Matched

"Blaine!" I frown and go to the door, opening it and pointing to his car in the driveway. "You can go now. Marina is on her way over."

"All right, all right," he says and I can tell he's angry that I'm kicking him out. I'm sure he figured he'd be able to just walk right back into my life and into my bed. How convenient for him. How arrogant to believe it could ever happen.

Blaine goes to the door and passes by me, trying his best to brush up against me.

I try to avoid him, holding my towel around my bust, and step back. "Later," he says and gives me the once-over before turning to his car.

Then I remember the key and hold out my hand. "My key?" I say firmly.

He stops and frowns.

"If you insist," he says and starts digging in his pocket. He returns and drops the house key in my outstretched palm.

When he gets back to the car and hops in, I heave a sigh of relief. I was sure he wouldn’t rape me, but he might have made a very physical pass at me, which would be embarrassing and upsetting.

I close the door and lock it once I see that he's driven down the street. Then I go check each window and the sliding doors off the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. I no longer feel safe and can't wait for Marina to get here.

She arrives within fifteen minutes with two buckets of movie theater popcorn she bought at the local theater on the way to my place. She also has

two big plastic glasses filled with soda and a bag of Twizzlers.

It's going to be a girl's night in.

Of course, it's only then that I check my watch and realize that I'm going to be with Marina when Jon is expecting me to call him for some Facetime sex.

"Here you go," she says and hands me the popcorn while she carries the drinks and candy. "I got one tub with butter and one plain because I know you hate the butter."

I air kiss her and take my tub and drink, and we go to the living room where I have my Apple TV hooked up, ready to go.

"So are you doing okay?" she asks once we're on the sofa. "With Blaine being back, I mean. Are you tempted to get back with him?"

"Not on your life," I say, giving her a look of horror. "He dumped me with barely a thought."

"That's not true, India. You know he asked you to come with him."

"He did, but as what? His main squeeze? I'm not going to move across the country on that."

"It was your choice. He asked. He wanted you to go with him."

"There was no choice. Give up on Pacifica just when we were making a big push to expand? Go with him to Manhattan with nothing but some money in the bank and an idea of what to do with it?"

"But he came over here. That suggests he's interested."

"He may be, but I'm not. Definitely not."

"Okay. By the way, Jon agrees with me. I told Jon he was here and Jon seemed to think Blaine might want you back."

"What?" I sit with my mouth open while Marina is flipping through movies on Netflix. "You talked to Jon tonight?"

"We texted. I wanted him to know I was shutting the party down early, in case he was coming tonight." She turns to me and gives me a guilty look. "I didn't know he was out of town."

"You told him Blaine was here?"

"Yeah, I texted him right after Blaine left. He was really shocked to hear he was back in town and that he wanted to see you."

"You told him Blaine was coming over to my place?"

She nods, her hand in her bucket of popcorn. "I don’t think he likes Blaine."