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This time Jaxson clenched his jaw, his teeth jarring into each other he clenched so hard.
“She…is none of your damn business.”
Then Jaxson turned around and walked out. He did his part. He invited Dane’s brother to the party.
Hopefully, the bastard didn’t show up.
Sorry, Dane. But that’s how he felt.
* * *
Mia shovedher phone into her tote and pasted on a smile. Gabby was entering the lobby of the theater. Although they were still a distance apart, she didn’t need Gabby to see any sign of distress and start interrogating her like a suspect.
Because she was oh so distressed.
Jaxson didn’t answer when she called him ten minutes ago, which put her anxiety up just because. Hello, overanalyzes every single thing here. So, she was forced to send a text.
Ugh.
Canceling their lunch date.
Only because when Gabby called wanting to see if she was free, she couldn’t say no.
Her text had been kind of short, but sweet. It had been hard to write the dumb thing in the first place. Why hadn’t he answered?
Sorry, gotta cancel lunch. Gabby wants to meet up. We’ll shop later. Miss you. :)
The ‘miss you’ had been a nice touch. At least, she thought so. Not quite ‘I love you,’ but enough to show she cared about him, and she was sorry. Which she completely was.
“Hey, you ready? I’m starving,” Gabby said, leaning in for a short hug. Her eyes trailed to her bag, bugging out.
Gabby grabbed her tote, jostling her bit, but not enough to yank her shoulder out of the socket. But still. A bit roughly.
“There is a hole in your tote bag.” Gabby put her finger through it. “A small hole. Like from a bullet.”
Yeah, Mia hated the reminder herself. It wasn’t something she liked to think about. Since Jaxson burst into her life like a crane ball knocking down a building, she hadn’t thought much about the near-death experience. Interestingly enough, she hadn’t even thought about it last night when he gave her the new sketch pad. Her mind had only been focused on the sweetness of the gift, not the reminder of why she needed the gift in the first place.
“I haven’t had a chance to buy a new tote yet.” She should put that further up her to-do list. Especially with the way Gabby was staring at her like she was about to put her into a concrete bubble where nothing would be able to hurt her.
“Screw lunch. We’re going shopping first. I can’t stand to look at that. How in the world are you wearing it?”
Gabby looped her arm through hers and they headed out of the building. She decided not to argue about the detour in their plans. What was one more hiccup in the day?
The walk to the subway was minimal with talk. Probably because Gabby was still stewing inside about the hole in her tote bag, indicating how close she’d been to getting hurt. They exchanged pleasantries about their day. Mia relaying how annoying Deloris had been once again—all over the orange dress. Gabby shared how she got bored waiting for Dane to get off work. He always worked one weekend a month because the man was a true workaholic, but for Gabby, he tried to compromise by taking time off. The longer they were together, the more he seemed to not work.
After a short ride on the subway, they made it to their favorite mall to shop near the southwestern corner of Central Park. It was their favorite because one, the variety of stores to choose from was spectacular. Two, because it was so close to Central Park and they enjoyed venturing around the park to enjoy the scenery.
Gabby practically pulled Mia the entire way until they made it to the book store they always frequented when visiting the mall. This book store not only had a wide array of every genre to read, but it also sold stationery, bags, and the best pens on the planet. Mia couldn’t say she cared too much how pens wrote—pencils were another story—but Gabby was a huge pen whore. She loved finding the smoothest, finest pen that glided across the paper with ease. For Mia, that’s how she felt about pencils since she used them so often to sketch different designs. Some pencils just had the worst erasers. Because yeah, she made a lot of mistakes, or her ideas would change on a whim.
“Oh, this is cute.” Gabby’s eyebrows rose with excitement as she lifted the tote that said ‘shop ’til I drop.’ There was also a fun animated woman with an armload of bags in her hands. She also had red curly hair, which Mia didn’t find very often.
She did like to shop. Sometimes ’til she dropped.
But she wasn’t completely feeling it.
The tote on her shoulder felt heavy, laden with sadness and guilt.
Why hadn’t Jaxson texted back yet?
