Page 3 of Suddenly Dating
“My place is a studio. And it’s rented.”
She did not say that the rent was all hers, too. Hell, she probably had a lot more in the bank than he did. She was a senior account manager at a top New York PR firm.
“Even if we moved there, it wouldn’t resolve the bigger issue of us wanting different things,” she said.
“Don’t you love me?” he asked.
“Oh, Harry,” she said, her eyes tearing up again. “Of course I do. But I have to be true to myself, and this isn’t working for me. I’m sorry, I really am.” A single tear slid down her cheek, and she bowed her head.
“Ah, Lissa,” he said soothingly. He hated to see her cry and reached for her elbow. This time, she didn’t slap his hand away, so he tugged her forward.
“Melissa.”He kissed her neck. “We’ll work it out, baby.”
“You always say that,” she muttered.
“And we always do.” He kissed her cheek, then lifted her chin and kissed her lips while he nudged her enormous suitcase away with his boot. “I promise you, I’ll make it up to you,” he said, and put his hands on her hips and began to move her backward, toward the bedroom.
“I’m not backing down,” she said, but her arms went around his neck.
“I know you’re not,” he agreed as he filled his hand with her breast.
“And you’re not forgiven for last night,” she said as he managed to get her through the bedroom door.
“I’m on my knees, begging for forgiveness right now,” he said, and with his foot, shut the bedroom door behind them.
Two
May
There were five people in the divorce recovery group, three of whom had survived recent, painful divorces from their “soul mates,” one in the midst of a nasty and protracted divorce, and one... Well, one was Lola Dunne, whose divorce was neither terribly recent nor enduringly painful.
Lola’s group mates included John, a balding, overweight, bespectacled man in his fifties who had discovered his wife was having an affair when he walked in and found her with her legs in the air, her panties on the floor, and a much younger man banging away; Betty, a well-dressed, slender woman whose children had grown up and left the nest, at which point she realized she was through raising children, including her husband; and Paul, a big guy who was partial to canvas coats. Paul never said much, but when he did, it was about the bitch who’d taken his money and the best years of his life.
Last but not least was Sara, whose marriage had been suffering death throes for over a year. Sara and Zach Miller had a lot of money, and neither of them was willing to part with it. Their divorce was so acrimonious that every red cent was being counted, every tit had to match a tat, and not a single memory of the last fifteen years would be allowed to go untarnished.
In comparison, Lola’s experience was so mundane, she felt guilty for even mentioning it at group. She wished she had something a little juicier to offer, but alas, her divorce was simple—she and Will had grown apart. No children, no pets—they just walked away from it. Like the six years they’d been married had meant nothing. Which wasn’t true, at least not for Lola. But Will? Maybe.
Okay, well, that had all happened more than a year ago, and Lola was embarrassed she’d ever let Sara talk her into coming. She’d met Sara in a yoga class and had been attracted to her sleek, blonde bob, her coordinated Lululemon outfits, and her take-charge-and-kick-some-ass attitude. In contrast, Lola’s yoga clothes were Old Navy all-purpose capris with whatever T-shirt she could find. And her attitude was that everything was fine, just fine.
They’d started with an occasional coffee, had bonded over being divorced... well, more accurately, they’d bonded over Sara’s ongoing divorce. At first, Sara had been sympathetic and outraged for Lola when she’d filled her in on the basics of her split from Will. But Sara’s divorce was just beginning. Each week, her split was growing into the Worst Divorce Ever, and Sara refused to let anything or anyone top her drama.
Lola knew this, and she should have known better than to allow Sara to persuade her to tag along with this group, because she didn’t have an ax to grind like Sara did. But Sara had begged her, had complained she hated going alone, and Lola... Lola was that friend who never said no. To anyone.Ever. Even when it was so clearly evident that she should. Present a need, and it was genetically impossible that Lola did not attempt to fix it. It was kind of a problem.
She should have made her exit long before today, but the group was so dang small, and now everyone depended on her to bring the snacks each week. Oh, yes—somehow, Lola had become the donut-wielding smiling face who made sure all of her fellow divorcée snack needs were met.
“You’re such a pussy,” her younger sister Casey had said when she dropped by Lola’s Clinton Hill apartment in Brooklyn and found her sister making a cake. “Just tell them all they’re a bunch of whiners and you’re never coming back.”
“I really should,” Lola agreed.
“But you won’t,” Casey said, quite matter-of-factly. “Because this is what you do, Lola. You take care of everyone else and neglect yourself. Give me a spoon so I don’t have to lick the batter bowl.”
“I don’t neglect myself. And I was planning on licking the bowl.”
Casey shrugged and wiped the bowl clean with her finger.
Yep, Lola was definitely a pussy.
She was mulling over all of that in the middle of the group session the next morning. She wasn’t thinking about how divorce made her feel, or how Betty was droning on and on about life choices. She was mentally absent from the discussion until Tamira, the counselor, snapped her out of it by asking, “Can we hear from you today, Lola?”
