Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe Tia knew more than Clyde thought. Hmmmm.
While she was dipping her toes in the pool of Clyde, she decided to wade further in. “So how about Tia? I’m sorry about that. Bet seeing her cut deep.” She was being a meddling, nosy bitch—even if she was sorry he’d lost someone he clearly still loved. But by God, she had the craziest urge to know how deep their relationship had run. It didn’t make her a bad person—just a curious one. And this information will help you cross him over, how, Delaney? Curious isn’t the only thing you are . . .
“Don’t sweat it,” he offered as though they’d seen his dry cleaner or the bagger at his local grocery store in that deli rather than the woman he’d loved.
Her heart clenched. Maybe he was trying to hide his pain over seeing her by drowning his sorrow in his banana Slurpee and pride laced with testosterone. “Do you need some time alone?”
“Why would I need time alone?”
She clucked her tongue at him. “Because you just saw the woman you love and you couldn’t even talk to her. That has to be hard. At the very least, frustrating.”
Clyde was so obviously confused, she thought the word “huh?” might transcribe itself on his forehead like a stigmata on a grilled cheese sandwich. “And that means I need to be alone?”
What. A. Simpleton. “Well, yeah. Like time alone to do unmanly things like sulk, pout, maybe even cry.”
Clyde’s lightly tanned brow wrinkled. “Why would I do that?”
Alrighty then, her sympathy cup had just been bled dry. “Because you loved her. Because you miss her. Because now you’re going to spend the rest of your eternity with winged people, if all goes as planned, and not the woman you love!” Nimrod.
“Oh,” was his dull response.
“Oh? Ohhh?” she almost shrieked, throwing her clipboard down on the counter between them.
The glance Clyde gave her said he was tired of explaining things that were rational to the exceptionally irrational, slightly overreacting ghost talker. “These are the cards I’ve been dealt. I can’t go back to Tia now. It isn’t practical or logical. What’s the use of mourning something that won’t ever happen? I think you have a very romanticized view of love, Delaney. I think it’s pretty clear, ‘happily ever after’ only lasts for so much ‘after’—everything changes when one half of the equation kicks the bucket. I kicked the bucket. How fair would it be for me to show up and make her life a mess, only to have to leave again if you can cross me over?”
How very no-nonsense and unbelievably logical with a big side order of insensitive and about as romantic as a trip to the gyne cologist. How totally Clyde. “Well, I dunno if my view’s been romanticized, demon. I mean, if I’d had a girlfriend as wonkable as, say, Tia, and I blew my ass all over the joint, yet never had the chance to say good-bye, never was able to say a final ‘I love you’ to her, I’d be feelin’ some regret. So, yeah—color me romantic. My view is idealistic. But you, on the other hand, can’t even seem to remember what your last moments with her were like. And you call yourself decent? What kind of boyfriend are you?”
“Well, from your point of view, I’d say I was a pretty shitty boyfriend,” was the sarcastic reply.
The snort she spat in his direction returned his sarcasm. “I’ll say. How can you so callously dismiss what you shared with her? I thought, from the look on your face when you saw her, that you were a guy who’d been in complete love. Maybe your bad judge of character is rubbing off on me.”
His one eyebrow rose above the frames of his glasses. “That look was for the pastrami on rye. It’s been a long time since I had one, and I’m not callously dismissing anything. There wasn’t much to dismiss. Do I regret not having the chance to say my good-byes? Yep. I do. But I don’t just regret not being able to say good-bye to Tia, I regret not being able to say good-bye to several people. Mostly my cat, Hypotenuse.”
She shoved all the bottles back on the shelf with disgust. “You know what, Clyde? You’re a schnutz. Chivalry really is dead and that death unlives in you. That you miss your cat more than Tia says a lot about you.”