Heartburn (Love By Design 3)

Whit

The restaurant I chose is close to Lia’s place. She’s telling me about entering a photography exhibition at the urging of her professor along with a trip to Haiti, but admittedly, I’m only half listening because I still can’t get the idea of her and Dinah half-baked out of my mind. I was there once. I was no saint in my teenage years after losing my parents and growing up with my grandfather, but still.

What if those idiots had come over to join them? I don’t think Lia would have done anything, but it was a stupid situation and I didn’t know if I could handle the aftermath of it. Plenty of people have let me down and maybe Lia isn’t in a place that fits into my carefully constructed life.

“Whit? You okay there?” Lia’s smile turned upside down and I don’t know how to answer her.

Am I okay?

Physically, I’m better than okay, but I don’t think that’s what she wants to know. My head was somewhere else, perhaps five or ten years into the future completely unsure of the status of this relationship.

I brushed her off.

“I’m good, baby.” Baby. There’s that word I don’t typically use, but she was one. She’s much younger, and no, I’m not handling this well at all. I felt suffocated and out of breath and I hide it by chugging my wine which doesn’t help when her frown turns into narrowed eyes and she slowly pushed her plate back on the table.

“I’m not a mind reader, but I have a feeling there’s something going on with you.” She reaches for me and I pulled away instinctively without even realizing it until I’ve already done it. She’s hurt and it’s obvious I’m the cause of it.

“I’m still angry about the incident.” I muttered.

“The incident?” She hissed putting her napkin on the table bracing her shoulders.

“What would happened if I hadn’t shown up. What if it had been those drunken idiot ballers.”

“Gee, I don’t know, Whit. I suppose I would have gone into my room and locked the door if I felt unsafe, but that isn’t what happened.”

“It was so stupid and reckless.” I grind out. My jaw ached with the force I’m restraining myself with.

“So you’ve said.”

“And yet that doesn’t mean anything to you?”

Lia glanced around the restaurant. Tables were quietly conversing and a woman near us looked over uncomfortably.

She leaned into the table, eyes slit and her body humming with anger. “You’re not my father.”

“Thank god for that.” I huffed tossing my napkin on the table ready to leave.

“We talked about this. I thought we resolved it and now you’re just holding it over my head like I’m bound to make another grievous mistake.”

I don’t utter a word and Lia stands up putting her purse over her shoulder.

“Nothing to say?”

I shrugged because what could I say? We’d beaten this thing to death and gotten nowhere. She wasn’t truly sorry and I wasn’t terribly forgiving. It hung over us like a stench.

“I’m going to walk home. It’s three blocks. I’ll text you when I get there to let you know I’m safely tucked in for the night, but I don’t want you to follow me.”

Suddenly my verbal vomit is thrown back in my face. She was leaving. Leaving me.

“Amelia.”

She put her hand up to stop me.

“No. Don’t. You’ve made it clear you think I’m an idiot by association with all the other idiots out there in the world and I just can’t do this with you right now.”

“Sit down.” I stood up and glanced around. Sure enough a few more table have caught on to our less than subtle argument. I’m the asshole here.

“That’s the beauty of not being my parent, Whit, I don’t have to do a damn thing you say. However, respecting you as a partner, I’ll take it under advisement, and right now I need some space.” She turned on her heels giving me a glance of her pert ass stalking out of the restaurant with delicate clicks leaving me alone at the table. Anger flushed my face and I sat back down digging into my forty dollar entry alone.