I grabbed the drinks. “Gibbs knows my plan. Just bring the food when it’s up, okay?”
“Yeah.” He grabbed a towel and began wiping the bar top.
I turned and started walking over to Annie. God, this was so out of character for me, but I couldn’t chance her liking me because of my looks, and nothing is more of a turn off than a bad personality.
“Here you go,” I said and slid the drink to her.
She took a big sip, drinking about half of it through the straw, and before I realized what was happening, she said, “I need to do something.” Then she stood, pulled me by my blue, button-down shirt, and pressed her mouth to mine. She tried to part it, I could feel her tongue rubbing against my lips wanting me to open up for her, but I couldn’t. This wasn’t right. I didn’t like her even if she wasn’t Gibbs’s sister.
I broke the kiss, stepping back a little, and my eyes had a mind of their own as they moved to the door, probably my inner conscience searching for the closest exit. But instead of seeing an empty door beckoning me to make a run for it, I saw something else—someone else.
Standing there was Cat.
6
Cat
“Cat!”
It’s hard to see the one you love with someone else. Seeing Seth with another woman—kissing another woman—was like all those butterflies I felt before died in the pit of my stomach in an instant.
“Cat!”
I kept walking—not wanting to talk to him—to hear his lies. You and me my ass.
“Cat!” Seth shouted again, and before I took five more long strides, his hand wrapped around my wrist. I spun around as he tugged me. “Please. Stop.”
I looked up into his sea green eyes—eyes that I could stare into forever.Mistake. “Why?”
“Why?” he asked, jerking his head back as though I’d hit him.
“Yeah!” I shouted. “Why do you want me to stop? I’m obviously interrupting your date.” I tugged away from his grasp and moved to the street to flag down a taxi. “Joss said you were out drinking with the guys—”
“It’s not what you think.”
I laughed sarcastically as a taxi pulled up. “Not what I think? You were kissing another girl. I have eyes, Seth.”
“Yeah, but—”
I pulled open the door. “No buts. I get it.”
“No, you don’t,” he clipped.
I slide into the car, my hand on the door to close it. “I do. You don’t have a stash of condoms in your nightstand drawer to useonlyin the summer.”With me, I wanted to add but didn’t. I was so stupid. How could I assume that after the night we shared he wanted to be with me? We’d never really talked about it all those nights spent on the phone. We just had a plan for me to come visit again before school started. We lived too far apart to become an us.
I shut the door before he could respond and locked it.
“Where to?” the cabbie asked.
“I—”
“Come on, Cat. Open the door. Let’s talk.” Seth jiggled the handle.
“Just—drive.”
I tried with everything in me to not look out the window, but I failed. As the cab started to pull away from the curb, I turned, and my gaze met Seth’s. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep talking to him and letting him spill lies. I saw with my own twenty-twenty vision that he was with someone else—his lips on someone else. So even though I had nowhere to go, I ran. Running and hiding was better for my heart than hearing the truth. Seth needed someone his age. Someone who wasn’t fresh out of high school. Someone who lived in his town.
As the cab drove me to a destination unknown, I realized that I was doing the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I wanted to go back. I wanted Seth to tell me that what I saw was wrong. But my heart was at the funeral of all those butterflies because I was letting go of what I thought was real.
