Repeat(75)

Not that I was looking. Looking was bad.

“This okay?” he asked, throwing open a door.

“Fine. Thanks.”

He tapped the top of my luggage. “Where do you want this?”

“I’ll handle it.”

A nod. “Your dad and Shanti will be over for dinner in a couple of hours.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No, it’s all taken care of.” He scratched at his stubble. “Right. Make yourself at home. I’m going to get some work done. Be in the office if you need anything.”

I nodded too. Nods were so great. Much better than words.

He stood in the hallway, staring at me for a moment. Not saying anything along the lines of how it was good to see me again. Because that would be a lie.

“Okay, Adele,” he finally said, using my name, which was never a good sign. Honestly, I think I actually preferred “kid.” Then, thank you baby Jesus, he left.

Carefully, I closed the bedroom door, slumping against it because excessive drama. I’d known coming back was going to be a certain level of hell, but not one quite this deep.

One hundred and twenty hours and counting.





“You looked?” Hazel hissed into my ear. “I can’t believe you looked.”

I lay mostly dead on the bed, my cell jammed against my ear. “I didn’t mean to—it just happened.”

“Rule number one was don’t look.”

“Yeah . . .”

She sighed. “Okay, it’s done now. We just have to move past it. But out of interest, how was the view?”

“Better than ever.”

“Bastard. How did you look?”

“Sweaty and crumpled.”

“I told you to fly.”

“Yeah, I know,” I groaned. “But then he would have insisted on picking me up from the airport, and being in a contained space for the car ride to his home would not have worked. I would have just wound up having to throw myself out of a moving vehicle, and I don’t think that usually ends well.”

Nothing from her.

“He still hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.”

“No, he really does.” I stared at the ceiling. “What’s going on there?”

“Hmm? Everything’s fine.”

“What is that weirdness in your voice?”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me. What is it?”

My best friend groaned. “I’m not sure you need this news right now, given everything already going on.”

“Just tell me.”

Some swearing. “Okay. But this is not my choice. Maddie and I went to dinner last night.”

“Lovely. Where?”

“The Bombay Diner and it was lovely, but that’s not the point,” she said. “Listen, Deacon was at the restaurant with another woman and they were very much together. Heading into serious get-a-room territory.”

I exhaled. “Oh, I see. Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Well, it’s not completely unexpected. We had a bit of an argument last week. I don’t remember what it was about, but it seemed important at the time.”

Silence.

“What?”

“One of these days, you’re actually going to care about one of the people you date.”

“I care.”

“Beyond the normal non-sociopathic ‘I hope he doesn’t get hit by a car and killed in the street on his way home,’” said Hazel. “Think a more advanced level of caring than that.”

“Well, it’s fortunate I didn’t, seeing as he’s cheating on me.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

I didn’t bother answering.

“Did it ever occur to you that he started seeing someone else because you don’t care?” she asked.

“You think I wasn’t meeting his emotional needs?”

“That’s one of my theories about your dating issues.”

“See, this is why I have a therapist for a best friend,” I said. “You have all the answers.”

She laughed. “Only I don’t get paid to listen to you.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Luckily, you’re normally pretty boring. So I don’t mind this bit of drama.”

“That is fortunate,” I said. “Thing is, Deacon and I had only been out like four or five times. We hadn’t even had sex yet. Can I really be expected to emotionally prop up men after such a small amount of dates?”

Hazel snorted. “You’re willfully misunderstanding me. I give up.”

“Good. How’s Maddie?”

“She’s fine. We’re going to her parent’s place for dinner soon,” she said. “Are you going to survive where you are?”

“No. I’ll probably just die in a really sad and pathetic manner, slowly becoming a smell in the hallway that he eventually can’t ignore. Or not. I haven’t decided.” More sighing from me. “God, I feel so wound up, like there’s something heavy sitting on my chest. Maybe I should just have a mild panic attack and get it over and done with. Tick that box, you know?”