks rapidly and waves a hand at her face, her voice tight. “I think you’re gonna make me cry.”

I smile at her. “Good thing you’re not wearing mascara.”

She pulls me into another hug, whispering into my ear, “I’m so mad at myself about the other night. Drinking before I drove over. It was so stupid and reckless, and I’m just so, so sorry—”

“You’re forgiven,” I say, cutting her off. “But do it again and I’ll take a bat to your knees.”

We pull apart and smile at each other. Then she swipes at her watering eyes and straightens her shoulders. “Threats of violence. I knew you were a badass, despite this whole No Fucks Given Barbie thing you’ve got going on.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds unwholesome.”

She suddenly notices what I’m holding in my hand and brightens. “Hey, is that a bear claw? I love those things!”

“Of course you do.” I hold it out to her. “Mazel tov.”

“What does that mean?”

“Congratulations. In Hebrew.”

“Are you Jewish?”

“No, just weird. Don’t worry, nobody else gets me either.”

The only one who ever did is dead.



* * *

Suzanne and I talk for a few more minutes while she devours her pastry. She eats the same way I do, with gusto, not caring that it looks like it’s the first food she’s had in a week. We go inside, and she gives me the contact information for the interior designers she’d mentioned a while back, then she leaves with a promise to bake me another key lime pie.

Then I’m left alone with a house full of men and an overwhelming ambivalence.

I want to talk to Theo and determine exactly why he was outside my house in the middle of the night, but I also don’t. Especially now that I’m feeling whatever it is I’m feeling toward him. This electrical awareness brought on by the simple touch of his fingers on my skin.

It’s not exactly attraction. It feels darker than that. More dangerous. Like I’m standing barefoot in a shallow pool of water and he’s the live wire sparking mere inches away.

I don’t have enough experience with men to know if this is normal. Cass was the only man I was ever with. When you’ve loved the same person since you were six years old, you grow blinders to anyone else’s charms.

So I do what any rational adult would do when faced with an uncomfortable situation they don’t know how to handle: avoid it. I grab the contract and my coffee from the kitchen, then go upstairs and hide in my bedroom.

Five minutes later, my phone chimes with an incoming text.

In case you thought you were being stealthy,

I saw you sneaking off.





“Of course you did,” I mutter, reading Theo’s words. The man notices everything.

Just going over the contract.





After I hit Send, Theo immediately begins typing his response. When I see the three little dots on my phone indicating he’s composing his answer, I start to chew my thumbnail in anxiety. Somehow, I know whatever he’s going to say is going to make me feel worse.

That’s the first time you’ve lied to me, Megan.





My stomach in knots, I flop onto my back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. I hear Theo’s guys walking around the house, their footsteps echoing hollowly, their voices muffled through the floor, and I wish I could hear his voice.

I wonder what it would sound like. Hard like his expression or soft like his eyes?

Aggravated with myself, I slap a hand over my eyes and sigh. I really need to get out more. Maybe I should go on a date with Craig. Have a little dinner, have a nice conversation, listen to him talk. And talk.