Bend (45 page)

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.”

W
hen the honking starts, I’m already halfway out my apartment door, since my uncle texted me only five minutes ago to tell me where he was at. And before that he messaged me when his plane from Houston landed this morning, and then again when he got the keys to his rental car, and once more half an hour ago when he was “stuck in goddamn traffic on the 405.” I guess he’s lived away from Southern California too long if that came as a surprise to him.

It’s a hot and humid July morning, and when I step out through the wooden side gate, I’m blinded by the glaring sunlight. While putting on my shades, my progress down the driveway falters as I notice the car sitting by the curb: a fiery-red Corvette convertible with the top down.

Huh. Is that not Uncle Warren after all?

But then I spot his black-haired head on the driver’s side, and he raises his hand in greeting before jumping out of the car and walking around it with a grin on his face.

We say hello and hug—a quick but solid squeeze—and my uncle claps me on the back before taking a step back, his lingering smile bringing out the faint crow’s feet on his darkly tanned face and showing off his almost perfect row of teeth.

You think your grandparents could afford braces? Get the fuck outta here,
he told me once when I pointed out that his slightly protruding front tooth wouldn’t have been a big fix. Warren Miller is not known for mincing words.

“Nice ride,” I comment, opening the passenger-side door while my uncle strides back around the hood.

“Yeah, you know me,” he says as he slides into the driver’s seat. “Go big, or go home.”

Uh, no, actually, I’m pretty sure the last time he visited he drove a compact car. Guess he wasn’t in the mood for a boring vehicle today?

And I get why. It’s going to be a bad day. There’s no way around that. So I can’t fault him for splurging like this, because the small things you can do to make your day a little less shitty? They’re all important.

The smooth and slippery leather seat creaks as I sink down into it, and I try to relish the sensation of sitting in a badass car. But I find that today is no different than every day lately, where I can’t seem to find joy in anything.

“Well, I’m sure it beats the hell out of what you usually drive,” I say to my uncle while buckling myself in, remembering the beat-up SUV that we bounced and jostled around in on bumpy dirt roads the summer I spent with him in Africa.

“Beats the hell out of just about everything.” With a smirk, he picks up his sunglasses from the cup holder between us and pops them on. In his light khaki short-sleeve and slightly darker khaki pants, he looks like he’s going on safari rather than cruising on California freeways in his ’Vette.

But this is how he always looks, so anything else would be weird. My mom used to ask if it was really necessary for her brother-in-law to dress like Indiana Jones all the time. She didn’t appreciate it when I pointed out that he probably doesn’t need to or want to own a large and varied wardrobe, not with his job and how often he has to pack up his stuff and move around.

“Ready for lunch?” my uncle asks, shifting the car into gear.

“Yup.” It’s almost one o’clock, and I’ve done nothing so far today except hit the gym this morning and then wait for him to show up. Unless you count spending a couple of hours browsing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s website for info on death row inmates and execution procedures.

I didn’t take a vacation day or swap shifts or anything.

No, it’s just a happy coincidence that I was scheduled off work on the day my father’s going to die.

“Where do you want to go?” I say.

“You have to ask?” he replies, scrunching up his face, pretending to be offended.

Right. I manage to force a small smile as I give him directions to the closest In-N-Out, and he peels the car away from the curb.

My uncle has a true California native’s love of the state’s favorite burger chain, and if he hadn’t already agreed to go to lunch with me, he probably would’ve headed straight there from the airport and picked me up afterwards.

We mostly talk about work on the way, his and mine. As always, I smell the fast-food restaurant before I see it, a mix of grilled beef and onions and deep-fried potatoes and something else, a savory aroma that can only be described as the smell of In-N-Out.

The parking lot is packed, the drive-thru line coiling around the building and almost all the way to the street. Uncle Warren pulls around back and turns into a spot farther away from the entrance than he needs to, probably because he’s driving a rented Corvette.

Inside, the restaurant is crowded, but the line isn’t nearly as long as the drive-thru made it seem, and it doesn’t take long before it’s our turn to order. When I pull out my wallet to pay, my uncle shakes his head and quickly hands the cashier some bills that look flat and crisp and fresh from the ATM.

“I’ll let you pay for dinner later,” he says as the cashier hands him back his receipt and change along with our fountain drink cups. “You’re probably making more than me now, anyway, Mr. Big-Shot Doctor.”

“Don’t get to keep much of it,” I grumble back at him, accepting my cup as he offers it to me.

“Life’s a bitch,” he says dryly as we go to fill up our drinks, mine with water and Uncle Warren’s with pink lemonade from the juice dispenser.

His statement about making less money than me is probably not true. And even if his salary is about the same as mine, he has close to zero expenses, since the organization basically provides everything he needs, like paying for his housing and giving him a per diem and a vehicle and medical coverage.