Page 6 of First in Line

“It’s okay, I’ll wait.”

I watch as she rushes to the counter to get the plates, serves a table, then takes care of another one before she returns to me.

“Ready to order?” she chimes.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger. With fries. And… what flavors of milkshake do you have?”

“Vanilla, chocolate, cookies and cream, strawberry, and peanut butter.”

“Hm… What’s your favorite?”

She looks around, then leans in, like she’s about to share a secret. “I like to do half chocolate, half peanut butter.”

“Can I do that?”

“Sure!”

“Then I want half chocolate, half peanut butter.”

She looks pleased with my decision as she writes it down.

“What time do you finish?” I impulsively ask.

My question surprises her, so much so that she takes a full five seconds to reply, “Uh, at eleven-ish? It depends on how long it takes me to clean up my section, refill the ketchup bottles, and the—”

“I can help you with all that, if you want.”

Fuck, my palms are drenched. I’ve talked to girls before. Hell, I’ve even fucked some of them. But she’s making me nervous. My voice sounds weird, like it’s changing again. Why is she doing all this to me? And why am I actually eager to wait two hours to help her fill the ketchup bottles?

I should be embarrassed, but the way she lights up as she asks, “Really?” makes it all go away.

“Yeah. Then, I don’t know, I could drive you home?”

Again, my eagerness to spend time with her earns me a broad, adorable grin.

“I’d love that, Jax.”

We stare at one another for a moment, and I’m probably smiling as big as she is. Her colleague behind the counter shouts for her again, but it’s not enough to break the grin on her lips.

“I’ll be back with your order,” Evie cheerfully says before leaving me alone at my table.

I wipe my hands on my thighs, wondering what the hell is wrong with me. This is weird, but I don’t want it to be any different. I like this. I like how she makes me feel.

So much so that I already know something for a fact.

I’ll marry that girl one day.

Looking down at the woman I’ve loved so fiercely, I can’t stop my head from filling up with “What if” questions. What if she never left me? What if I fought harder to keep her? What if I wasn’t such a fucking moron who lost her? What if she were still by my side? What if we had the family we wanted together?

I waitedyearsfor her to come back, even though a part of me knew it was over. But another part couldn’t believe that was it. That the love of my life had walked out of it forever. I tried to reason with my conflicted thoughts, telling myself she was my high school sweetheart, nothing more. Teenagers always make such a big deal of their first love, and ours seeped into our early twenties. That’s all.

And I thought I did good. I thought I’d convinced myself she was only a puerile crush, not the great love of my life, the woman I’m destined to be with. It was easy to let myself be distracted by my overactive life. I’m drowning in willing women to the point where I could fuck three perfect strangers every night and never run out. Hell, I did that when I realized Evie wasn’t coming back. Pointlessly trying to get her out of my head however I could.

So, yeah, I thought I was doing great moving on from her, from our past, from everything we went through together. But when that first notice from her lawyer came in through mine… White-hot rage seared through me. She wanted to break the last thing that tied us together, the one thing that meant what we had was real, the one reason I could bear it all. Because as long as she didn’t want to divorce, she hadn’t completely moved on, right?

Wrong.

I just wasn’t worth the effort up until this point.