Page 33 of His Virgin Romance Series

JARED

After so many years, seeing Anna again was a shock. She represented a part of my life that I had left behind, and seeing her reminded me of how far I’d come. She was still beautiful, still friendly as ever, still interested in my life and my family, but there were no feelings attached to her anymore.

“Anyway, Anna, it was nice seeing you again, but we’re on our first date and—”

“Uh, Jared?” she interrupted. “Your date has disappeared.”

With a start, I looked to my side and realized that Rachel was no longer standing there. I looked around, trying to catch her among the sea of people.

“Where’d she go?” I asked.

“She didn’t look too happy to meet me,” Anna said gently. “Maybe that had something to do with it.”

I frowned. “That can’t be it.”

“I know jealousy when I see it,” she said. “As I recall, I was the jealous one when we were dating.”

“Fuck,” I cursed.

“Sorry if I fucked things up for you.”

“I gotta go, Anna,” I said, without bothering with a goodbye hug.

My only concern was finding Rachel. I replayed the last ten minutes over in my head again. I didn’t think I had been different, had I? I realized that I’d forgotten to introduce Rachel immediately. Then I realized I had dropped her hand. I had been holding her hand when I saw Anna, and the fact that she had managed to walk away without me even realizing it meant that I had unconsciously let go at some point.

All of that combined with seeing me meet an old girlfriend might have sent Rachel straight towards the exit, but I still couldn’t quite believe she would leave like that. I checked the entire theater for good measure, and I hung around the bathrooms, too, just in case she had needed to use a restroom. But Rachel was nowhere in sight.

Finally, I picked up my phone and tried calling. It was ringing, but she didn’t pick up. I tried again immediately, and this time, the line went dead. She had seen I was calling and had cut me off. I was starting to see that Anna was spot on with her observation. Cursing, I headed out towards Brent’s apartment, hoping that she had gone back there.

On my way over, I called Rachel’s number again and left a message. “Rachel,” I said. “I’m sorry about that… She’s an old girlfriend, but there’s nothing going on between us. There hasn’t been for years. I knew her before becoming a firefighter.”

My explanation sounded flat and flimsy as I was saying it and instead of continuing on with it, I just hung up and headed to the apartment. I realized that Rachel might not even have made it back yet. She had either decided to walk, in which she would probably take another fifteen minutes, or she had taken a cab, which I thought was unlikely. Either way, I headed up to Brent’s apartment and knocked hard, hoping to find Rachel there.

The door opened, but it wasn’t Rachel.

“It’s you,” I said.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Brent said. He was chomping on a bag of chips. “Want one?”

“No thanks,” I said, breezing past him. “Where’s Rachel?”

“No idea,” he replied with his mouth full. “Why?”

“We were at the movies and she just…disappeared on me,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole thing with Brent.

“You went to the movies together?” he asked, frowning at me.

“Uh…yeah.”

He tilted his head to the side. “On a date?”

“Um… yeah.”

“I thought you told me that there was nothing going on between you two?” he asked. “You said it was strictly plutonic and all that shit.”

“First of all, it’s platonic,” I corrected him. “Not plutonic. And secondly, it was for about ten minutes, and then it changed.”

“Hold the fuck up,” Brent said, setting down his bag of chips. “Are you telling me that you’re dating my sister?”

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