Page 58 of Tomorrow Belongs to Us
I stare at the bright orange umbrella in my glass of Pina Colada and trace my finger around the rim. Lance might have only been a teacher on whom I'd developed a crush a long time ago, but the old emotions have soaked into my soul.
Getting over my schoolgirl crush on him at eighteen was hard enough, but to experience the humiliation this time around is even more crushing. Some men aren’t to be trusted. Some men aren’t the heroes they pretend to be. I blame my father because he let us all down. It's no wonder that every man I've met ever since has been nothing but a disappointment to me.
I watch Arla finish her cocktail in record time.
“Did you know cocktails are loaded with calories?”
“I’m not counting calories tonight,” she replies. “Tonight, we’re going to take your mind off Lance Turner.”
“As if a cocktail’s going to help,” I mumble.
“One cocktail won’t, but three or four might.”
“I have a day of meetings tomorrow,” I insist with a frown. “I can’t go to work with a hangover.” Getting drunk on a Sunday night isn't wise; getting drunk generally isn't wise. It gives me a headache the next day.
“Don’t waste any time thinking about him, Megan. It’s not as if you’re exactly short of admirers. This is just bad timing.”
“Bad timing?”
“After Mack, and now you're keeping Preston-at-work at bay.”
My face twists. Mack was a guy I really liked. It was a hookup which lasted almost a month. It almost had the potential to become a friends with benefits type of relationship, but he wanted commitment, so I messed it up and argued and made it so that he wouldn’t want to be with me. And, he didn’t.
Preston isn’t even in the running. He has the depth of a pancake. “I’ll be keeping Preston-at-work at bay for the foreseeable future.”
“We have company.” Arla’s eyes dart to the side, to the guys on the table nearby. She raises a hand to her hair, brushing her hair back from her face and tucking it behind the ears on one side. She turns and gives them an inviting smile.
“Can you not make that face?” I snap.
“What face?” asks Arla, making the face that I now know to be a part of her routine; a pout which looks like a fish struggling for air.
I point at her. “That face.”
“It’s exactly the kind of attention you need,” Arla insists.
“I’d rather go home.” I glance at the table quickly. Both guys give cheesy grins back.
“We’re not going home.” She sounds adamant. “You need to take your mind off Cheating Turner and this is how we’re going to do it.”
My phone vibrates on the table.
It's Lance.
A shiver charges through me. My fingers hover over my phone until Arla reaches over and hits the button to end the call. “You’re not falling for his lies all over again.”
Chapter 22
LANCE
I checked that Vivian had returned home before I dropped Cassie back.
Leaving Sweetpea was hard. I love having her, and I promised to have her for longer during the next school holidays. Maybe I’ll take her to visit Sarah and Brett. I want Cassie to know her cousin and, had Anna been alive, the girls would have been so close because Anna and I were close. Brett’s wife and their children are wonderful, so I’m thinking about visiting them with Cassie around springtime.
I park outside LuLu’s after dropping Cassie home only when Vivian had returned.
I know this place. It's mostly popular with students. Darkness bleeds into the evening sky, and I peer through the windows, trying to seek her out. At first I see only the shimmering hanging lampshades and a kaleidoscope of people filling the place to bursting point.
Megan won’t like it when I turn up like this, crashing her date, but I'm not going to leave until I've had my say.
