This wouldn’t be so bad, right? It was just one short weekend and then “boom” it’d be over.
Shaking my hands to bring the feeling back to them, I noticed a woman parked in a car beside ours from the corner of my eye. After I caught her staring, she gave a tight smile, and then quickly turned away. However, when she did…something about her seemed so familiar. An uneasy feeling settled in and I studied her features. As soon as I made the connection, my heart nearly stopped cold in my chest. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the Asian woman in the parking space beside me…was Reina? I’d remember that face anywhere, but…
My stomach twisted and turned, but I ignored it, deciding to look away. The sound of Jason’s car door opening made me whirl my head in his direction. I hadn’t even noticed him approaching.
When Jason started the engine, I questioned him with my eyes. “We’re leaving?”
He shook his head. “Nope, I’m just parking in the back.”
I nodded, but said nothing as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. The first thought that crossed my mind was that she had to be here with AJ, but I knew for a fact that his fiancé’s name was Kira. However, my eyes were not playing tricks on me. I had Reina’s face memorized. You don’t forget the face of the chick you catch naked in your boyfriend’s bed.
Ex-boyfriend’s bed.
Jason put the car in reverse and braced his hand on my headrest. The wheels began to roll backwards as he pulled out of the space and my eyes lifted toward the front entrance of the hotel when the gold-trimmed doors shot open. It was like stepping into a time machine as my gaze settled on the one ghost from my past that I still hadn’t managed to outrun. My palms went sweaty and a chill ran down my spine. AJ stared at the set of keycards in his hand for a second or two and then shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans. I froze when the next thing those eyes settled on was me. He did a double-take, and instantly his pace slowed.
There’s no word in the dictionary in any language to describe the feeling that washed over me. I hadn’t seen this man in years, yet in that moment it was almost like no time had passed at all. He was still the same old AJ that I remembered and thought of often. He’d changed some – bulked up a little in his arms, shoulders, and chest…which I tried not to stare at. It was like reliving that moment at the dance when we locked in on one another right before he left Leila standing in the middle of the dance floor and came to me instead. That carelessly stylish mess of black hair on top of his head brought a fleeting memory of running my fingers through it, and I wished the thought away, practically smelling his fragrance from where I sat. The way he stared at me right then and there had my pulse racing a mile a minute. It was mostly nerves, though, I figured.
Like a switch flipped and the Earth began to rotate again, I cleared my throat and AJ snapped out of the daze as he looked toward the woman sitting in the passenger side of his car. Before Jason could realize what’d just happened, I closed my open mouth and turned to look out my window casually.
“You wanna grab something to eat before we get settled?” Jason asked, touching his foot to the brake while waiting for my answer.
Even if I had been hungry, seeing AJ stole my appetite. “No, I’m good. There’s gonna be food at the meet and greet anyway,” I replied distractedly.
“That’s right. I almost forgot we had to go to that,” he said to himself, rounding the corner to our new parking space. The locks disengaged and Jason was out and coming around the back of the car to open my door for me. When I stepped out, I subconsciously scanned the lot.