Rowan’s gaze flicks down to my feet and he halts his campaign to inch forward, a crease forming between his brows in a thoughtful frown. “Stay,” he says, his voice low and quiet. “We can sit at the booth.”
A nervous laugh bursts past my lips, its color darkened by my self-deprecating thoughts. The last place in the world I want to go is back to that booth where I left a drawing like some shy, pathetic middle schooler, confused and lovesick over her first crush.
So I do whatever any pathetic middle schooler would do. I take another step backward toward the door and lie my face off. “I’ve gotta get going, actually. But it was great seeing you.”
I flash Rowan an apologetic smile before turning to stride toward the exit only to be stopped short by Lachlan, who’s standing as a sentry between me and my escape. He raises a glass of whiskey to his lips and takes a sip around a devilish grin. I was so caught up in seeing Rowan and battling with my emotions that I didn’t even notice him receive his drink, or rise from the table, or block my access to the door.
Shit.
“Well, well,” Lachlan says through his shit-eating grin. “Fuck. Off.”
Rowan growls behind me. “Lachlan—”
“If it isn’t the elusive Sloane Sutherland,” Lachlan continues, swirling the ice in his glass. “I was beginning to think you were a figment of my brother’s overactive imagination.”
“Sit down, Lachlan,” Rowan grits out. I glance over my shoulder to where he stands rigid a short distance behind me, his hands folded into tight fists.
“Whatever you say, little brother.”
Lachlan raises his glass in a mock toast before sauntering off in the direction of my booth.
“Touch that fucking table and I will rip your goddamn hands off and use them to wipe my ass until the day I die,” Rowan snarls.
Lachlan stops, turning slowly to give his brother a devious grin before he shrugs and starts back to his own table, passing close enough to the seething chef to clap him once on the shoulder and whisper something in his ear. Rowan’s eyes darken, but they never leave mine. Even when my gaze darts around, every time it lands on him, he’s there, waiting.
“Sloane—”
A blast of animated conversation enters the restaurant on the cool draft from the open door.
“Rowan! You’re done for the day?”
I turn to watch a gorgeous blonde woman enter the restaurant with two equally beautiful friends close on her heels, both of whom are engaged in an animated conversation full of laughter and confidence. The blonde strides straight for Rowan. She never wavers on the stilettos that accentuate her bare, tanned legs, her skin glowing as though she’s just returned from some expensive spa vacation. She tosses Rowan a wide grin, oblivious to the tension she’s just shattered in the room, the shards of it cutting me to the core.
“Hi, Anna,” he says. Those two words seem full of resignation as the woman wraps an arm around his shoulder in a hug he doesn’t return, though she doesn’t seem to notice. When she lets him go, she turns, spotting me for the first time.
“Oh I’m sorry, I just kind of barged in, didn’t I?” She offers me what seems like a genuinely apologetic smile. I can tell she’s trying to assess whether I’m a disgruntled customer, or maybe a food critic, or a vendor here to supply meat or vegetables, not that I look like the gardening type.
No, Anna. I’m clearly here to die of embarrassment.
“Anna, this is Sloane.” Rowan pauses as though considering how he should elaborate on how he knows me, but nothing comes. “Sloane, this is my friend Anna.”
“Hey, nice to meet you,” she says, her expert smile transforming from apologetic to welcoming. “Are you going to join us?”
My throat is raw. My voice comes out a gravelly rasp, grating compared to Anna’s smooth, bright tone. “No, but thanks for the offer. I’ve gotta get going.”
“Sloane—”
“Nice seeing you, Rowan. Thank you for lunch, it was lovely,” I say, rattling the box of fig Napoleon that I have the urge to throw into the nearest flaming dumpster where the rest of my life belongs.
I meet Rowan’s gaze for only a moment, and I regret it as soon as I do. The resignation that was in his voice moments ago has found its way to his eyes, swirling with desperation and dismay. It’s a terrible combination that turns the ache in my heart to a sharp, piercing pain.
I give him a final, fleeting smile, not waiting to see what effect it might have. The urge to run is so strong that I have to think about each hurried step I take to the door. There’s probably not much dignity left for me to salvage, but at least I can force myself to walk.
So that’s what I do. I walk away. Out the front door. Down the street. Not knowing where I’m going. Not remembering when I throw away the box of dessert. Not aware of when the first, hot tear of embarrassment falls across my cheek.
I keep going, all the way to Castle Island, where I stop at the shore and look out across the dark water. And I stay there for a long time. Long enough that the walk back to the hotel seems like an endless trudge, like all my energy has been spent.
As soon as I walk through the door, I fire up my laptop long enough to rebook my flights to the earliest departure the next morning, then I slide into bed and fall into a restless sleep.
Can we talk?
I’m just getting on the plane. Maybe when I get home?
Yeah of course, just let me know. Safe travels.
Hey, you make it home okay the other day?
Yeah, sorry. Just been chaotic. Work is full-on. I’m in meetings all day but I’ll text you when I can.
I’m sorry, my week got a bit out of control.
And I’m sorry for just showing up to your restaurant and not contacting you first. That was weird of me.
Each one of the past ten days since I got back from Boston has passed in a haze, and every time my phone has chimed with a message, my heart has rioted with a burst of nerves. I’ve been working myself up to get to this moment, but as I press send on my most recent message and place my burner phone face down on my lap, I’m already wondering if I should try to recall the text before Rowan has a chance to read it. I’m still staring at my carpet, wading through the depths of indecision when the phone buzzes on my lap.
It wasn’t weird. I wish I’d known you were there. I wish you’d stayed.
I turn the phone off and set it on the coffee table, then drop my head into my palms and hope that they can absorb me into another world.
One where I don’t have to feel anything.
Because revenge is easy.
But everything else is hard.
OceanofPDF.com
9
OceanofPDF.com
CREANCE
OceanofPDF.com
ROWAN
I watch from behind the elm across the street as the kid I paid knocks on the yellow door of 154 Jasmine Street. The door opens a moment later and she’s there, confusion etched on her beautiful face as she looks down at the paper bag the kid thrusts in her direction. I can’t make out the question she asks him, but I catch his little shrug before I dart behind the tree to avoid Sloane’s gaze as she scans the neighborhood. My grin spreads as I listen intently for the sound of the door closing and the kid’s shuffling footsteps as he leaves the house to approach my hiding spot.
“All done, mister,” he says as he grabs his bike where he left it leaning against the tree.
