Page 11 of Dying to Meet You
My finger hovers above the button, but then Tim turns onto Danforth.
I hold my breath, watching as he stops in a spot I know well—in front of the Wincott Mansion. There’s no mistaking it.
I zoom in on the map, and it seems he’s inourspot—where we used to sit together by the waterfront. My breath comes out in a whoosh.
“Timothy Kovak, you are anasshole.”
What kind of guy hangs out in the empty parking lot of his ex-girlfriend’s workplace? It’s also the place where we shared our first serious conversation, our first kiss.
I drop my phone and climb out of bed, stunned. The dog follows me, expecting something. A snack. A game. A visitor. She wags her fluffy tail and waits.
But I don’t know what to do with my outrage. So I walk downstairs, open the refrigerator, and stare inside.
Nothing stares back except for a tub of hummus and the rest of the pasta salad. The bottle of wine I’d been nursing this week is long gone.
I slam the door and pace into Natalie’s former playroom. When I’d decided to leave my old architecture firm, I’d boxed up the dolls and the Legos, and I’d started tearing off the old wallpaper. I’d intended to turn this room into a home office for myself. But then I took the job with Hank and put the project on hold.
Now there’s a dusty futon sofa in here, some sandpaper, and not much else. It’s a little depressing.
Needing a project, I pick up the scraper and attack a stubborn blister of old paint on the windowsill. This holds my attention for all of about ten minutes, until I put down the scraper and pull out my phone again.
Tim is still sitting there in front of the mansion. “Can you believe this bullshit?” I demand of my empty house.
Lickie whines.
I return to my bedroom but nothing has changed. Tim’s avatar is still parked by the mansion. My mind whirs through various scenarios. There’s another woman in Tim’s car. A new one. A younger one who also passed the litmus test at Honey Paw. Now they’re on to stage two already, and—outrageously—it’s happening three blocks from my house.
Three blocks...
My gaze snaps to the dog, who’s staring up at me with doleful eyes. The words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it. “Lickie, want to go for a walk?”
5
I change my clothes and leash up the dog. She trots happily beside me as we set off down the sidewalk. At least I’ve made someone happy tonight. Lickie’s tail is in constant motion as we make slow progress down the block. She stops to sniff the ground so often that it will take us fifteen minutes just to walk down Clark Street toward the water.
The salty ocean breeze tangles my hair, but it doesn’t cool my churning thoughts.
On some level I appreciate that Tim showed me his stripes early on. Two or three months of dating is nothing, really. Just a blip. The whole thing would feel so much worse if he’d strung me along.
In hindsight, I should have realized we wouldn’t go the distance.
Shame on me for thinking we could. I should have known he had one foot out the door. There were signs. Like the time I met his mother—but only by accident.
We’d been standing by the Whole Foods cheese counter, shopping for a spontaneous picnic. An attractive woman in her sixties had leaned between us, laying a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “If I’d known you were here I would have sent you a shopping list.”
I knew that Tim was staying with his parents. He’d come home to Maine to help his father after a surgery. And now he was staying on a few more months, deciding whether or not to make the relocation permanent.
Still, it took me a second to realize who this woman was. Tim must take after his father, because his mom was shorter, rounder, and frankly warmer than her son.
Tim had been startled to see her. He’d stumbled through an introduction. “Mom, this is my friend Rowan.”
My friend. Okay, ouch.
His mother clearly wasn’t fooled, though. “How lovely to meet you!” she’d said in a voice that sounded like she meant it. “I didn’t know Tim was dating anyone new.”
Ouch again. Here I was, congratulating myself for trusting my heart to a man for the first time in years. And Tim—who saw his parents every day—hadn’t even mentioned me to his mother.
I liked her immediately, though. She had a quick smile and a warm laugh. Her shopping basket contained the same strawberries I’d chosen, as well as a bar of dark chocolate with salted almonds, and I’d filed that away as a little piece of intel I might need later.
