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If he’d been the one throwing himself at me before dedicating his life to the church, I might have given it a second thought. Shallow? Maybe, but I felt like I was allowed to be. I sat back when the server returned with the bill and a box I hadn’t asked for and lifted a brow at my expression.
“Your friend told me you wanted to take this to go.” I nodded as he set it down, then slid the billfold next to my plate. “I can come back for that whenever you’re ready.”
I stared, then my gaze snapped up as he started to back away. “He said he’d take care of it.”
The server’s brow furrowed. “Oh. Well…”
Panic started to rise in me. “He said he was going to the bathroom.” I heard my voice go high and tight and strange like it wasn’t my own.
The server cleared his throat and looked over his shoulder again, but I knew he wasn’t looking for Ever. I knew what was happening.
“He left, didn’t he?”
Real and honest pity filled the man’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Trying for a smile, I shrugged. “It’s fine. It’s…I can take care of it.” I swallowed past a lump as I got my wallet out, and then somehow found the courage to open the little fold and stare down at those three numbers before the decimal point. It was a month’s worth of my grocery bill.
My fingers shook as I pulled out my card and set it down on the printout. “Thanks.”
He took it without a word, which I appreciated. It preserved a little bit of my pride as I sat there trying not to fall apart. I wanted to call Joy and scream at her for doing this to me twice in a row. I wanted to run out and chase Ever down and humiliate us both in the middle of the street.
I wanted to curl up under the table and cry until I had no breath left in my lungs.
Instead, I took the pen when the server returned, made sure I tipped him without flinching as more of my money drained away, then I took my bag and made my way out into the frigid night.
Chapter8
The faint sound of the neighbor’s screaming punk music drifted through the walls, and after throwing my leftovers into the nearly empty fridge, I dragged my feet as I headed into the bedroom. Peeling away layer after layer, I somehow managed to struggle into my softest sweater and a pair of pajama pants, then stared at my empty bed.
Something about it seemed so fucking lonely, and my chest threatened to crack open.
On a whim, I grabbed the mattress and gave a hard tug, and the cheap metal frame slid over the wood with a loud wail. The music stopped after a beat, but I didn’t. I pulled and tugged, losing my breath, but eventually, I got the bed over to the shared wall and flopped down.
With a curled fist, I raised it to the drywall and gave three knocks.
I was met with silence at first.
And then a tentative voice. “You there?”
I almost laughed. “What was that music you played the other night. Cellos, weren’t they?”
I heard a rough chuckle, then the sound of something scraping across the floor. A chair, maybe? His own bed, though I doubted he was acting as insane as me.
“Did you have a bad night?”
I buried my face in my pillow to hide my sigh. “You know how you go on one astronomically terrible date that ends with the guy telling you that he wants a goodbye fuck before he becomes a priest?”
“I, uh…I did hear that, yeah.”
My face got a little hot, but I decided I didn’t care. “Tonight, my sister set me up with this guy. Really hot.”
“How hot?”
“Yoga teacher hot,” I said, and the neighbor let out a low whistle. “Yeah. That hot. Like the kind of guy who would have laughed in my face if it hadn’t been a blind date.”
“That’s bold of you to assume.”
“It’s not, trust me. If you’ve seen me…” I trailed off. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He took me to this place called North 79.”
