TEN
Ana
A petite dark-haired hostess greets us and asks if we’d like a table for two. After we’re seated, we place our drink order. Since there’s a two-for-one deal on all margaritas today, we order two pitchers.
We talk about work and Mia tells me about the on-going social media campaign she’s spearheading to boost subscription. Zadie’s subscription rate has been increasing steadily especially in our target market – young professional women. Mia and her team have been doing a fantastic job with the digital content. We’re about halfway through the first pitcher when we decide that we’d better order our dinner. I’m suddenly feeling really hungry. The appetizers I’ve had didn’t make a dent in my stomach. As soon as my dinner of grilled chicken and sweet potato fries arrive, I dig in. Mia is having a beetroot and avocado salad but I have no doubt that she’s going to help herself to at least half of my fries.
After I finish my meal, I glance around the now full bar to see if I can spot our waiter. I’ve been looking forward to a slice of their dark chocolate pecan cake with mint chocolate frosting since I walked through the doors. That’s when I see him. Sitting at the bar. With a woman. I can’t take my eyes off them. I almost don’t believe it’s him I’m seeing. The slender brunette he’s with smiles up at him. She looks young, maybe twenty or twenty-one. She’s pretty, but I think she’d be a lot prettier without all the makeup she has on.
The woman – girl may be a more appropriate way to describe her – slides down from her bar stool. It looks like she’s leaving but she stands right in front of him talking animatedly. The jeans she’s wearing looks like it was sprayed on her and her red shirt is showing damn too much cleavage.
Someone touches my arm and I turn to see Mia’s concerned face.
“Are you okay? I called you three times but you didn’t seem to hear me. What were you looking at? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I don’t answer her. I turn back to see Luke has placed his arm across the brunette’s shoulders. The sick feeling at the pit of my stomach I’ve been trying hard to ignore intensifies. They look too familiar to be just friends.
Now I know why he hasn’t bothered to call or text me.
“Ana, you’re trembling. What’s going on?”
I turn back to Mia. Yes, I’m trembling. I’m also trying to get oxygen into my lungs. And my heart feels like it’s being shattered into a million pieces. I’d like to say that I’m trembling with anger but there’s no point lying to myself. Yes, I’m angry but it’s hurt, soul-crushing hurt, that’s affecting me so badly.
I grab my bag from the floor. “I have to go,” I say, pulling out my wallet and pulling out some cash. I have no idea if it’s too little or too much. I don’t count it. I just drop it on the table.
“Okay. We’ll leave now,” Mia says, looking very concerned. She takes out a twenty from the notes on the table and pushes it into my bag while picking up her bag and standing up.
As I stand up to leave, I can’t resist taking one last look. At that precise moment, Luke turns and looks straight at me, our gazes colliding. Surprise flashes across his face.
“Oh my god,” Mia murmurs beside me. Now she knows what the problem is. The brunette turns to see what’s taking Luke’s attention away from her. She glances at Mia and I, and then turns back to him. She says something to him but he doesn’t respond, his gaze is still on me. He starts to stand up. It’s obvious he wants to come over. I have no desire to talk to him so I tear my gaze away and hurriedly push through the crowd, not bothering to check if Mia is behind me. I’m relieved when I push open the doors and step out into the cool spring night.
A hand grasps my arm and from the tingles that shoot up my arm, I know it’s him.
“Ana?”
I wrench my arm away from him and turn around. “Don’t ever touch me again,” I say vehemently.
He looks stunned, but quickly recovers. He raises his hands, his palms facing me. “I’m not going to touch you,” he says gently.
I should walk away but I can’t. My legs feel like they’re glued to the floor. Hurt vibrates through my entire body. I just stand there and stare at him.
“What’s wrong?” His voice still has a gentle and calm tone.
What’s wrong is that I’ve obviously been a fool. I’ve been hoping . . . truly hoping that he’d feel at least a little of what I feel for him. In his office, I thought that he must have felt something stronger than affection and much more than the potent sexual attraction between us. He told me he trusts me. Doesn’t that mean something? And I thought that having unprotected sex was his way of showing me he didn’t want to be casual anymore, he wanted to be serious. With me. I was wrong about everything. I wonder if he’s had unprotected sex with the brunette in his office. Maybe that’s what they were doing before they came here. I feel sick, so fucking sick.
“Ana?” There’s an unmistakable note of concern in his voice. His hands are now in the pockets of his charcoal gray trousers, and his stance appears casual but his eyes tell a different story.
“Why don’t you go back to your little girlfriend,” I say in the coldest voice I can muster.
He furrows his brows, looking genuinely puzzled. If I didn’t see them with my own eyes, I would have been swayed by his acting.
“Who? Amber?” he asks. “She’s not –”
“I don’t care,” I interject.
“Ana,” Mia says in a very firm voice. We’ve been best friends long enough for me to know that she doesn’t approve of the way I’m handling the situation.
She turns to Luke. “I’ll make sure she gets home safely,” she says softly.
What?! She’s supposed to be on my side. I glare at both of them, and then turn on my heels and walk away. Mia follows me asking me to slow down. I ignore her and walk faster knowing that she won’t catch up with me because of the six-inch heels she’s wearing. I quickly flag down an empty taxi and jump in. Seconds later, my phone starts ringing. It’s Mia.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why did you run off like that?” she asks angrily. Mia rarely gets annoyed.
“Look, I’m sorry. I couldn’t just stand there and listen to him lie to my face.”
I hear her exhale, possibly trying to push down her anger. “Ana, what makes you think he’s lying?”
“I saw them, Mia. They looked too cozy. He had his arm on her shoulders.” Jealousy and hurt sear my heart.
