As I park my car in front of the red-brick building that is Gio’s Cuisine, my pulse starts racing and my stomach cramps with anxiety. Why am I doing this? What possible good could come of it? I’ve asked myself those questions so many times since I impulsively—and stupidly, most likely—sent Matt that message on Facebook a week ago, and they always go unanswered.
At this point I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve talked myself out of canceling the whole thing. Maybe the decision to go is what won out in the end for no other reason than it can’t be any worse than sitting at home and feeling sorry for myself.
This past week has been pretty crappy. Flew up to see Grandma as planned, and Paige and the girls were there, too, as well as Cam and Aunt Hannah and my cousins, Malcolm and Emeline.
On Saturday my grandma cooked us Thanksgiving dinner in June, and it was as lavish and delicious a feast as she’s ever whipped up, but the effort took a toll on her. The next day she stayed in bed, and seeing her finally showing physical signs of illness was pretty sobering, not just for me but I think for everyone. As if her lack of symptoms so far had allowed us to almost pretend nothing was out of the ordinary.
Getting home to my quiet and empty apartment Sunday night was pretty brutal. I wished I could see Jay, needed him so badly my whole body felt achy and overstrung. It didn’t help to think about how the highlight of my upcoming week was having dinner with Matt Nolan.
Turning off the ignition, I grab my purse from the passenger seat and get out of the car. Matt responded to my message barely an hour after I sent it. His reply was friendly, and we arranged to meet. I suggested Gio’s after doing some Googling, because who doesn’t like Italian food?
Also, it’s about halfway between my apartment and Manhattan Beach, where he lives. That seemed only fair. And with my cheating ex-boyfriend, I want to make sure I’m being fair, right? Ha.
When I step inside the building and tell the tiny hostess with the tightly stretched and pinned dark hair that I’m meeting someone, she informs me with a professional smile that he’s already here. Grabbing a menu, she says she’ll show me to our table.
The vise on my gut squeezes tighter as I follow her through the restaurant, a large space with several rooms, a fully stocked bar, and tall leather booths. I can’t decide if I’m relieved I don’t have to sit and wait for him at a table by myself or if I’m stressed because I was hoping for a few more minutes to brace myself for this.
I look down at myself and the short, black summer dress I’m wearing with a brown leather belt at the waist and matching brown platform sandals. And then I get annoyed and want to kick myself for caring what I look like. It matters, though. The last thing I need is for the guy who smashed my heart to pieces to think I’m less attractive than I used to be.
The hostess stops by a tall-backed booth, sidling out of the way and waiting for me to take a seat. But my legs refuse to move, and it feels like my shoes are glued to the floor.
Did she bring me to the wrong table? Because, holy hell, the guy who’s sitting there, who looked up from his phone as we approached, that guy is a stranger. A stranger who sets his phone down and flashes a wide and perfect smile at me while he scoots out of the booth and gets to his feet in front of me.
I just stand there and stare at him, and he does the same to me. He looks like he belongs in a swanky magazine ad for a Rolex watch or some such, wearing charcoal dress slacks and a cream shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, with a fit so good it seems tailored—which they very well may be, considering where he works. It’s probably part of an expensive suit that he made more casual by shedding the jacket and tie.
The more I study him, though, the more of his familiar features jump out at me. Like his light brown hair, which I’d always thought was the color of caramel. And those striking hazel eyes of his that caught my notice and stopped me in my tracks the first time I met him at that beach party my freshman year of college.
And he’s the right height to be Matt—half a head taller than me, just the right height for me to rest my head on his shoulder. My nose twitches at that memory, and I can imagine I’m smelling the spicy musk of his shaving cream.
But the rest of him is so different. The college kid is gone, gone like a speck of dust in the wind. With a broader, more angular face and thicker shoulders, he looks so much more like a man than when I knew him. My cute and charming college boyfriend has turned into a worldly and sexy adult, and suddenly it’s like my lungs have become allergic to oxygen.
“Hi,” I say, and I think I manage to not sound as dazed as I feel.
“Hi, yourself,” he returns, and it seems to me that even his voice has matured more, grown just a tad deeper and fuller.
Apparently tired of waiting for us to finish greeting each other, the hostess sneaks awkwardly between us to place my menu on the table, and then she says, “Hope you enjoy your meal” before beating a hasty retreat.
“Wow.” Matt’s Adam’s apple bobs as he lets out a sound that’s half cough, half laugh. “This is pretty weird.”
I laugh, too, more from nervous discomfort than amusement. “I know, right? I mean, do we hug or shake hands or what?”
Along with his wide smile lingers the playful, almost flirtatious spark in his eyes that used to make my heart take flight. Offering out his clenched hand to me, he says, “Fist bump?”
