“You do not have to apologize, Natalie. He was your fiancé, I understand that you had to believe him over me. Yeah, it sucked, but I thought you were happy, and I was going to just leave it at that.”
He’s too good to me.
“I feel so stupid.” I cover my face with my hands.
“You are not stupid. He’s an idiot.”
“He called me Nikki as I walked out the door and then tried to correct himself.”
Tobias has to take a slow and steady breath. “He’s an asshole.”
I nod with a small smile and then clear my throat. “Was he always like that?”
“He had a lot of people fooled.”
“But not you.”
“He did at first. I didn’t start to notice anything until you were engaged, and he wanted to rush it. I mean, you two were together for four years, and suddenly he’s in a hurry. It was odd to me.”
All I can seem to do is nod.
“Was I that blind, though?”
“You’re not blind. Do not for one second let that guy make you think less of yourself. He’s the one who is messed up. Not you.”
“Okay,” I say softly. I understand what he's saying, but it’s hard not to think I played a role in how he acted.
“Well”—Tobias jumps up, and my hands feel cold at the loss of his touch—“I think this calls for not my protein-packed scrambler as planned but for chocolate chip pancakes with?—”
“White chocolate chips,” I finish for him.
“Yep. It’s been years since we woke up in the same place and had breakfast together. I think we need all the goods.”
“All the goods?”
He spins to open the fridge and pulls out a package of round sausage patties. “Nothing beats these babies.”
“Oh, your grandma just so happened to have them thawed and ready to go.”
“Yes. For your information, we FaceTime breakfast three mornings a week, and on Sundays specifically, she always cooks them. There was no way she wasn’t prepared for today.”
My heart swells anytime Tobias mentions his relationship with his grandma. I swear, outside of the “I’m a romance writer” line that I thought was a pickup move, the day he told me he was going grocery shopping for his grandma, I swore he was finally hitting on me.
Turns out, he was 100 percent shopping for his grandma. It took only a few more times of Tobias just being Tobias for me to realize that he’s, without a doubt, one of the best people I’ve ever met, and his natural kindness is just that. He was never hitting on me. He’s just genuinely a good guy.
If I ever start to doubt that there are any good ones left, I just need to look at Tobias.
And I didn’t believe him. Wow. I’m a shitty friend.
Tobias is the best person in my life, and I want him to stay that way forever.
He starts to stir the pancake mix, and my eyes are drawn to way his arms flex as he stirs the spoon in a circle. I’ve seen his muscles before, but right now I’m drawn to them.
I can’t explain it, but watching him in the kitchen … he looks different.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.
“Huh.” He catches me off guard. “Sorry. I think I zoned out.”