“So? Friends put their arms on each other’s shoulders all the time. We hold hands and hold each other all the time. It doesn’t mean I want to have sex with you.”
She has a point but I’m not willing to admit that I could be wrong. “I saw them,” I insist stubbornly.
“You saw them doing nothing inappropriate,” she points out firmly. “It’s not like you saw his hand on her ass or his tongue shoved down her throat.”
I’m glad I didn’t see that.
“Mia –”
“No. You listen,” she says, cutting me off. “I get that you’re upset he didn’t call you, and seeing him at the bar with a woman no doubt got you jealous and even more upset but, Ana, this isn’t the way to handle it. She could be a friend’s girlfriend or a cousin. You should at least have given him a chance to explain.”
Okay, so it’s possible I may have overreacted a little. I close my eyes, lean back on the seat and take a steadying breath. I hate that he was in a bar having a drink with some woman – friend or not – while I’ve spent days wanting and waiting to hear from him. It hurts.
“He couldn’t even call me,” I murmur.
“I know,” Mia murmurs back. “Ana, it’s obvious to everyone that he has feelings for you. I’m sure he has a good explanation. Just hear him out, okay?”
I nod, forgetting for a second that she can’t see me. “Okay,” I say, opening my eyes.
“He’s on his way to your apartment. You’re going home, right?”
Thinking of Luke on his way to see me makes me a little breathless and fills me with anticipation. Maybe I can finally put these horrible past few days behind me. “Yeah.”
“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow. I don’t want to interrupt your sex – I mean make up – session tonight,” she teases.
Finally able to smile, I say, “Thanks, Mia.”
“Anytime, darling. Have fun tonight,” she says, and then ends the call.
I take a deep breath, relieved to see that we’re a couple of blocks away from home and Luke will soon be here.
Minutes later, I’m opening the door to the building when I hear my name. Luke. I turn slowly to face him, my heart beating faster than I’d like. He doesn’t say anything. He stares at me with such burning intensity that I almost squirm. I can’t read a single thing from his expression, but I sense there’s some strong emotion simmering underneath his calm façade.
“Why did you leave like that?” His voice is almost flat.
“I was surprised to see you at the bar,” I say, trying to match his tone.
“Amber is just a friend. There’s no reason for you to be upset.”
Maybe not, but why is he being so damned distant? There isn’t any point denying I was upset since I made it obvious. He knows it bothered me to see him with another woman, yet he’s standing here being so unaffected and unemotional. What is it with this man?
“You didn’t call me,” I say, needing to hear a good explanation or an apology for what is undoubtedly responsible for putting me in a funk in the first place.
“I was busy.”
What the . . .? That’s his explanation?
I can’t stop the next words that come out of my mouth. “But not too busy to take women out to bars,” I mutter angrily.
I see impatience flash in his eyes. “I didn’t take anyone anywhere. Besides, you and I aren’t exclusive.”
I suck in a deep breath and rein in the hurt, disappointment and anger swirling in me. At the bar, I thought my heart had shattered with the pain of seeing him with her but that’s nothing compared to what I’m feeling now. Luke has just stomped viciously on my heart.
I don’t want him to see how much he’s hurt me but it’s hard to hold it in. I turn around and open the front door, and then turn back to him. He’s taken a couple of steps closer.
“You’re right. We’re not.” I slam the door in his face and engage the lock with a loud click.
“Ana.” He knocks loudly on the door. “Ana, open the door.”
I ignore him and almost run up the stairs. As soon as I get to my door, I enter into my apartment and lock the door. Breathing heavily, I drop my bag on the floor and sit on the couch. Luke is right, we aren’t exclusive. I shouldn’t have forgotten that. I shouldn’t have forgotten that he doesn’t date, he doesn’t do commitment and he doesn’t want a girlfriend. If I hadn’t forgotten, I wouldn’t be feeling so heartbroken right now. A tear slides down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away.
Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry. I keep repeating the three words but it isn’t working because tears are streaming down my face. I grab a tissue from my bag and try to convince myself that Luke isn’t worth my tears, but that doesn’t work too. So I try thinking about work, about everything on my schedule tomorrow and on Saturday. It’s a good thing I had planned to be in the office this weekend. It means I won’t sit at home thinking about Luke. I don’t know how long I sit staring at my white ceiling. I’m startled when I hear a knock. Luke. I know he’s the one. I stay still, staring at my front door. He knocks again.
“Ana, I know you can hear me.”
I’m barely breathing. I’m waiting to see what he’ll say or do next.
He knocks again. This time it’s louder. “Come on, Ana. Open the door and let’s talk about this.”
No way am I going to open my door. I don’t need him to tell me again how he’s a free agent. He turns my door handle and finds it locked. Next thing, my phone starts ringing beside me. It’s him. Shit! It sounds so loud. I bet he can hear it ringing. Immediately it stops ringing, it starts up again. He knocks on the door when it stops.
“Ana. Please.”
What if he wants to apologize? He wouldn’t be this persistent if he wasn’t sorry, right? And he can’t do it from the other side of the door. He won’t want to give my neighbors something to talk about. Maybe I should open the door and hear what he has to say. But I still don’t move. My mind flashes back to when he said he was busy and we weren’t exclusive. What if he wants to reiterate his comments? He knocks a couple more times but I don’t respond. I feel like I’m frozen. I’m just sitting on the couch, staring at the door like I’m waiting for something to happen.
“Okay, Ana. Have it your way,” he says, sounding hard and cold. “I’m done here.” And with that, he leaves. I hear his footsteps receding. It takes me over an hour to finally get up and drag myself to my bedroom.
I feel so numb.