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We’ve got to have a bag of options as well as being a good listener sometimes.
“You think it’s…?” I start to ask Iris. But she already seems to know.
“Definitely,” she nods firmly, making my heart sink.
I knew it was too good to be true. The man’s just in…
“Grief. Probably a wife if he went full fruit and nut on ya,” Iris murmurs suddenly, shaking her head.
She pulls me closer to her with her bony arm around me, asking me again if I’m sure I’m okay.
“I thought you were going to say he’s in love,” I remark with feigned sarcasm, trying to laugh but only making a dry, cracking sound.
Voicing my own thoughts only because I don’t want to believe it, even if it is true. Somehow, the idea of James being with someone else just hurts.
“Love? Grief…? They’re the same, kiddo,” Iris says dryly.
“It’sbecausewe love someone so much that we grieve,” she adds.
She cements the idea by her own say so that James Jones is the grieving widower. Somehow, as much as I’m ashamed to admit it, the thought makes me happy in a way.
Whoever she is…was. She’s dead now.
Good.
Bitch.
“He didn’t say anything about anyone dying, though,” I say once Iris finishes comforting me and moves for the door.
“If hewasin love, why would he care what Theo was doing here?” Iris challenges me, shaking her head with conviction.
“No. It’s grief that makes people fly off the handle sometimes and for no reason,” Iris says in her wisest tone.
“Love, on the other hand…,” she adds cryptically, rolling her eyes to the ceiling and smiling to herself, deliberately leaving me hanging before she gives me a sly wink and disappears back to her coffee shop in silence.
What would love make a man like James Jones do?
I’m left wondering that myself, apologizing to the man upstairs for feeling happy that someone might have actually died, but only because it would mean James is single now.
As if I’d stand a chance.
ButIdon’t think he’s grieving.
Iris is right about a lot of things, but she didn’t feel the man’s lips on her hand. Didn’t see that look in his eyes, and I’m sure as hell hoping a woman of her years wouldn’t have felt the same in her granny panties as I did in mine.
Plus, I didn’t exactly tell her just how James was acting before he went off the rails. How happy he looked.
How…flirtyhe was?
Nah.
No, Jasmine, don’t even go there. He was not flirting with you, so just stop it. A man like James will never be interested in a girl like you!
I close my eyes with a sigh. The memory of him still makes me flush between my legs.
The insanely good cologne he wore was still hanging in the air.
The buzz of his touch, those lips still lingering on my hand. My whole body was aching for that again, and everywhere, not just the back of my hand.
