AllFreeNovel
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“Yep,” I say, grabbing my purse and following him to the gallery.
___
The restaurant Charity wanted to meet at is an Italian place in Chelsea near her office. When I get there, she’s already seated at a table with a red and white checkered tablecloth. She’s sipping a martini and people watching, and I’m filled with a sense of just how much I’ve missed her.
“Hey, beautiful,” I say cheerfully, despite my life lacking in cheer at the moment.
She turns her head and beams at me, pushing back her chair and straightening her charcoal gray skirt suit on her way over to hug me. “Hey, you. God, I feel like it’s been a million years.” She’s frowning as she pulls back and grabs a handful of my necklace to inspect. “Is that a knock-off?”
“I highly doubt it.” I move away so she drops the necklace. I’m disappointed she immediately brought up something that’s going to lead us back to Calvin, so before she can ask about it, I ask her lightly, “How’s the divorce coming?”
She rolls her eyes as she takes a seat on her side of the table. “Oh, I decided to keep him.”
“That was generous of you.”
“Really was.” She looks up, her eyes brightening as a woman I assume is our server brings over a plate of delicious-looking, incredible-smelling food. “Ooh, good,” she says, lightly clapping her hands together in anticipation.
“Whoa, did you order for me, or what?”
She really is a little like Calvin.
I never noticed it until he pointed it out, but I can kind of see it now.
“Just the appetizer, but believe me, you’ll thank me later.”
I eye it up. “It looks delish, but what exactly is it?”
“Baked goat cheese with tomato sauce and then this gorgeously toasted baguette to scoop it up with.” She gives her fingers a chef’s kiss. “Amazing. Brian from work brought me here for drinks a few nights ago and I swear to God, I wanted to move here. Let’s get you one of these passion fruit martinis, too. They’re amazing.”
I cut her off as the waitress starts to jot that down. “No. No alcohol for me today, thanks. Do you have iced tea?”
The waitress nods.
“Great, I’ll have that and a glass of water, please.”
The waitress smiles and tells me she’ll be right back. I consider digging into the appetizer, but if it tastes as good as it looks, I’ll want to be able to look back on its beauty when I’m longing to taste it again.
Since I have my phone on me, I dig it out and take a picture.
I watch Charity attack the dish first, using the edge of the toasted bread to smear off a little goat cheese and then drag it through the tomato sauce.
I grab a little toast for myself and do the same thing.
As soon as the food hits my tongue, my taste buds explode in a fit of flavor-induced pleasure. Covering my mouth, I murmur, “Oh my god.”
“Right?” Charity nods knowingly.
“I don’t even like goat cheese. Why is this so good?”
She smirks and double dips with the bottom half of her toasted bread. I take another swipe too, then as I’m chewing, I shoot a quick text to Calvin with the picture of the food. “Can Chef Ryan make this? If not, we have to come to this restaurant for dinner one night because you need to try this.”
He responds immediately. “Chef Ryan can make anything, but I’m happy to take you out for dinner anytime you like.”
Charity’s singsong voice pulls me from my texting. “Is that the boy?” she teases.
I nod, but don’t want to talk about Calvin, so I volley the conversation back toherlove life. “Who did you say brought you here? Some guy from work?”
I watch her face to see if she looks guilty. Before, I would have never regarded Charity with suspicion, but now that I know she cheated on Tyler the night before she married him, I’m wondering if she just flits around having affairs and I somehow never noticed.
