Page 22 of Soft Rebound (Mad City Moments #2)

Liz

I go back inside like I’m in a trance. I don’t understand what just happened. Joe just ... left.

I sit down next to Bobby.

“What’s up?” Bobby asks. “Where’s the big guy?”

“He left.”

“Oh? Why? What happened?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you want us to go home? I can take a rain check with Trey...” With his thumb, he points to Trey, who looks a little worried.

“No, no.” I put up my palms and shake my head. “You two should have fun. But I’d like you to drop me off at home first. Then you can pick up your truck from there and I’ll give you the spare key to my place.”

Bobby turns toward Trey, who nods. The two of them discuss briefly where they would meet, exchange some information on their phones, and it looks like we’re ready to go.

Before we leave, I find Roxie, who’s now sitting in another booth with a group of bespectacled young guys, most of whom wear t-shirts with attitude.

“What’s going on?” she asks, concern evident in her voice. She knows something is up with me.

“Nothing. I’m gonna head home. Thanks for bringing me and Bobby here. It’s really nice to see all these people from Qpik. Makes me wish I’d have gotten the job.”

“You still might,” she says, then grabs my forearm. “Seriously, are you okay? Do you want me to come home with you?”

One of the dudes whistles, and Roxie rolls her eyes at him. “Oh, grow up.”

A bunch of them snicker and I suddenly feel exhausted. Like I can’t stand to be around people for another second.

“It’s okay. I think I need to relax. I’ll talk to you soon,” I say.

“All right. Talk to you soon.”

I drive Bobby and me home. He keeps glancing in my direction, but doesn’t speak. His worrying just makes me more irritated.

There’s pressure building inside me, and suddenly I can’t take his scrutiny anymore. I shoot him an annoyed look as I snap, “What? What is it?”

“What happened, Lizzie?” His voice is mild, his eyes kind.

I return my gaze to the road. “Nothing happened.”

“Why aren’t you with your guy?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Bullshit. Tell me what happened.”

“He’s not my guy, okay?” I am actually yelling. It surprises us both. “Joe and I just sleep together. It’s nothing.”

“I don’t think it’s nothing. He looks like he’s very much into you.”

“Well, that’s his problem. I told him from the start I can’t get into anything with him. That I’ve just gotten out of a relationship. And he said that was okay. But now it’s not and I am the asshole for always pushing him away.”

With the corner of my eye, I can see Bobby studying me for a long moment before he speaks. “Do you? Always push him away?”

I groan.

“Lizzie—”

“Yes! All right? I do! I do push him away. He’s always trying to get me to go out on dates and to spend the night and I don’t want that, Bobby! I don’t want any of it! I don’t want that bullshit romance stuff. It all turns to shit sooner or later anyway.

“Besides, rebound relationships never work. Look it up, it’s all over the web. So this thing was doomed before it started anyway.”

“Well, with that attitude it definitely was,” Bobby mutters.

“Don’t. Just ... don’t. I’m really not in the mood.”

Bobby puts his hands up. “Hey, a little optimism wouldn’t hurt you, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

“All I want to do is start fresh, you know? In a place where people don’t know me, where I’m not under Mom and Dad’s thumb, where I’m not constantly surrounded by reminders that I spent all of my 20s with Jake.”

He smiles and nods. “All that is great, Lizzie.”

“And I don’t need a guy. I don’t want a guy.

I am alone for the first time in my life and I want to stay that way.

” Bobby keeps nodding and I keep ranting.

“Look at Roxie!” I motion toward an unspecified place somewhere in the world, outside this car.

“She has a good job and she lives alone and she’s way cooler than anyone I’ve ever known. ..”

“You’re right, she’s pretty cool. But she isn’t the same as you, Lizzie. You were engaged for two years. You wanted a husband and family.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but now that I have a chance to change the path, maybe it’s not what I want.”

“Okay, okay. So Joe is really not what you want?”

“No! I mean, yes. At a different time, maybe. He’s great, and we have amazing chemistry...”

“But the time isn’t right.”

“No. It couldn’t be worse.”

Bobby remains silent for a moment. When I glance at him, he looks like he’s weighing whether or not to tell me something. Finally, I hear him take a deep breath. He must’ve decided to go for it.

“Just so you know, Jake is dating,” he says.

I am so shocked I lose my grip on the stirring wheel, and the car swerves. “What? Who?”

