Page 26 of Stay this Christmas
He’d tried for carelessness, but something in his eyes told me he felt that loneliness just the same as me.
“Well, we can be happily single loners together.” I offered him my fist to bump.
He bumped it, but light danced in his eyes. “The way that guy was watching you just now, I have my doubts about how long you’ll stay a single loner.”
NINE
harper
Nothing like getting stoodup in a public place to make you feel like a single loner.
I avoided the waitress’s eyes as she walked by my table for the fifth time. With each pass, her expression filled with more pity I really didn’t want to see. Soon, she would probably get all weepy for the sad Hallmark card commercial turn my evening had taken.
I sipped at my water glass and nibbled from the bread tray she’d brought out when I arrived half an hour ago. Staring at the empty chair across from me, I accepted the same cold, hard truth my waitress had: Travis wasn’t coming. Honestly, I would have felt nothing but pure relief if it weren’t for the way she kept sad-eyeing me.
I should have just taken Eliza’s advice to text him a simpleIt’s not working outand leave it at that. But no, I’d had to take the high road and invited him down for a mid-week dinner so I could have this conversation face to face. At first, he’d seemed genuinely excited by the invite, and I’d questioned if we really meant as little to each other as I’d suspected. But his enthusiasm had faded about halfway through the conversation, and I think he just hadn’t known how to back out of our plans.
Kind of a snapshot of our short-lived relationship, really.
Picking my bread into tiny pieces, I tried to find an acceptable reason I’d let this nothing relationship carry on for six months. I’d never been giddy over Travis or full of butterflies when I thought about him. I hadn’t talked him up with my family or told all of Fiesta Village about my supposed man—I’d kept him almost entirely to myself. Probably a good thing, since it made tonight’s mutual dumping that much easier, but that weak interest hardly seemed like a recipe for a love match.
The guy didn’t even like snuggling during movies—could we ever have been compatible as a couple?
A loud, emphaticNorang in my mind. Still, dating him had been safe enough. No chance I’d fall head over heels and then he’d take off to climb the Matterhorn or something.
Wow. Didn’t love what that said about me. Had I really picked my dating partners specifically so they wouldn’t be like Sam? The short answer…yes. I had. Even though absolutely none of them had ever done a thing for me, they’d seemed like good choices in the moment. Solid, safe guys who wouldn’t get my heart worked up, and definitely wouldn’t break it when things fell apart.
Maybe I should try Eliza’s old method and just make up boyfriends on the spot.
Resigned to my dinner alone, I looked up to flag my waitress over, but she had already shuffled to my table, her eyes shining with barely contained pity. “Honey, your dinner’s on us tonight.”
I stared at her. “Pardon?”
She gestured at the empty chair with a half-hearted wave as though not quite wanting to draw attention to it. That didn’t stop her from speaking at full volume, though. “I hate to see a nice girl get stood up like this. Your meal’s on the house.”
My hands clenched around the napkin in my lap, my stomach lurching over being called out. I didn’t like the spotlight on me in the best of times, and right now was averybad time. “That’s not necessary.”
“Oh, it’s the least we can do, honey. You’ve had a rough night. We’ll take care of it, whatever you want.”
Her generous offer only made my rough night rougher. Couples at two tables nearest mine watched me with unabashed interest, and I caught others sneaking glances my way. A free dinner sounded great in theory, but in practice, the truly generous thing to do would have been to bring me my ravioli and let me pretend I’d intended to eat alone all along.
“I’d really rather you didn’t.”
“It’s no trouble, these things happen sometimes. Such a shame, too, bless your heart.”
Oh, she did not justBless your heartme. My date might not have showed, but I wasn’t as low as all that. And anyway,Iwas going to dumphim.
“You know what—”
A blur streaked past my vision, clarifying to reveal Sam sidling past the waitress and dropping into the seat across from me, all eager enthusiasm and dazzling smiles. My breath hitched in my throat, because of course it did. Caught off-guard like this, my heart picked up its pace, giving fluttery little reminders it liked being around him.
My heart had bad, bad judgment.
“Sorry I’m late.” He flashed a lightning-fast wink. “I was pulled into a work meeting and didn’t have time to text you to let you know I was running behind.”
I stared at him a beat as I scrambled for something to say.What are you doing here?fought withWhat work meeting?so my dumb brain popped out with, “We’re doing a meeting?”
The surprised little grin that pulled across his mouth qualified as adorable, but didn’t make me feel like any less of a doofus.