“Yeah, good choice.” The laugh that escapes me this time feels more real, and as I knock my fist against his, the knot inside me starts to loosen. “Spread less germs this way.”
“Right,” Matt comments as he sits back down, sliding a short way into the booth. “It’s Nurse Waters now, isn’t it?”
Inching my purse off my shoulder, I take a seat opposite him, scooching in as gracefully as I can muster. “Yup. Got my masters in nursing last year, and I work at an ob-gyn’s office right now.”
He purses his lips. “Nice. Do you like it?”
“Yeah, for now,” I say lightly. “But I can already tell I’m going to need a change of pace eventually.”
Matt nods in understanding, and I ask him about his job—without mentioning that I already know where he works from his Facebook profile. Definitely don’t want to seem like a stalker or give him the wrong idea about why we’re here.
So yeah, turns out my college boyfriend is a big-shot investment banker now. He definitely gets a little braggy when he talks about his corner office in a downtown LA high-rise, the number of people he supervises, and how he’s the youngest person promoted to his position in his company’s history.
But that’s okay. Matt’s a smart guy, and when we were together I found his tenacious ambition sexy as hell. So it’d be pretty hypocritical to judge him for it now. He barely stops talking about it long enough for us to peruse the menu, though, and even after our server—a clean-cut guy who looks barely out of high school—has taken our orders and left, he’s talking about underwriting, mergers, and securities. And at that point it’s definitely getting old.
Relief finally comes in the form of our server’s interruption when he brings our drinks; me a peach Bellini and Matt a glass of draft beer. After the server walks off, Matt leans back in his seat, shaking his head slowly. “It’s really good to see you, Mia. You look…amazing.”
I feel like my breath gets sucked down into my stomach. And it really shouldn’t affect me like that, getting a compliment from Matt Nolan. But dammit, I have an ego, too, and he didn’t just bruise it when he picked that bloodless and brainless Sarah French over me. He kicked the shit out of it.
“Thanks. You’re looking good, too.” Which is painfully true. With what is meant to be a self-deprecating smile, I add, “I was kind of hoping you’d started balding and growing a paunch by now.”
Laughter bursts out of him, a low and familiar rumble that makes my fingertips all warm and tingly. “Well, you haven’t changed. Still saying whatever’s on your mind.”
I sip my drink, keeping the sweet and fruity mouthful on my tongue for a few seconds to savor the flavor. “You always said you liked that about me.”
“I do like it,” he says, quietly and with emphasis.
Do. Not did.
Ugh. What the hell is happening to me right now? I slide my gaze out the window. Darkness is falling swiftly outside, and I can see my car in the parking lot. Frank Sinatra’s crooning voice seeps out of the restaurant’s speakers, and the lighting in here is soft and mellow, the conversations muted and intimate. Maybe I should’ve suggested IHOP instead.
Matt’s phone buzzes, and I look back at him just as he picks it up, glances at it, and puts it back on the table. Guess whatever that was, it wasn’t that important. Not more important than keeping his attention on me right now, anyway.
God. Stop it.
I take another drink.
“So what made you get in touch?” he asks, arching his eyebrows at me. “It was pretty out of the blue. I was surprised.”
Okay. The pleasantries are over with, and we’re getting down to business. I feel like that last swallow of my sweet drink bubbles back up into my throat, where it gets stuck.
I’m not quite ready to go all one hundred percent honesty on him, though, so I shrug and say, “Guess I’d just been thinking a lot about the past lately. And I realized we never really talked after—”
The rest of the sentence refuses to leave my tongue. Not that it really needs to. There’s no way he can’t finish it on his own.
I’m not sure what reaction I expected from him, but it’s not the calm and straight-faced expression he’s wearing right now, that’s for sure. Some kind of emotion would’ve been welcome. A flinch might be asking too much, but he can’t at least look a little bit embarrassed?
Instead he lets out a barely perceptible sigh. “You remember Cory Bonher?”
Uh. What? I blink at him. “Yeah, vaguely.”
Cory was an acquaintance—not a close friend—of Matt’s. What’s he got to do with anything?
“We’ve kept in touch,” Matt explains, “and when I told him you’d messaged me and wanted to meet, he called me an idiot for agreeing to it. He was sure you only wanted to dredge up the past, that you’d be all confrontational about it.”
Wrapping both hands around his beer glass, he leans forward slightly and asks, “Was he right?”
Well. Confrontational is definitely not a trait I’ve been accused of before. But maybe tonight it fits. When I asked Angela during dinner after our workout last week what she meant by “closure,” she put it simply: “You ask that motherfucker why. And it doesn’t matter what his answer is, because then you’ll know why. That’s what you want, right?”
