Wednesday(18)
“I’m starved. And they have the best coconut shrimp here, with the most amazing creamy mango dipping sauce.”
Just then the waitress returned with our drinks—fruity, frozen concoctions for the women and pint glasses of beer for Jason and me.
“Two orders of coconut shrimp and a side of fries, please,” I told the waitress, and then directed my gaze at Lindsey. “Anything else?”
“An ice water,” she added.
“Make that two,” I said.
Jason ordered a burger, and when his date asked for a side salad with low-fat dressing on the side, Lindsey and I exchanged a conspiratorial grin, knowing we were moments away from sharing deep-fried goodness. With creamy mango sauce.
Soon our food arrived and while we ate, I found the conversation flowed easily between Lindsey and me. It had been a long time since I’d been in the presence of a woman other than Chloe, and found it was quite like riding a bike. We chatted, drank some more, and later shared a slice of key lime pie.
There was no fucking, no escaping the grief completely, but still, a much better night than if I’d gone home alone.
Chapter Nine
Chloe
I had a bad feeling stewing in the pit of my stomach and I couldn’t figure out why.
“Where were you last night?” Jason asked as I poured myself a cup of coffee.
I was intent on getting our social media pages up to date this morning, a task I always put on the back burner. Because there was always something else more pressing that needed to be done.
“Nowhere special. I ran some errands. Got my eyebrows waxed. Nothing exciting. Why?”
He grabbed a mug from the cupboard and joined me near the coffeepot to wait for it to finish brewing. “Because apparently Shaw stopped by here last night with your favorite tacos and when you weren’t home¸ he called me.”
Tacos? Calling my brother, looking for me? This was not the sex-starved, one-track-mind Shaw I knew. I’d made it a point not to be home last night, but now my heart ached.
“And what did you tell him?”
He shrugged. “Told him I didn’t know where you were, but I invited him out to a double date with me and Sara. She’d brought her roommate Lindsey, so it worked out perfectly.”
My heart leaped into my throat. “And did he go?”
“Yeah. They got along great, actually.”
“How great?” I narrowed my eyes, my stomach turning over.
Jason studied me for a beat before continuing. “After dinner, they left for a different bar to grab another round—just the two of them.”
All the air felt like it had been sucked from my lungs, and I braced my hands against the counter, trying to breathe. Fuck. Why in the hell had I lied the other night—told him I was on my period? And then I had the grand plan to leave last night—to ditch our Wednesday tradition—all because I’d read in one of those stupid women’s magazines about absence making the heart grow fonder, and the idea that holding out on your man might actually get him to fall harder.
Wrong. What ill-fated advice. My absence apparently sent him straight into the arms of another woman.
“I have things to do,” I muttered. “Talk to you later.”
I made my way out of the kitchen, coffee mug in hand. I said I needed to get to work, but what I really needed was to be alone.
• • •
If he’d just had a meaningless one-night stand, it might have hurt less. I knew how cold and detached Shaw could be about sex. He probably never would have talked to her again.
But going to dinner with a woman? An actual date? That wasn’t something even he and I had done. And his past was riddled with long-term monogamous relationships, which was what really scared me about this date. It signaled that maybe he was on his way toward moving on—with someone other than me.
After spending the morning updating our inn’s social media accounts and answering a slew of inquiry e-mails, I decided to text Shaw.
Chloe: Sorry about last night. But it sounds like you kept yourself entertained.
I couldn’t help the snarky tone in my message. We’d never had a spat, a lover’s quarrel, or even a disagreement as friends, and I wondered if we were about to experience our first. After all, I was the one who ditched out on him last night. But him spending time with another woman wasn’t a scenario I ever imagined.
Shaw: Yeah, sorry about that. Something came up.
Chloe: And by something, you mean Lindsey.
Shaw: Ah, shit, thanks for that. I couldn’t remember her name. ;)
I tossed my phone down onto the desk and growled out a curse word. He had to be the most frustrating, infuriating man on the planet.
I’d spent eight long months lusting after him, giving him every piece of my body and soul, not to mention my heart. I’d grown closer with him than I even thought possible. Afraid to admit the truth, even to myself, I knew I had fallen in love with him. And now this?