He still wasn’t over the shock of seeing her after all this time, and he was glad for the moment now to just look at her. It gave him time to breathe, bombarded with all the feelings and memories that weren’t really memories because they were always right there.
Then a man slid into the seat across from her in a smooth way that said it wasn’t the first time they’d eaten together.
“Sir?”
He jerked his attention back to the counter and the man impatiently waiting for his order. He gave it and caught up with Mike at a table.
“So,” Mike continued as soon as Nick sat. “Then she says I’m keeping her from seeing her sister because I mentioned there was the game on Saturday.”
Nick struggled to focus on Mike when what he really wanted to do was stare at the guy sitting across from Mia. “You don’t want her sister there during the game?”
“No, I don’t want her sister’s husband there during the game.”
“Why?”
Mike looked at him like he was an idiot. “Because he’s a fucking Sox from Boston.”
“Oh.” Nick stared past Mike at the man sitting with Mia. His sandy brown hair was long enough to flop over his forehead, and he wore a brown leather jacket and black skinny jeans. Who wore a leather jacket in May? Who the hell wore skinny jeans?
Mike glanced behind then back. “Uh oh.”
“Huh?”
A young girl brought their sandwiches and took the little stand with their table number.
“I know that’s not your sister.”
“No. She’s not.” The guy leaned toward Mia, elbows on the table, close into her space. Her arms were also on the table. She didn’t lean into him, but she didn’t back away either. Instead, she slid him a second cup of coffee, which he took with a smile. She’d bought him coffee? She was meeting him for coffee, and the prick didn’t even buy her a latte? His jaw ticked.
Shit. She’d been so close to him and for how long, he wondered? And why here, in Norfolk? Was she happy? Were she and that guy together?
“Ah.” Mike nodded slowly as understanding dawned. “So I repeat. Uh oh.”
“It’s nothing.”
Mike picked up his sandwich. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s definitely not nothing. Not with your eyes shooting daggers across the damn room.”
Nick picked up his sandwich.
“Do I need to confiscate your firearm?”
“No.” But it was hard to eat with his jaw so tight. Hard to swallow with a lump in his throat.
Was she more than just with him? He’d only let the idea of Mia loving someone else slip past his defenses a handful of times over the years. But why wouldn’t she? Mia had a lot of love to give even if she’d stopped giving it to him.
Only a few times had he let himself go back to those times, given in to the memories and feelings of having Mia’s love. He couldn’t afford to do it often, because his heart wanted so badly to stay there.
He wasn’t so angry anymore. If Hannah needed someone, he was glad she’d had Mia, but why hadn’t he known?
Mike went on about his wife, and he tried to follow. “So why don’t you just watch the game somewhere else?”
“Uh… because I just bought that big-ass screen to watch the game. Besides, why do I want some fucking Sox fan watching the game on my new TV, rubbing his fucking Sox junk all over my new couch?”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Damn right I do. You see, that’s the problem with getting married. You can date someone and have sex and everything else, but the second you get married—bam. You’re supposed to love every other blood relative and even ones who aren’t blood.”
Nick nodded. One thing he’d learned from his partner: New Jersey families were like mini nations complete with their own hundred-year wars, treaties, and alliances. And all of them so damn tightly bonded, it made the constant bitching funny. Mia and her companion had fallen into what looked like a serious conversation. Though Mia was doing most of the talking, the man nodding. When he spoke, her chin dropped. After some time, he reached out and laid his hand over hers in what looked like comfort. Nick hated that it wasn’t him.
“So, who is she?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand, though he wanted to. He and Mike had been friends for years, partners, for almost a decade, yet Mike knew nothing of the woman Nick had once planned to marry. “Someone I used to know.”
“By the way you’re grinding your teeth, I’d say you more than knew her.”
Nick watched Mia turn the cup in her hand. “You’d be right about that.”
Oddly, his admission shut Mike up, and they ate in silence.