You’ll never be a mother.
I had been furious with Nick all over again. I had written him a dozen hateful texts that never got sent. I’d even composed an email that vomited every vile thought I could think of.
But in the end I hadn’t sent it. Not because I’d changed my mind, but because I didn’t want him to feel as awful as I did. Even after everything we’d been through, even after his behavior during mediation, I couldn’t deliver that news again.
I couldn’t disappoint him again.
I assumed he’d figured it out by now.
I showered and dressed in a simple black wrap dress. It wasn’t the nicest thing I owned, but it gave me the illusion of curves and I knew he liked it.
I would be freezing in this weather and I would hate myself for wearing heels when I would have to walk at least a block from the parking garage to the restaurant. But I couldn’t not look nice tonight.
I didn’t know if it was to impress him or punish him.
And I didn’t examine my feelings long enough to figure it out.
When I walked into the trendy wine bar, the crush of people surprised me. I wasn’t expecting this kind of crowd for a Wednesday night.
I pushed through bodies to find the hostess stand, but Nick caught my attention before I could ask her if he had arrived yet. He sat at the bar in stylish gray jeans and a black sweater that fit him well. His jaw had been trimmed and he’d recently had a haircut. His chestnut hair lay over his forehead just right, a little mussed and perfectly sun-kissed, even though it was the dead of winter.
He was gorgeous.
He was too gorgeous.
The corners of his mouth lifted when our gazes collided and he raised his hand in a small hello. I didn’t smile back. Or wave.
I spent every ounce of energy composing myself before I had to speak to him.
When would it stop being such a lightning strike when I saw him? When would it stop feeling like the earth had come to a screeching halt and I had been pushed forward from momentum and propulsion and impetus and all other scientific terms until he became my entire world? Until he became everything I saw and heard and smelled and breathed?
When would this attraction to him die?
God, I was a mess.
He leaned in when I placed my hands on the high-backed bar chair. “Hey,” he murmured. “Was parking a pain?”
I licked dry lips. “Parking is always a pain down here.”
He shifted nervously and tugged on his damn earlobe. “Do you, uh, want to take a seat? I made a reservation earlier today, but they said it would be a while yet. I can ask them again if you’d rather-”
“This is fine,” I interrupted. This was actually better. Sitting at the bar would feel infinitely less intimate than a table against the wall.
I hung my purse on a hook under the bar and slipped my coat off, hanging it on the back of my chair. After I’d climbed up and situated myself, Nick slid me a drink menu.
“What are you drinking?” I asked him while I studied wines.
“Manhattan.”
I wrinkled my nose and saw him smile in my peripheral vision. “They have a cab franc,” he murmured.
Instantly I perked up. My favorite.
I told that to the bartender who deadpanned, “We only sell that one in the bottle.”
“Oh.” My eyes fell back to the menu, perusing it for something different.
“We’ll take the bottle,” Nick announced.
The bartender immediately gave us his back and I swung my head to face my ex-husband.
Soon to be ex-husband.
“Are you trying to get me drunk? Do you think that I’ll be easier to deal with after I’m three sheets to the wind?”