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What kind of self-respecting guy carried a comb in his pocket?
But my idle curiosity turned to gut-clenching horror when I saw Nola come half-jogging to the door to unlock it. She wasn’t dressed like somebody who was about to work. She was wearing the same kind of cottony dress she liked to wear on days she’d known she would see me. And her hair was braided all to one side, so it fell over her pale shoulder. The dress was green, too.
Fuck, why did it have to be green? Logically, I knew I’d never told her how sexy I thought she looked in that color, but it felt like a personal betrayal to see her wanting to look good for someone else.
Of course she is still dating, dumbass. You practically shoved her away from New York as hard as you could. What did you expect?
The guy awkwardly went in to hug her with one arm, and I was at least grateful to see that as far as I could tell, it was a first date.
I let out a little of the rapidly building tension. A first date. She wasn’t already sleeping with the guy. She hadn’t completely moved on.
There was still a possibility that I could get her back.
I felt Ben watching me through the rearview as my thoughts raced. Was that my plan? Win her back? When had that become the plan?
“How are you going to help her with her restaurant, daddy?” Ben asked.
“I’m not sure yet. Most people don’t like it when you just give them money. It’s insulting. So I’ve got to think of something a little more subtle.”
“Why don’t people want you to give them money?”
“Because it can make things feel cheap. Like cheating. If I just wrote her a check and fixed all her problems, would she still feel proud that she made her restaurant work?”
Ben was quiet. He had a way of going silent to think about deep, little kid issues.
This trip had been the closest I’d seen him to acting normal again. Even now, asking questions and being so talkative. That was the post-Nola version of Ben. As if I needed another reason to see that I’d been a dumbass for pushing her away, it was sitting in the backseat of my car.
The reality in my face spun around with the things Chris had told me at the bar. About how there’d never be a guarantee. There was no permanent answer, and if I passed on every temporary glimpse of perfection because I was afraid, I’d fade, what kind of life would I be giving Ben. What kind of life would I be giving myself?
Nola and the guy sat down across from each other. I was happy to see he was doing all the talking, gesticulating wildly and doing a lot of pointing to himself and laughing. Nola was listening politely, but I thought I knew her well enough to read her expression, even through the glass windows of the restaurant. She wasn’t into him. Thank God she wasn’t.
“Why are we just watching Miss Nola like this?”
I stirred, then turned the car back on. “We’ll come back later.”
The engine made Nola turn her head toward us. Her eyes went wide and she got up, knocking her chair back.
Oh, shit. You’ve been made, dumbass.
I shifted into reverse and slammed on the accelerator.
“Whee!” Ben shouted as we nearly clipped a truck behind us. I put the car in drive and got out of the parking lot as fast as I could, hoping she’d think maybe I was someone else. I hadn’t really planned an explanation for why we flew down here out of the blue to talk to her. I had barely even given myself a proper explanation.
I’d just known I needed to come, and now I was here.39NolaI spent the entirety of the evening service trying to convince myself I was crazy. I had not seen Jack parked out front. I even double checked his team’s schedule and confirmed he wasn’t back in Florida for another series of games.
Jack was not in Florida.
He had not been parked outside the restaurant during my failed date with Tyler.
I was losing my mind. That was all.
I stuffed my notepad in my apron and went to greet my first table of the evening. They had already come three times this week and claimed the sandwich they’d had was the best they’d ever tasted. Even if I couldn’t say I was coming close to paying the bills, at least I knew we were getting the whole “serve tasty food” part right, I guessed.
The door opened as I was walking back to put their order in—the same sandwiches they’d ordered the last two times—and I stopped in my tracks when I saw who it was.
He was tall, broad, bearded, tattooed, and absolutely not a figment of my imagination.
