Willow broke the silence. “Well, I should get going before the neighbors call the cops,” she said lightly.
“I’m—”
She interrupted. “Sorry, yeah, I know.” Smiling slightly, she said, “We’ll reschedule, it’s fine. Go get your Pedialyte. I hope your son feels better.”
“Me too, thanks.”
She nodded, and experienced another beat of awkwardness before saying, “Okay, talk to you later, bye,” and ending the call before he even had a chance to respond.
Brave face falling, Willow scowled and pushed herself up off the floor, bending to scoop up her groceries and heading back outside.
Once safely inside her car with the groceries in her passenger seat, she debated what to do. She had already told her moms that she was going to have dinner with Brian, so she couldn’t haul the groceries into her house without an explanation.
Sighing, she pulled her phone out and simply typed, “Hungry?”
The message was read within a couple of seconds and he typed back, “Always.”
Willow nodded, tossing her phone into the passenger seat and throwing her car in reverse.
---
“Not that I’m complaining,” Brian said as he dug his fork into a heap of food and looked up at her, “because I’m really, really not, but I didn’t expect you to keep cooking for me. Won’t Mr. Boyfriend hulk out when he finds out you’re sharing your domestic goodies with another man?”
Smiling slightly as she stabbed a considerably smaller bite with her own fork, Willow said, “Mr. Boyfriend is otherwise occupied, otherwise the goodies would be all his.”
He nodded. “Seems legit. That’s why all the ladies share their goodies—better step it up, Mr. Boyfriend.”
“He’s steppin’ it up, all right,” she muttered. “Just not for me.”
Brian’s eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Boyfriend steppin’ out already?”
“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. He just stopped over to see his kids and I guess the baby is sick, so he ended up staying and helping out and he forgot to let me know.”
Brian nodded, lowering his eyes to his plate. “I see.”
She shot him a look as he took a bite. “It’s no big deal. I just had all these groceries already and I didn’t want them to go to waste. Plus I already told my mom I’d be at your place tonight, so… here I am, at your place.”
Brightening as if remembering something important, Brian extracted his phone, swiping the screen and framing up a picture.
“Really?” she asked.
“Hey, he might as well see the dinner he’s missing out on. Plus your mom will see actual evidence that you were telling the truth tonight. This is a win-win for you.”
“I’m not trying to make him jealous,” she muttered.
“Hey, he’s spending the evening with his ex-wife, what can he really say about it anyway?”
“She’s not even his ex-wife yet,” Willow pointed out. “I have literally no idea what—if anything—is even going on there. Is the divorce in progress? Have they even filed paperwork yet? Where’s his ring? Because I’d bet my life he hasn’t gotten rid of it yet.”
Brian responded in the worst possible way—with silence. No ribbing, no crass jokes, not even a lighthearted expression on his normally expressive face. Just sympathetic-feeling silence.
“You think I’m an idiot,” she stated.
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he returned. “I do think it’s possible you may have rushed into things a bit.”
“It wasn’t just me!”
“I didn’t mean you—I meant you guys. Realistically, why no news about the divorce? Why are you so sure he still has the ring? Why are you being the one thing I’ve never seen on you myself—insecure? You’re not an insecure person, so it’s him or the situation, something is clearly wigging you out.”