The Ex by Freida McFadden(23)

Well, not just following her.

“It smells wonderful, patatina.” Nonna wanders into the kitchen, where I have two burners going on the stove. The more upset I am, the more elaborate my meals become. “What is it you are making?”

“Chicken cacciatore,” I tell her. The meat is simmering in a pan, and I’ve got a pot of water on the brink of boiling. The linguine is waiting to be thrown into the pot. Did I mention it’s homemade linguine? Nonna has a pasta machine and I find it therapeutic.

Chicken cacciatore was one of Joel’s favorites. When he was having a rough week, sometimes I’d make up a little menu for the week, and let him choose the dishes he wanted each day. You’re my favorite restaurant, he’d say with a grin.

“Such a good cook,” Nonna muses. Her brow crinkles. “But you should not be here! You should be out… with a man!”

“I’m fine.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “Not fine. I have a perfect man for you. My friend Gloria’s youngest grandson.”

Youngest grandson? My eyebrows shoot up. “How old is he?”

“Don’t worry—he’s eighteen! That is legal age.”

“Nonna, I’m not dating an eighteen-year-old!”

“I did not say ‘date’! Just for a little fun. You know what I mean.”

My jaw drops open. My ninety-year-old grandmother, born and raised in Sicily to a strict Catholic mother, did not just say that to me. “Nonna! How could you say that?”

“Because it is a fact of life, patatina.” She shrugs. “If you do not want this boy, then go on the internet. They have websites where you can meet men now. They are everywhere!”

“Nonna…”

“It’s true!” she insists. “You swipe right when you think he is nice-looking. And if you don’t think he is nice-looking, you Snapchat him.”

“I don’t think that’s correct.”

“I am just telling you that you must stop thinking about Jo-el.” She fingers the pasta I’ve made, inspecting its consistency. “He is not so wonderful.”

I pick my phone up off the kitchen counter. Without thinking, I click on the WhereAmI app, which immediately locates Joel’s avatar.

I should delete the app. I should get rid of it for good in a way that I can’t get it back, even if I’m tempted.

I’m deleting it.

Now.





Chapter 13: The New Girl


“I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo!” Cassie declares as she waits in line with Joel to buy tickets to get into the Central Park Zoo. It’s a beautiful day, the kind that makes you happy to be alive, even though the families in front and behind them in line both have shrieking kids, and one of those kids is holding a balloon that keeps smacking Cassie in the face.

“Me either.” He gives her hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be fun.”

Yes, they’re holding hands. They hold hands all the time now. Even when they’re just walking down the street, he reaches for her hand, and they lace their fingers together. She hates to admit how much she loves it. And Joel looks so good today, in his jeans and hoodie sweatshirt, with his chestnut hair adorably tousled by the wind.

The tickets for the zoo are obscenely expensive, which probably partially explains why Cassie can’t remember the last time she’s been to the zoo. She’s stopped offering to pay for things. He always waves her off, and she can’t afford any of the things they do together anyway.

“What animal do you want to see first?” Joel asks her.

She taps a finger against her chin as she inhales the distinctive odor of animals. “I’ve always been partial to the penguins. How about you?”

“I like the polar bear.”

She’s got a book on penguins at the store. It’s in the children’s section, and it just arrived a week earlier. She flipped through it, like she often does with new arrivals. The baby penguins were so cute. She wanted to scoop them up and keep one as a pet.

“Joel? Joel!”

Joel jerks his head around, and his eyes widen. A smile spreads across his lips, but she knows him well enough to know when his smile is forced.

She follows his gaze to the source of the voice. There are two couples striding toward them, flanking a blonde child of about five years old. One of the men waves enthusiastically at them, and Joel winces.

“Friends of yours?” Cassie murmurs.

“That’s Pete who called my name,” Joel murmurs back. “He’s my best friend, actually.”

Oh, lovely. She’s about to meet The Friends, without any preparation whatsoever. She looks down at her skinny jeans and sweatshirt. These aren’t the clothes she’d want to wear for a first impression, but there isn’t much to do about it now.

Joel handles introductions. The tall guy in the NYU hoodie with messy dirty blond hair is his best friend Pete, and the gorgeous blonde with the porcelain skin is his wife Lydia. The little girl is their daughter, Violet, who is wearing an impractical velvet dress and shiny black shoes that look like they cost as much as everything in Cassie’s closet put together. The other attractive couple is Anna and Con. Anna has a visible baby bump poking out of her stylish black-and-white striped top. Both women look like they’ve leapt out of the pages of a fashion magazine.