AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I had no words.
~*~
All I could think about while staring at Jonah across the table from me at Thanksgiving dinner was what he had said to me last week at the studio. It’s all I’d thought about all week as I had done my best to avoid him and his calls. It wasn’t surprising that he still had my number memorized. I would have kept avoiding him too, but I was guilted into coming. Grandpa and Grandma laid it on thick, saying this could be their last Thanksgiving and then adding that I was a grown woman and should quit running from my problems.
Little did they know I wasn’t running from my problems; I was trying to solve them. I had made an appointment with the therapist Dani had recommended—Goldie Hawn was highly offended I didn’t find her helpful anymore—but she couldn’t get me in until next week. Apparently, this was her busiest time of year due to the holidays. I only got in because I dropped Dani’s name and the therapist had a cancellation.
I figured Jonah at least deserved for me to have my head on straight before we saw each other again. I obviously had high expectations that this therapist could fix me fairly quickly. I needed her to tell me if I was right or wrong about how I approached men, one man in particular. This way I could either tell Jonah I was right and give him sound professional reasons for why he should move on, or I could tell him I was wrong and he still should move on because it was going to get ugly. Like probably a lot of me in the fetal position. There was a better-than-average chance some wailing would be involved and possibly some running—like the marathon kind.
Jonah deserved better than all that. He deserved the well-put-together woman who sat one seat over from him next to their daughter. It wasn’t awkward at all that his gorgeous ex-wife was there. I mean, it wasn’t like she was perfect. Except she was, and this was the most uncomfortable holiday of my life.
Eliza was all I feared she would be and more, now that I saw her in living color. Her dark blonde bobbed hair was impressively shiny, and her facial features were even, as was her smooth peachy skin. She had these alluring aqua eyes, and the perfect body dressed to the nines in form fitting pants and a jacket.
Me? I was wearing yoga pants because Dani and Kinsley had deemed them worthy of not being thrown away since they showed my shape. And for the fun of it, yesterday I bought a turkey sweatshirt to wear for the occasion. It was really classy. It said Gobble until You Wobble on it. To top it off, I was barefoot. Ms. Perfection was wearing expensive leather heels.
Jonah stared at me from across the table and nudged my foot under the table. At least I assumed it was him by his grin. If not, my day was getting more awkward because it meant it was Brant, who sat next to Jonah. Brock and Brant, for some reason, always ended up at Grandma and Grandpa’s for Thanksgiving, even though their parents lived in Carrington Cove. I think Dani mentioned something about John and Sheridan Holland going out of the country for some conference, so that’s why the twins were here. But I was pretty sure it had a little to do with our family tradition of eating pie first, and a lot more to do with Dani.
When I was certain it wasn’t Brant who was trying to play footsie with me under the table, I smirked at Jonah. He needed to stop being charming. I was determined to figure out my life before I got him involved. I didn’t care how good he looked in his tight jeans and dark button-up or that he was smiling at me as if I lit up his world. He didn’t deserve for me to reject him again, and I couldn’t handle saying goodbye to him one more time. I knew that left us nowhere. I was smart enough to know that the therapist wasn’t a magician. I knew she wouldn’t be able to wave a magic wand that would make it so that Jonah and I could live happily ever after, or perhaps more realistically, make me okay with the inevitable break up.
Why wouldn’t Jonah just let us be? I still loved him and thought fondly of him. I never wanted that to change. And if he couldn’t make it work with Miss Shiny Hair, there was no way we were making it with my turkey sweatshirt.
Grandma stood at the head of the table. “All right, beautiful people, it’s time to begin. As you know, we do pie first in this house.”
