Page 41 of Love or Leave

Antonio shook his head. "I can't imagine that. She's a real princess-y type, you know? But I haven't seen her since…"

"Since you cheated on your neighbour with her?" Adam asked.

He squeezed his eyes closed. "Yeah," he said, dropping his chin and shaking his head with regret. When he realized his friends had all gone silent, he looked up at their uncomfortable faces.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to depress everyone."

"You didn't," Ethan said, shaking his head. "It's just that…"

Antonio stared at him for a moment. "What?"

The three of them exchanged glances before Adam took a deep breath and leaned in. "Do you think there's still life left in this seemingly dead horse you're beating?"

Antonio’s instinct was to defend his choices, but in truth, he'd asked himself the same question a million times after the anniversary party.

And again since hanging out with Cara. Maybe he and Fran weren’t as perfect for each other as he always thought.

"I was sure we could work it out," he said. "But if she's moved on, then…" Antonio trailed off and threw a brief glance across the room at Cara before finishing. "Maybe I should, too."

"Well, I guess one good thing that came from it is you moved here," Max said with a smile and a clap on his back.

Ethan and Adam nodded, and Antonio felt better than he had all week.

Other than the night spent with Cara.

Fuck, he wished there was some prescription he could write to wipe his memory of that.

The waiter came and took their orders, and then Ethan filled them in on the plan for the bachelor party next weekend, followed by Adam telling them how stressed Chelsea was trying to make her and Ben's first Christmas in their house perfect.

Antonio suppressed his disappointment that he wouldn't be in his home with a wife and kid this Christmas and tried to enjoy the rest of his beer and meal with his friends.

He needed to decide whether to finally begin the painful process of untangling his life from Fran's.

eleven

Cara breezed into her lab Monday morning at eight a.m., right on time, and pulled up short. The familiar hum of servers and cooling systems filled the silence, but she was the only one there.

It was unusual for her to be the only one in the lab. “On time” meant late to Dr. Tanaka. Unless it was the end of the day.

Then on time meant early.

Cara dropped her lunch bag on the cold metal desk with a hallow thunk and pulled out her phone. When she didn't see a missed text or email, she thought her professor might have been in some horrible accident, so she called her phone.

After a few rings, a deep voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Uh, hi, is Dr. Tanaka there?"

"Yes, but she can't come to the phone. She's—"

A yell in the background cut him off. "Just a moment, please," the man said. A second later, her professor was on the line.

"Cara?" she said in a gross, raspy voice that sounded like she’d been gargling gravel. Oh no.

"Yes…"

"Flu."

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