AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He topped up my wine glass with what was left in the bottle. “Great.”
Ten more minutes. That’s all. Just finish this stupid glass of wine that wasn’t even that terrific and I could get the fuck out of here. I took a decent-sized sip. “So, uh, do you know your plans yet for Thanksgiving?”
“I’ll probably head back home. Or not. Who knows? Maybe I’ll find a nice girl and she’ll invite me home to her family.”
I kept my face neutral. “Lovely.” Another sip of wine.
“I deserve that, don’t I, Emma? A nice girl?”
“I’m sure you do.” Sip.
“I’m a nice guy, you know.” He was watching me intently and it was starting to creep me out.
“Yeah, you are.” I tried to sound reassuring, because he seemed needy all of a sudden. So different from how confident and overbearing he’d been earlier. “I really hope you find a nice girl.” I reached for my wine glass again. Weird. Why couldn’t I pick it up properly? My fingers felt…dead.
“Maybe I already have. Maybe you’ll change your mind and come home with me after all.”
“No, I don’t think so.” Shit, was I slurring? How much of this wine had I had, anyway? I couldn’t think. Plans to get laid notwithstanding, there had always been a chance I would be driving myself home after dinner, so it wasn’t like I would have had that much. Not enough to feel like this, anyway. A suspicion skirted around the edges of my suddenly fuzzy mind.Drugged.
No, surely not. Forcing a smile on my face, I slumped back against the cushions, sliding my hand into my bag. “But you never know. Maybe if you headed out to a bar, you could pick someone up. It’s just that I’ve made a mistake, Travis. I’m sorry.” I glanced down at my phone. There was Jake’s number right there. Somehow, I was able to force myself to focus enough to press some buttons and send him a message. At least, I think I did. Did I press send? Looking down at my phone, I’d already forgotten and I couldn’t be sure. Feeling my limbs get heavy, I slumped further into the corner of the booth.Jake.
“Finish your wine, Emma.” Travis slid the wine glass closer to me.
It was easier not to argue. Obediently, I reached for it, bringing it to my lips.Jake.
CHAPTER18
Jake
Thwack. God, Emma, why are you such torture?Thwack. Why can’t I just get over you, goddamit?Thwack. I seriously was pathetic.
“Can I try?”
“Huh?”
My nephew, Jesse, plunked himself down on the sofa next to me, gesturing to the toy baseball I was throwing against my brother’s television cabinet in a useless attempt to get rid of some of my frustration.
“Sure, bud.” I handed it over. “Oh. You wanna throw it a bit harder than that.” His first try, the ball had just dribbled onto the carpet. He shot a wary look into the kitchen, where Gabe and Ally were cleaning up after dinner, checking to see if he was going to get in trouble. He needn’t have worried. From the looks of it, my brother and his wife barely knew we were here. The two of them were play wrestling at the sink, Ally bumping Gabe with her hip, trying to push him aside, shrieking with laughter when he cupped water from the running tap and splashed it at her. Before she could do the same to him, he grabbed her wrist, slid his other arm around her waist, and pulled her close so he could kiss her deeply.
I hastily looked away, wanting to give them privacy. It wasn’t just that, though. I was so happy for Gabe. He deserved all the happiness Ally could give him. At the same time it gave me a pang, because it was something I knew I’d never have for myself. I’d had my chance at that once in a lifetime love and I’d ruined it.
“Don’t worry, if you break something, I’ll take the blame.”
Jesse grinned and I smiled back. He was the cutest kid, a total mini-Gabe with shaggy dark hair and deep blue eyes. Who’d have thought that one of the best things that could happen to me was a surprise nephew? He retrieved the ball and, sitting back down, threw it hard enough that it actually bounced back. He was so surprised that he bobbled the catch, the ball bounced onto the coffee table, knocking into a set of candles on a decorative plate that Ally had put there.
Jesse gasped, I lunged forward and caught the big candle before it knocked the other two over, and the crisis was almost averted.
“What’s going on in there, you guys?” Ally pulled away from Gabe, running her hand over his chest before stepping towards us, her eyes narrowed.
“Nothing, I just dropped the ball and it nearly knocked the candles over. Nothing’s broken, though, hey Jesse?” I shot him a sly wink, almost bursting into laughter when he tried to wink back. I hadn’t known until that moment the kid’s version of a wink was some sort of weird double blink, nose scrunch kind of deal. Seriously, he couldn’t be any cuter. “Anyway, did we hear you say something about popcorn?”
“Oh, yeah, you did. Gabe, can you do that? I need to change my shirt before the movie.Somebody got it wet.”
“Sure thing.”
A short time later we were all settled on the couch with the lights off, bowls of popcorn between us and the movie’s opening credits rolling. As soon as I didn’t have Jesse or the toy ball to distract me, my mind drifted, as it always did, to Emma. What was she doing right now? Out with the girls again? At home with her dad?
Lifting my hip, I surreptitiously pulled my phone from my back pocket and stared at the blank screen. If there’d been any messages, it would have lit up, but nope, stark empty black was all I saw. I felt, more than saw, Gabe turn his head to look at me, and I put the phone down, biting back a sigh.Such a loser.