And I hadn’t been able to argue with that.
“I do have some questions,” I answer him, choosing the diplomatic route.
“Okay.” His lips twitch in a half smile. “But just to warn you, I have a three-question limit on weekdays.”
Yeah. That charmingly joking approach isn’t really working on me right now. I draw in a quick breath and just let it spill out. “All right. Why did you do it? Why did you cheat on me?”
His eyes glaze over, and his lips go all pinched.
“That just counts as one question,” I feel the need to point out. “FYI.”
He’s quiet for a while, staring down at the table with a thoughtful expression as he fiddles with his bar napkin. My heart does a kind of jump-thump-flutter thing, over and over, while I’m waiting, holding my breath.
At last he raises his gaze back to me. “Do you like new things, Mia?”
Huh? I draw my eyebrows together.
Pointing out the window, he goes on. “Like that MINI Cooper out there. Did you get it because your old car wasn’t running anymore?”
“No.” I’m squinting at him now, an inkling of where he’s going flaring up and burning in my chest. “I got it because I wanted a new car.”
“It was nice, though, right?” he asks, tilting his head slightly. “Exciting and different. Made you feel good to buy it?”
I flex my jaw before answering. “Uh-huh.”
“Sarah was new. That’s it.”
He throws his hands up, palms out. Which is a gesture that can mean so many things, but in this case, he might as well have hung a big, flashing neon sign over his head saying, “Not my fault.”
And it’s like ice water being poured into my veins.
“Yeah,” I say, glaring at him, “the difference being I got rid of my old car before I took the new one home.”
“And what if you still liked the old one and wanted to keep both?” he asks. So cool. Totally unapologetic.
Our server prevents me from shooting back my knee-jerk response to that, showing up at our table with our food on a tray. While he puts the plates down in front of us, I draw in a deep breath and manage to discard that reply, which would’ve been profane and unproductive—but it would probably have felt good for a little while. Kind of like peeing your pants to warm yourself up when you’re freezing cold.
Not that I’m making that comparison from personal experience or anything.
After we’ve reassured our server that there’s nothing else we need and he walks away, I say in a low, angry tone, “But you didn’t. You dumped me for her.”
Matt rolls his eyes as he picks up his silverware and starts cutting into his steak. “That was Sarah. She didn’t want to sneak around anymore. She was kind of a pain in the ass about it.”
Oh, that’s just too bad. Poor baby. Biting my tongue, I grab my fork and twirl olive-oiled pasta around it. I’m suddenly glad I ordered such a light meal, because my appetite has disappeared along with my good humor. And the way this conversation is going, I’ll probably want to get out of here sooner rather than later.
I eat the first few mouthfuls of my dinner in silence. Across from me, Matt chews his rib eye, and if anyone at a table within sight of us were to look at him right now, they’d think he’s having a normal, pleasant meal with his date.
“How long did it last?” I ask when my curiosity beats my dread of his answer. Though I’m not sure what answer it is I’m afraid of hearing.
His jaw works for a second or two, and he swallows before replying, “About six months.” Reaching for his beer, he gives me a dry look. “That was your second question.”
Six months. After he’d been with me for almost two years.
That was it, I realize. That piece of information is the reason I’m here. Sarah was not his soul mate. She was not the one. He didn’t fuck her because he wanted her more than me. He didn’t leave me for her because he loved her more or because she was better, like Girlfriend 2.0. He didn’t choose her because there was something wrong with me, because she had something I didn’t.
No, he just did it because he’s an asshole.
Because he “likes new things.”
With a small, humorless smile for my own benefit, I take the final sip of my Bellini and then reach for my water glass.
Matt is finishing the last few bites of his meal. He doesn’t look so much like a stranger anymore. I definitely know him now, recognize him all too well.
“Have you ever regretted it?” I ask, swirling more spaghetti onto my fork.
His gaze on me is direct and bland. “I think our relationship had kind of run its course, don’t you?”
I click my tongue. “That wasn’t really an answer to my question, Matt.”
He puts his knife and fork down on his now-empty plate. “I missed a lot of things about you for a while. Your sense of humor. Your optimism. How much fun you were.” His eyes go heavy-lidded as he gives me a heated look and adds, “Among other things.”
I stare at him. Okay, yeah. Sex with Matt was great. But his reminding me of it like that? I’m feeling nothing. No spark. No warmth. Just nothing.
Sex with Jay was better.
Jay.
And there’s the twinge of longing, the memories that skitter across my skin, leaving goose bumps in their wake.
