The waiter walks away, but it’s not until Miles takes his hand off me that the world comes back into focus, the volume of my body turning back down so I can hear and see everything around me again.
“Did you just order me a drink?” I ask.
“I did. I hoped you’d have it with me.”
I don’t want to have a drink with Miles, because a drink with Miles won’t just be a drink with Miles. It will be two drinks. Or drinks and dinner. And conversation. And knowing Miles, he will try to charm his way back into my life, and the only thing dumber than me letting him back into my life would be having a drink with him in the first place.
“I, um…”
The words are right there, at the tip of my tongue.
“I’m asking for ten, fifteen minutes of your time. However long it takes you to finish a margarita. And then you can go, and we can go back to being strangers.”
Strangers.
A funny word to describe someone to whom you once bared your soul. This man loved me; he kissed me good night; he held me through countless migraines. I know the feel of his hair drenched in sweat, I know the way his eyes shine after winning a game, and I know how he gets so angry after a loss that his eyes well up but doesn’t actually let the tears fall.
If strangers is what we are, then we are the most intimate of strangers.
I glance at the inside of the restaurant, searching for the waiter who will have my drink. A frozen margarita does sound good, though I find it mildly annoying that he paid attention to our conversation at the pool yesterdayandthat he ordered it without asking meandthat now I’m stuck here if I want that drink. And I do want that drink. Once again, I find myself stuck somewhere, waiting on a drink.
“I’ll stay until my drink arrives,” I say. “But I’m not sitting.”
I cross my arms in front of myself, making it clear that I am here practically against my will. I drop my gaze to the ground, my freshly manicured toes peeking out from the top strap of my worn sandals. I scrape my foot along the concrete. He can momentarily trap me here, but he can’t make me talk.
“Then I’ll cut to the chase. I want to apologize,” he says.
I snap my head up, searching his eyes for more information. They reveal nothing but honestly spoken words.
“For what?”
He raises his eyebrows at me as if to ask,“Isn’t it obvious?”
My jaw loosens. I hadn’t realized I was clenching it so hard. My heart beats too hard, a rapid fluttering at my neck and in my chest. He wants to apologize…for what happened over a decade ago? What is that going to do? He apologized when he broke up with me. I’ve lived eleven years without more apologies. I can live the rest of my life without this.
I’m about to tell him that when something inside of me protests. A small voice I can barely hear over the clanging of my pulse, the blood whooshing in my ears.
He knows he hurt me, but he has no idea how bad. Tell him how much he hurt you. Let him tell you to your face that he regrets what he did.
I round the table he’s sitting at, pulling out the chair farthest away but directly across from him just as the waiter arrives to drop off our drinks.
“One drink,” I say. I’m a grown-ass adult and I can have a drink with my ex-boyfriend without opening old wounds or being charmed by him again. In fact, after a cry in the shower yesterday and a good night’s sleep, I feel confident I can escape this conversation without any tears.
“Did you bring a book to read during dinner?” He gestures to my e-reader, set on the table screen-down under my purse.
“My books are my dinner companions.”
“And your pool companion and I’m guessing your bed companion as well.”
His tone is suggestive, and my cheeks burn at the implications of bedmates. He did this yesterday: spicy, flirty comments. But I’m not falling for it. I am perfectly capable of resisting his charms.
I sip on my frozen margarita. It’s tangy but not too sour, sweet but not saccharine. At least if this conversation goes sideways, the margarita was perfection.
“Time is ticking,” I say, tapping a nail against my margarita glass.
But Miles is cool as a cucumber. This quality in him, calm under pressure, is what made him an excellent hockey player. He’s the most focused, the most locked in when he’s against the clock. He probablylikesthe pressure of a countdown. In college, he’d be calm and cool during finals—a welcome steadiness to my stressed-too-easily tendencies.
He’s leaned back in his chair, one arm resting on the table. His fitted, collared, short-sleeved top isn’t hiding anything except the silver chain tucked underneath, just a sliver of it glinting at his neck. In fact, it only accentuates the bulge of his biceps. He’s always had a good physique, but now he’s got the body of a man, not just a college boy. His forearm, casually resting on the table holding his drink—some brown liquid overice—like he’s got all the time in the world, looks good enough to bite.
