“I will.” She doesn’t respond, curious as to my little slip of the tongue. I try to smooth it over so she doesn’t also worry about me. “It’s just a long drive and you know I hate traffic.”
“You get that from me,” she laughs. “Goodnight.”
“Night, Mom.”
I glance up and see Presley’s head sticking around the door. I roll my eyes and she mimics me, walking on in.
“You look gorgeous. I’m a little afraid to ask why you’re going to see Grant looking like that . . .”
“Is it too much? We’re just going to Pano.”
Presley pops a hand on her hip. “That’s still a really nice place. How is he paying for that?”
“Oh, I probably will if nothing’s changed,” I snort.
I turn away and back towards the mirror again and second guess my outfit. It’s a dress I bought on clearance a couple of years ago and have only worn once. I want to look nice—enough to make Grant realize what he’s missing. But my normal wardrobe is too blasé for Pano and it seems wrong to wear the stuff Fenton bought for me.
I shake my head, trying to keep thoughts of him at bay.
“I’m not going to even ask,” Presley comments, chiding me. “I know that look.”
“You do not.”
“No, I do. That’s the look you get on your face when you imagine Fenton eating your pussy.”
“For heaven’s sake, Presley!”
“What? Did he not? Do I not recall a conversation about his oral skills?”
“I can’t even with you,” I say, grabbing my phone again as it starts to jingle. I gasp at the number.
Presley stills. “That’s him, isn’t it? That’s Cashmere.”
“I don’t want to talk to him, Pres.”
“Yes, you do. Just answer it. Or give it to me and I’ll find him and he can eat my pussy.”
“Get out of here!” I laugh, nudging her to the door.
She flicks her hair off her shoulders and winks. “I thought that would convince you.” She blows me a kiss and shuts the door behind her.
The cheery music drifts through the interior of Pano, a bubbly little beat that’s more annoying than welcoming. My mood is a wavy line, tossing over the boundaries of anticipation of what Grant has to say and a quiver of foreboding that this is going to be a mess. That I shouldn’t be here. That, although I want answers, I don’t want to be here.
I follow a casually dressed server about the same age as me, her long hair twisted into some intricate up-do, through the winding tables.
The restaurant is laid back, a very California ambiance flowing easily throughout. I might be a touch overdressed, but I feel good and I’d rather be overdressed when meeting Grant than under. If this is the last time I see him, and by all means that’s the point, I want him to remember me at my best so he can miss me as much as I missed him.
Skimming the room, I look for him. I automatically look for a door leading into a private room, but then it occurs to me yet again that I’m not here to see Fenton. I’m here to see Grant.
Tossing my shoulders back and weaving through the last few tables to the back, I spot my ex-boyfriend sitting at a table.
He sees me and jumps up, jostling the tableware.
“Hey, babe!” He leans in to kiss me, but I pull back. A sheepish grin touches his lips and he nods, his ruffled hair moving with his head.
“Hey.” I pull my own chair out and sit, tucking my purse onto the chair beside me. Grant sits, folding his hands on the table in front of him. We look at each other like we’re complete strangers, and in a lot of ways, we are. The man sitting in front of me is the same man that I used to know. But the twinkle in his eye is different. The smell of his cologne not the same. He’s a lackluster stand-in for the man I used to love, even though he looks . . . better. His watch is fancier, his haircut trendier. It’s a very peculiar situation and one I don’t have time to think much about because he starts talking.
He chatters away about some dirt bike race he saw earlier in the week, one of the things he loves more than anything. My mind drifts away, not at all engaged in his words and realizing that he knows I couldn’t care less, and still—he doesn’t care.
I’m not sure if I thought things would be different between us at some point in the future, maybe when Brady comes home and this is all sorted out. But they won’t be. Some things will always be the same, and while Grant and I had some chemistry, he doesn’t inspire me. He doesn’t make me want to be a better person. He doesn’t put me before himself and he never has.
Like a hammer hitting a nail, pounding it into a wooden plank in one fell swoop, it occurs to me that I will never love him again.
And I’m not sure I ever did.
A server steps up and we order drinks. She scurries away and returns before we can get a conversation started. Whatever I anticipated, it wasn’t this awkwardness like we’d never conversed before.