what happened? I asked her and she won’t say.
Your friend Dieter
John stared at the screen, unaware for the moment
of the librarian reading to a bunch of preschoolers while
their mothers browsed shelves, or of the fact that his
allotted half hour on the computer was nearly up.
Yeah, Fallon. What did happen?
Multiple choice answer. A, she found him unworthy
because he wouldn’t tell her in grisly detail about his
service in Iraq and how he came to be injured. Or, B,
she thought part of love was reaching out to each other,
but he’d kept his hands at his sides.
A or B. How to reach out. Now, on a rush of fear and
sickening hurt, he was hearing the words: Too late.
They pinged around in his head like the shiny metal
ball in an old-fashioned pinball machine.
Too late. Ding! Too late. Ding!
He couldn’t reply. He closed his Yahoo account,
pushed back the chair and walked out of the library, forgetting the pile of books he’d intended to check out but had left beside the computer.
Too late.
Or was it? Key in the lock of his 4Runner, he stopped.
Maybe that’s why the kids had e-mailed him. To say, We
think she liked you better, but…you gotta do something.
He gazed at the hand that held the key and realized
it was shaking.
Do something. But… what?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE EVENING OUT was okay. Just that, no more. If it hadn’t
been a date, if she and Chad had been having dinner
together as friends, she’d have enjoyed herself more. But
as it was, she kept waiting for even a flicker of attraction
to manifest itself, and worrying about whether she’d hurt
Chad if she told him she didn’t want to go out with him
again. She knew she was sabotaging herself; if not for
John, she’d have been pleasantly surprised when Chad
asked her out. She’d have been thinking how much they
had in common, what nice eyes he had. She’d have been
gearing herself up to feel attraction.
But compared to how she had felt from the first
moment she’d seen John Fallon… Well, she wasn’t sure
she should have agreed to this evening at all.
When she’d unlocked her apartment door and Chad
bent his head, Fiona let his mouth touch hers lightly,
then stepped back.
“Thank you for a nice evening.”
“Can we do it again?”
She’d had every intention of using him to get over
John, but Fiona found that she couldn’t bring herself
to continue.
“Only if it’s as friends.” She put out a hand. “I’m
sorry, Chad. There was someone, and…I guess I’m not
as ready to start over as I hoped I was.”
He nodded, looking regretful enough to flatter her,
but also resigned. “I’ve been getting those signals all evening. It’s okay, Fiona. I wanted to give it a shot, but…hey, we were already friends. Let’s keep it that way.”
“Really? I’d miss having you show up at lunchtime.”
“I’ll be there Monday.” He smiled. “Don’t worry.
Lock up. See you at school.”
She shot the dead bolt once the door was closed, then
realized that, after he’d been so nice, she felt even worse
about encouraging him. Except…heck, it wasn’t like
they’d had an awful evening. And at least she’d been
honest at the end.
Of course, this didn’t bode well for the “moving on”
plan. A nice, good-looking guy asked her out, and she
couldn’t work up a shred of interest.
Knowing it was hopeless but unable to prevent herself, Fiona went to her computer and booted it. She wanted so passionately for there to be an e-mail from
John, even a Hey, I think about you sometimes.
No such luck, of course. Her dad had e-mailed to let
her know he and Shelly, his current wife, were back
from Hawaii. He grumbled about how rainy it had been
and said they thought next year they’d take a cruise
instead.
She sent a brief reply and suggested they have dinner
some night at a favorite Portland restaurant, then thought,
I could e-mail John again. Just to say how are you.
But then she pictured his face as she’d last seen it,
stiff with anger and wounded pride, and knew he’d
ignore this e-mail, just as he had her last one. The door