Page 13 of Love or Leave (Mapleton #4)

ten

" I don't like him."

Antonio internally screamed in agreement but remained completely silent as Max glared across the room, picking apart Jalen. A waiter came by and dropped some menus in the center of the table, but no one reached for them. They already knew the menu front and back.

"You don't even know him," Ethan said, gesturing across the way to Jer behind the bar. He held up four fingers and Jer got to work with a nod.

"I don't need to know him," Max said. "I'm an excellent judge of character."

Adam burst out into laughter. "You thought Willow was a criminal."

"So I was wrong once," he said, finally breaking his glare and turning his attention to Antonio. "How do you know him?"

He'd known the questioning would come as soon as Jalen recognized him, so he'd already prepared a plausible explanation and rehearsed it in his head several times.

It had helped distract him from how pretty Cara looked and how annoyed he'd been at the surge of jealousy that flooded his system as soon as he saw them together.

"He was a patient."

Ethan was the first to turn to him, brows bunched as if staring at a puzzle that wasn't fitting together. "Shouldn't he know you as Dr. Santori?"

"Normally, yes, but these were special circumstances I can't discuss under doctor-patient confidentiality."

Ethan winced, and Adam threw up his hands.

"Don't tell him that," Adam said with a dramatic flick of his wrist toward Max. "His imagination will take over and Cara will never be allowed to date the kid."

Even better , Antonio thought to himself.

He forced a neutral expression on this face, even though he wanted to smile, as Jer delivered their beers and left.

Just then, they all heard Cara's funny little laugh across the room and turned. Antonio's foot started tapping under the table. What the hell was this Jalen kid saying that was so fucking funny?

"She looks like she's having fun," Ethan said.

They all looked over and saw her beautiful eyes all crinkled and happy as she bent slightly forward, laughing.

Had she smiled and laughed that much when they'd gone out? Definitely not at his parents' anniversary party. But maybe she did at the euchre tournament?

"And if she heard you say 'allowed to,'" Ethan added, with a pointed look at Adam, "she'd marry him out of spite."

Max's already deep scowl deepened further.

"Don't you want her to be in a happy relationship?" Ethan asked. "That's what she wants."

Max slowly calmed down and sat back, piercing Antonio with his gaze. "Just tell me it wasn't something criminal."

Antonio hesitated, then wanted to punch himself for almost lying. "No," he said. "Nothing criminal."

Max assessed his eyes for a long moment before finally breaking eye contact and reaching for his beer. He knew how much Max loved his sister. Honestly, she was more like a daughter to him.

The fact that Antonio was lying to him, and sewing seeds of doubt about Cara's date, made him hate himself even more.

What the hell was he doing? How did he become this kind of person? He always thought of himself as a good friend. He wanted to be someone you could count on.

Instead, he'd become someone you wouldn't want to leave alone with your sister.

"She'll figure it out," Ethan said. "She's definitely smart enough."

"She's lacks experience to see red flags. Look how long it took her to figure out Cooper," Max said. "I still worry she'll start that bullshit back up again."

Antonio took a drink and stayed quiet.

After that concert, there was no way. Max didn't have to worry about Cooper ever again.

But he obviously couldn't put his friend's mind at ease without admitting he'd been sort of seeing his sister. He glanced across the room at Cara and wondered if they should just come clean.

"How did your parents' anniversary party go?"

Antonio blinked over at Adam, who was watching him curiously. Could Adam tell that he'd been watching Cara?

Shit.

Hopefully not.

"It went bad." Antonio twisted in his seat, forcing his attention elsewhere and fighting the urge to glance across the room. "Fran brought someone. And Mom called her out. It was a disaster. I left ten minutes after I got there."

His friends winced in unison.

"Is it serious between them?" Ethan asked.

Antonio shrugged. "I don't think so." He remembered how sick he felt standing across from Fran at that party. "They don't seem compatible. She's always been very high maintenance, and the guy she brought is fucking Blake Hunter."

All three of them made matching “oh” faces when they recognized the same. "That survivalist guy, right? With the news segment?" Adam asked.

Antonio nodded.

"I saw a clip of him killing a wolverine with a rock and skinning it with a pocketknife," Ethan said, a look of absolute disgust on his face. "It was gruesome."

"Has she changed a lot?" Max asked. "Become outdoorsy?"

Antonio shook his head. "I can't imagine that. She's a real princess-y type, you know? But I haven't seen her since…"

"Since you cheated on your neighbour with her?" Adam asked.

He squeezed his eyes closed. "Yeah," he said, dropping his chin and shaking his head with regret. When he realized his friends had all gone silent, he looked up at their uncomfortable faces.

"Sorry," he said. "Didn't mean to depress everyone."

"You didn't," Ethan said, shaking his head. "It's just that…"

Antonio stared at him for a moment. "What?"

The three of them exchanged glances before Adam took a deep breath and leaned in. "Do you think there's still life left in this seemingly dead horse you're beating?"

Antonio’s instinct was to defend his choices, but in truth, he'd asked himself the same question a million times after the anniversary party.

And again since hanging out with Cara. Maybe he and Fran weren’t as perfect for each other as he always thought.

"I was sure we could work it out," he said. "But if she's moved on, then…" Antonio trailed off and threw a brief glance across the room at Cara before finishing. "Maybe I should, too."

"Well, I guess one good thing that came from it is you moved here," Max said with a smile and a clap on his back.

Ethan and Adam nodded, and Antonio felt better than he had all week.

Other than the night spent with Cara.

Fuck, he wished there was some prescription he could write to wipe his memory of that.

The waiter came and took their orders, and then Ethan filled them in on the plan for the bachelor party next weekend, followed by Adam telling them how stressed Chelsea was trying to make her and Ben's first Christmas in their house perfect.

Antonio suppressed his disappointment that he wouldn't be in his home with a wife and kid this Christmas and tried to enjoy the rest of his beer and meal with his friends.

He needed to decide whether to finally begin the painful process of untangling his life from Fran's.