Date Me Like You Mean It

I shake my head. “I’ll have Stephanie coordinate it. Remember, there’s that fleet of SUVs out front.”

He looks relieved.

“Okay, good. I won’t be in New York for long. I booked a return flight for the day after tomorrow.”

What does it matter?

“You’re not mad I’m leaving, are you?” he asks, his dark brows scrunched together in concern.

I train my face into a neutral mask that shrieks, I couldn’t care less!

“Pfft. No! Of course not. I mean”—I point toward the door—“yeah, it’ll suck without you here, and…”

This is it.

THE moment.

“And…I really hope you don’t take the job.”

Those are the words that hang on the tip of my tongue.

Then fists pound on the door and a drunk Stephanie lets herself in.

“Where have you two been!? No sneaking off to have sex in the middle of the day.” She wags her finger back and forth as if chastising us. “This is a party!” She hurries over to me so she can grab my arm and start to drag me back out the door, then she pauses when she sees Aiden’s suitcase. “Why do you have that?”

He frowns and glances down. “Sorry, Stephanie. I have to head back to Austin.”

“He has a job interview,” I volunteer, preprogrammed to come to his defense. “It’s a last-minute thing he can’t pass up.”

Not even for me.

Stephanie karate chops the air like the words I’m saying are boring her. “Boo! No talk about work. Go if you have to!” She whips around to look at me, her eyes wide in panic. “YOU! You aren’t leaving, right? Just because he is?”

“No, but I’ll need a ride back to Austin in a few days.”

I grimace because I hate being a nuisance.

“Of course! You let me worry about that. Bye Aiden! Have fun doing that thing that shall not be named!”

Then we’re moving, her with a tight grip on me, tugging me along, not giving me the option to stay.

I glance back to look at Aiden standing with his suitcase by his side in the middle of the room. Last night we were kissing by the pool, and now he’s leaving.

He looks sad, watching me go, but he doesn’t ask me to stay, and that’s what gnaws at me the most. Sure, I didn’t say anything to him about my feelings, but he didn’t confess anything either.

And that, sadly, is all the answer I truly need.

If Aiden loved me the way I love him…if he had any real feelings for me, he wouldn’t be leaving right now.

I watch from the pool deck as he rolls his suitcase to his Jeep and loads it into the trunk. I stand paralyzed as he circles around to the driver’s side door and tugs it open. I hate that there’s any hope left inside me, some tiny morsel that refuses to give in to reason and common sense. He slides into the Jeep and closes the door behind him. I hold my breath. This could be it, the moment he shakes his head and comes to his senses. Now.

Then his tires spin and he kicks up dust as he starts down the road. It’s too easy for him to drive away; it’s like he doesn’t even realize he’s pushing my heart through the blades of a shredder.

Watching him leave, I discover then how fragile love can be. There’s really no way to protect it, no way to preserve it in bubble wrap and keep it safe. One long drive down a dirt road is all it takes to crush the fantasy I’ve held close to my heart for all these years.

Aiden and I are not meant to be.

This is not how things were supposed to go for us. I had a loose outline in my head for what our future should have been. We’ve been best friends, slowly working toward the most epic romance ever, right? It was supposed to be a fireworks-in-the-sky sort of fairytale. Jobs shouldn’t factor into that. Real adult life? Um, no thank you! Throw caution to the wind! Quit your job! Go broke!

But Aiden doesn’t turn around, and my slow-rolling sadness is a cloud casting a shadow on anyone near me. I can’t even muster a half-assed smile for the group. I can, however, consume alcohol. Dante supplies me with drinks and listens as I moan on and on about missing Aiden.

“Isn’t he just going to be gone for a day or two?” he asks, trying to curb my mood.

“Yeah and then FOREVER, Dante. Forever.”

He’s thoroughly confused by my hyperbolic breakdown.

“Maybe it just feels like forever?” he suggests while frantically looking around as if hoping to find some backup on this one.

I lean back on the lounger by the pool and toss my arm over my eyes to keep the bright desert sun from blinding me. The weather here is clashing with my mood. I need burning candles and overcast skies. I need blistery snowstorms and darkness. I should be in a hovel somewhere.