Page 19 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

Pen’s mouth dropped open before she composed herself to ask, “He called you his girlfriend?”

At the same time, Sierra said, “Let’s go back to this kissing.”

“Yes. We talked about it. About halfway through our trip, he told me he cared for me. Then nearer the end, he said he was falling for me. And I swear I’ve never been kissed like that in my life.”

“Okay… then why are you here?” Pen asked a very good question that I hated to answer.

“We were on a safari in the Serengeti?—”

“Wait,” Sierra said, cutting in. “You, Gloria Kowalski, went on a safari?”

“I did. And we stayed the night with this semi-nomadic tribe of people after saving one of their young hunters. Then the next day, we were back in the Land Cruiser and he gets cell service.”

“In the Serengeti?” Pen asked.

“Yes. His phone rings. He’s visibly upset and says he has to leave. That it’s a family emergency. Well, of course, I ask him what I can do. He tells me nothing. Then he says he’s going back to Vermont by himself. I asked why. His relationship with his family is complicated. They don’t know about me. He said he needed to make sure that when they do meet me, they’re on their best behavior.”

I couldn’t help it. Thinking back on that conversation started my eyes tearing up again.

“The son of a bitch is married,” Sierra said.

“I really don’t think he’s married.”

“Maybe his situation is like Ant’s. He has someone he’s supposed to marry and never intended to hurt you because he’s not in love with that person. He probably never expected to meetyou, Gloria. Whatever that call was about, he had to go back to his real life.”

“That makes me want to kill him even more,” Sierra said. “If he knew he was supposed to get married, then what in the hell was he doing playing with her heart like that?”

While my friends argued about what the hell made Blake flake on me in Tanzania, I sat back on the sofa tuning them out. It really didn’t matter the why of it. He’d never intended for me to meet his family. As the vacation fling that he’d never gotten sex from, it shouldn’t have surprised me that he didn’t want me along for the ride. What ride? He’d never received one.

Once again, I’d been stupid Gloria.

Stupid, stupid, Gloria.

Chapter Five

July first. I flipped the calendar page and stared at the blank month ahead of me. Two things occurred to me at once. The first being, it had been four years this month since my dad died. The second was that it’d been three months since I’d heard from Blake.

More than that happened. My motherofficiallymoved in with Carl. She’d left this place to me to do with what I wanted. Pen, Sierra, and I made time to see each other once a week. And I got a crappy call center job to bring in some income while I continued to search for my dream job, whatever that might be. I’d know it when I saw it. What it wouldn’t be was HR at the Social Security Administration.

The best part of this job was that I worked from home. At this point in my life,notpeopling more than I had to on the phone seemed like the best scenario. But it being Saturday, I didn’t have to worry about people at all. Pen and Ant had a date night planned and Sierra, a friend from work set her up on a blind date.

I flopped down on the sofa and picked up the remote to turn on the TV, just clicking on Netflix to re-watch seasons ofGreat British Baking Showwhen my phone rang, which, let’s face it, atthis point surprised me. It could’ve only been my mom, maybe, or Sierra needing a rescue from a bad date because all calls from unknown numbers got the block.

Right. I picked up my phone to look at the screen and my heart just about leapt out of my chest when I saw Blake’s name at the top. Blake was calling now? Why?

Answer the damn phone and you can find out why, Gloria. Yeah. I chided myself as I hit theanswerbutton and put the phone to my ear.

“Glory,” he said into the line, but he didn’t get toGloryme. Not anymore.

“It’s Gloria. What can I do for you, Blake?”

“Are you angry with me?”

Did he just have the nerve to ask that? “Why would you think that? How could I be angry at the man who abandoned me in Africa and hasn’t contacted me in three months? I’m not angry. I moved past angry a while ago. Now I’m just indifferent. So again, what do you need?”

“Shit, Glory. I’m sorry. You have to know I was thinking about you every?—”

“Going to have to stop you right there. Not evena text, Blake. You thought about me but couldn’t take the time to drop me a freaking text? Tell me what prompted this call or I’ll have to assume it’s nothing, in which case you’re wasting my time.”

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