Our server stops by again, tries to sell us on dessert, and when we both politely decline, he leaves the check on the table along with a couple of fancy-looking, foil-wrapped mints. I reach for the black leather folder, but Matt snatches it away just as I’m about to grab it.
“We should split the bill,” I tell him firmly.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a sleek brown wallet that looks expensive and is probably Italian leather or something.
“It’s the twenty-first century,” I fire back, but he just throws me a look as he pulls out his credit card.
Our server pops back over almost right away, and thankfully it only takes him a minute to return after running the card, a minute when I take a few more tiny bites of my garlicky and oily pasta and Matt finishes off his beer. He signs the receipt, and I immediately grab my purse and slide out of the booth. Picking up his suit jacket, Matt shrugs into it once he’s on his feet, and then he follows me.
The air outside is crisp with a hint of a breeze. Matt walks beside me, escorting me to my car. Such a gentleman.
“Would you do things differently if you could?” I ask, fishing my keys out of my purse as we approach the MINI. I’m exceeding my question limit, but I’m pretty sure he was being facetious about that. And at this point I’m just trying to figure out if the boyfriend I thought I had back then was mostly a figment of my imagination.
“No,” he replies without hesitation as we come to a stop beside my driver’s-side door. “You were pretty intense, Mia. You wanted more from me than I was ready for. Sarah was so much less complicated.”
I let out a small laugh, unamused as I stand there looking at him with my keychain in my hand. I’m intense? Is that some sort of code word of his? Meaning I thought we loved each other and were going to spend the rest of our lives together…and he didn’t?
He shoves his hands into his pants pockets. “Are you seeing someone right now?”
“Nope.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask if he is, but the truth is, I don’t give a shit. So instead I click the button on my key to unlock the car door.
“So you want to meet again sometime?”
I pause in the middle of reaching for the door handle. Throw him an incredulous look. “You’re kidding, right?”
He smiles and inches closer, leaning easily against the side of my car. His voice lowers into an intimate murmur. “We had a good time back then, didn’t we?” Reaching up, he touches my hair. “I guarantee it’d be even better now.”
I flinch away from him. Don’t even have to think about it. Fuck this. No more Little Miss Nice Girl. That hat never fit me well, anyway.
“I have another question,” I grind out. “What about Jay? He’d been your friend for two years. You don’t regret that what you did made him never want to talk to you again?”
He heaves another sigh, a loud and exasperated one this time. Guess he’s getting tired of this topic?
“Not really,” he says, his expression going flat.
I scoff at him. “Seriously?”
His eyes flash with irritation. “Yeah, and you know why?”
I shake my head.
“He wanted you,” Matt growls. “I’m sure he thought I couldn’t tell, but sometimes I caught him looking at you, and—”
He half turns so that he’s leaning his back against my car, running his hand over his mouth and down his jaw. “He was in love with you, and I knew he didn’t think I was good enough for you. So fuck him.”
My heartbeat goes crazy, starts galloping. My head feels so light I’m not sure it’s attached to me anymore.
He was in love with you.
Jay? Yes, Jay. Matt thinks Jay was in love with me.
My Jay. That one. Who was “perfectly happy to stay just friends.” That Jay. In love with me. That can’t be true…right? Matt’s just spouting crap now.
“Wow,” I breathe out.
Matt meets my gaze. After a moment, he says seriously, “I really want to see you again, Mia.”
Jay can’t be in love with me. If he is, why did he break it off? Why would he do that? It makes no sense.
I blink frantically, try to focus. It’s really hard to focus, almost impossible.
My ex-boyfriend is staring at me expectantly. Right. Okay, I can do this. Time to say what needs to be said.
“Well, here’s the thing,” I say to him, amazed at how easy it is to speak calmly. “I’m so relieved right now, because I feel like if you’d been just a little less impatient to find your new shiny thing, then I might have married you and had kids with you before I found out what a selfish, shallow, and self-absorbed asshole you are. And that would really have sucked.”
At that, Matt’s face twitches and clouds over. He straightens away from my car and watches me with fire in his countenance. Finally! A real reaction. He’s genuinely pissed off right now.
“Also,” I continue while hooking my hand on my car door handle, pulling on it so that it opens with a pop, “and not that it really matters, but I’m in love with someone else.”
My heart sings as those words roll off my tongue, sings a song that’s both happy and mournful. Because I just realized that I love a man who is so much better and so much more worthy than the one standing in front of me right now that the comparison is ludicrous and pointless.
I love Jay. Who pretty much said he never wants to see me again. So this knowledge is good for nothing except to make me a hell of a lot more miserable.
I need to get out of here.
“Have a nice life, Matt,” I say as I climb into my car. Before slamming the door shut, I add a pleasant, “And please try to stop being such an asshole.”