Come to think of it, he hadn’t been real talkative the first night we got together. Then again, both of us had other things on our minds. “He was pretty talkative Friday night.”
“That’s pretty telling.” Roxy’s forehead smoothed out. “When you walked back into the bar Friday night, I just knew something was going to go down between you two.”
“Of course you did, because I called it the first night Steph walked in the bar.”
I turned to Katie. “You did?”
“Remember. I’m kind of psychic.” She tapped her finger off her temple. “I called it.”
“She did,” Roxy confirmed, grinning gleefully, while I’m sure I had What the Hell written all over my face. “Katie told Nick that someone was coming into the bar who he was going to fall for and he was going to meet his match. Guess what?”
“What?” I said wryly.
“You strolled right on in that night.” She clapped her hands excitedly. “And here we are.”
For a moment all I could do was stare, and then I laughed. Some of the weird comments Roxy and Katie had made when I first met them now made sense. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal. Nick’s a player who normally doesn’t apologize or act decent to chicks he’s slept with. Knowing that doesn’t make him more alluring in my book. And even you said he was a dick.”
“Well, no shit, but the fact that he is acting different with you means something,” Roxy countered, and then she squinted. “Unless you don’t want it to mean anything.”
“She doesn’t,” Katie answered, and my gaze swung to hers sharply. “She’s going to break his heart.”
I stared at her, absolutely dumbfounded. “I am not going to break anyone’s heart.”
“Oh, you will. You won’t mean to, but it’s going to happen.” She was serious, and a sad look crept into her features as she met my stare. “Yeah, it’s going to happen.”
Shaking my head, I turned to Roxy. She was staring at Katie with this perplexed look on her face. I threw up my hands. “Why are we even having this conversation? Just because I accepted his apology and he appears to want to be friends doesn’t mean either of us are entertaining the idea of going there again.”
“People can change,” Roxy said.
I shot her a bland look. “Please don’t tack ‘for the right person’ on the end of that.”
She made a face. “No. I was going to tack ‘when they want to’ on the end of that.”
“Oh.” I flashed a brief grin. “That sounds more believable, but still, it doesn’t matter. Maybe Nick and I will be friends at some point, but that’s it. I don’t think our paths are going to cross a lot outside of visiting you.”
“I don’t know about that,” Katie said, and when she looked at me, the unwarranted and strange sadness lingered on her pretty face. “I don’t think you’re going to have a choice when it comes down to it.”
Chapter 8
The first day of October slammed into the city of brotherly love, winds blustery and temps that made me rethink the decision to move farther north instead of south. As I worked at my desk, I hoped that I wouldn’t have to go out again. The thin linen pants and blouse, even with my jacket and scarf and gloves, did nothing to beat down the cold.
There was a good chance I really was coming down with something.
I bit the inside of my cheek as I flattened my hand on my belly. My stomach churned like a washing machine. It had been that way since I got up. Running in the wind had been hard enough, but adding in the nausea and the lingering fatigue, I barely made it this morning.
Missing any time when I was only in my forth week at the academy was unacceptable. What I needed to do at lunch was swing by the Walgreens down the street and stock up on antiflu meds.
I was going to try to will myself into not being sick, I decided as I started working again. Mind over body and all that jazz.
My fingers stilled on the keyboard as I heard Rick’s high-pitched laugh and I gritted my teeth. As I focused on my screen, my cell phone buzzed from where I’d placed it under the monitor. My gaze flicked to it. It was a text, and there was a number in the little box above the message, one I didn’t recognize.
Hey.