Page 62 of My Fearless Fake Fling

I stopped pacing. “Then I guess until Friday.”

His voice dropped low. “It’ll be hard, but I won’t bother you. If you need me, you call. I hope I see you Friday. I’m leaving the condo by nine. You aren’t there before then, I’ll assume you aren’t coming and I’ll leave the key under the door. You can stay as long as you like. But I want you with me…” He paused and pulled in a breath. “Love you.”

The phone went dead. He hung up on me.

Well, didn’t he just give me a lot to think about? I lay down in bed. I mean, I needed to try for at least a couple hours of sleep. My head hurt. My heart hurt. Breakups sucked and we hadn’t evenactuallybroken upyet. I think we’d call this ‘a break’ and it fell on me to decide to make the break permeant or not.

The next morning I woke up—so yes, I’d eventually fallen asleep—showered, and checked out. After grabbing a couple chocolate Danish and a large mocha for breakfast at a local place, I stopped in to a superstore to grab some clothes and sundries, along with some snacks. If I had this week to make my decision about Len, I’d do it visiting places I wanted to go.

My first stop was the beach in Tawas. Sitting in the sun felt wonderful. But sitting in the sun alone, not so much. He’d have gone swimming with me.Quit thinking about Len, Kam.

Since that didn’t go as planned, I climbed in my car and hit up Dairy Queen for a frozen treat before I took off farther up north. Instead of traveling I75, I traveled the back roads, taking M-23 north. Up to Alpena and then Cheboygan. Finally arriving back in Mackinaw City.

I avoided the pancake house Len and I had eaten at. Right there, next to the dock, in an on-the-spot decision, I bought a ticket for the ferry to take me over to the island. Once boarded, we didn’t take the direct route but detoured to go under the bridge. An amazing sight. Breathtaking, really.

Finally, we docked on the island. Finally, a place without a Len memory attached. Unfortunately, I chose a pizza place, which had incredible pizza, but it wasn’t the same as eating it with Len.

Then I took a carriage ride to the butterfly house, where stupidly, I took pictures that I knew he’d just love. I ended up at the fort. That, too, was amazing. But would have been more fun with someone to share the experience with.

One of the hotels actually had a vacancy sign, so my guess, someone had canceled. I went in and snapped that room up. It only cost me three hundred dollars. Yes, that was a hard pill to swallow. But I’d never stayed on the island before.

That night, I went to the haunted house, and then on a walking island ghost tour.

The basements of a few of the taverns were spookier than the cemeteries, and these were Revolutionary-War-era cemeteries. Inside the last tavern we went to, we all got a shock. Of thesupernaturalkind. I wanted so much to call Len and freak the heck out. Instead, I called Dion. He didn’t answer. Which, after realizing the time, I understood why he wouldn’t. As long as I lived, there’d be no forgetting seeing that case of whiskey move by itself.

At the end of the tour, I walked back to the hotel. The bars still held crowds, but I’d gotten so little sleep last night and made myself so busy today that I decided to stay in and crash. The hotel had yellow siding and white trim. The siding appeared to be tinted green under the blue moonlight and there were bouquets of purple lilacs everywhere.

My room was a floral explosion. Mostly cabbage roses in various colors of pink, red, and orange. Very pretty—so not my decorating style. The bed, though, being on the bed felt like I floated on a cloud.

As I only had the room for one night, and I still had two days ’til Friday, I checked out and took the ferry back to Mackinaw City. Still avoiding the pancake house, I ate at adifferentpancake house, which wasn’t quite as good, and got back on the highway.

I traveled down M-31 and made stops in Petoskey and did some window shopping in Charlevoix. Two quaint little towns on Lake Michigan. From Charlevoix, I drove to Traverse City, where I booked a room at a beach resort that I found on my phone from one of those travel booking sites.

At check-in, the hotel had several brochures stacked close to the desk. One of them caught my eye. Wine and chocolate. Traverse City had several vineyards located close by. I thought wine tasting would be fun. But pairing wine and chocolate?Sign me up.

I followed my GPS deeper into Michigan wine country, snapping pictures and taking videos along the way. The tour of the vineyard left me breathless from its beauty. The real fun started when they broke out the wine.

One wouldn’t think it possible to get drunk off of tiny plastic Dixie-cup-sized wine samples. Ah, one would most certainly be wrong. I tried every sample they offered. And I couldn’t decide if this one Ice Riesling or this Cherry red were my favorite, so I sampled and resampled those several times.

A couple of guys moved closer to me, or it could’ve been one blurry guy. At this point, I didn’t know. He looked like he wanted to talk to me.Come on.Men were trouble and if I were going to get into trouble with a guy, I’d pick Len.

Len.

I miss him.

I should call him.

To avoid the confrontation, I pulled my phone from my purse and stood to move to a more private location. I wobbled and almost faceplanted on a different table. Maybe I should have eaten again before drinking all those wines.

Just like the other night, Len answered on the first ring. “Kam, you good?”

“No—” I slurred. “I’m a wee bit drunk”—I used my finger and thumb that he couldn’t see through the phone to measure out a ‘wee bit’—“and I want sex.” Then I burped one of those tiny, almost-a-hiccup burps.

He laughed into the receiver. “You want sex… from me?”

“Duh, that’s why I’m calling. There’re a few guys here who I think might want sex with me, or it might be just one guy. I can’t tell. But they’re not you.”

“Baby, where are you?”

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