“Mickey saw him with another woman. It’s a girl from where you two worked. Bethany, I think?”

“Bethany? Jake said she had buck teeth!”

“Not anymore, apparently.”

Bethany is actually a very attractive girl. Works in sales at the company where I was in accounting and Jake in marketing.

I should’ve known Jake was full of shit.

I don’t say anything else while I drive back to my place, and Bobby doesn’t volunteer any additional information.

I try to sort out what I am feeling. Am I jealous? Maybe I’m a little jealous. But mostly I’m pissed. And I feel stupid. Also ashamed for clearly having no idea how my former fiancé felt about anything, or anyone.

We arrive at my place and I park next to Bobby’s truck.

I turn off the engine and lean back in my seat.

“The worst thing is I don’t understand what happened.

I don’t know if I did something. I’m not even sad we broke up, I just wish I knew why.

Because, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t believe he’s ever been really into me, not the way people are supposed to be into each other.

And I feel I’ve always known it on some level.

And it eats away at me, you know, that he didn’t really love me after seven years.

He knew all about me and wished the whole time that I would be someone else.

Someone different. Smarter. Thinner. Prettier. ”

“Oh, Lizzie.” Bobby unbuckles his seat belt and leans over to give me a hug. “You’re the best sister a guy could wish for. You’re cool and pretty and smart and warm. You love your family and put them first even when most other people wouldn’t.”

“I’m fat and plain and uncool.”

“That’s not true. Jake is just an asshole.”

“It is true. I have a mirror.”

“What does Joe say? Does he make you feel fat and plain and uncool?”

“No.” I hang my head. “He doesn’t. He makes me feel ... like the hottest girl he’s ever seen.”

Bobby smiles. “I think the right person will always think you’re an absolute prize.”

“Joe isn’t the right person.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. He looked pretty smitten.”

“He’s not the right person!” I push Bobby’s arms off me. His words are making me anxious, like I’m itching all over. “He likes me because I’m the first girl he got to fuck after being depressed for two years because his wife had left him.”

Bobby winces. “That is ... a lot of new information about Joe.”

“He only likes me because he doesn’t know me! And because he’s happy to get laid again. I’m a rebound for him, too.”

“I don’t think it’s a rebound when it’s two years after the divorce,” Bobby mumbles. “I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit, Lizzie.”

“It’s all wrong!” I wave my hands over my head.

“I should’ve never hooked up with him. But I was feeling brave and we had good chemistry and then we slept together and we kept sleeping together and now it’s a mess because he told me he wanted everything even though there’s no way he knows that because we’ve just met and that he can’t just stand still while I push him away, so now we’re not even fucking anymore which sucks because it was really good, like earth-shatteringly good, and now we can’t anymore because he had to go and suggest I sleep over when I said I couldn’t, so now I will die alone and I don’t even have a job yet and I thought things were falling into place with the sex and the job and the Roxie and now I don’t have Joe and he works at fucking Qpik, so I can’t even take that job if I get it—”

Suddenly out of steam, I bury my face in my hands and let out a long, frustrated groan.

“Feeling better?” Bobby smiles and pats me on the back.

“Yes,” I admit after a few moments, my breath steadying. “A little.”

“Good. Then you will be okay if I go hook up with Trey.”

“I will. Of course.” I take a few deep breaths. “Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime. Look, it’s going to be okay. None of this is the end of the world, you know? You’re just overwhelmed. You will get the job sooner than you know, and you’ll make new friends, and soon you won’t even remember me and Mickey...”

“Bobby?”

“Yeah?

“Do Mom and Dad hate me? Because I left?”

“No, Lizzie. They don’t hate you. But they definitely want you back, and I hate to say it, but it’s a little more self-serving than I expected of them. They love us and they want us to be happy, as long as we stay nearby and our happiness is of the kind they’re comfortable with.”

“I’m sorry, Bobby.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry you have to hide yourself from them.”

He shrugs. “It is what it is.” He looks up from where I am holding his hand, a small smile on his lips.

“Your knowing already makes all the difference. Honestly, these past few days here with you have been some of the best I’ve ever had.

And if you ever let me leave this car so I can go meet Trey, today might become even better. ” He grins and waggles his eyebrows.

“Shit!” I drop his hand. “Of course. Okay, come inside so I can give you a spare key, and then off you go to have your mind blown.”

“Won’t be my mind, though.”