Page 157 of The One Month Boyfriend (Wildwood Society)

Kat

I glancearound the parking lot of the Blue Ridge Country Club again, but I still don’t see Silas’s truck.

Me:I’m here

Me:Are you inside yet?

Still no response. I first texted him five minutes ago, when I first pulled in, but he hasn’t answered any of my texts yet, so I look at myself in the rear view mirror and tap the steering wheel and hope that no one drives past me and wonders what I’m doing, sitting here in my car.

God, I hate this, the part of any social gathering where I don’t know what to do and any move I could make seems awkward as hell. Stay in my car: now I’m the weird car girl. Go inside: why is Silas’s girlfriend here without him? Hover expectantly near the front door, neither in the parking lot or inside: is she a vagrant, trying to score free food?

Is one the right option? Is it possible for all the options to be wrong options?

Where the hell is Silas?

I stay in my car a little longer—I was early, it’s fine—but the minutes slowly tick past five and something else becomes apparent: I have to pee.

I give it five more minutes. No Silas. No text from Silas, and now I really fucking have to pee. The bushes around the parking lot are a no-go. I consider leaving, finding a gas station, and coming back, but that’s probably even more awkward than peeing in a bush.

Shit. I’m gonna have to go inside.

I manage to smile at a small group of people who look sort of familiar just inside the front door, and they don’t immediately kick me out, so that’s good. In what can only be an act of mercy from the gods, the bathroom is right past them.

When I’m finished, I check my phone again. No text. No call. I text him again because now he’s fifteen minutes late and Silas is never this late. It stays unread.

I lean on the sink and try not to panic. It’s a nice sink. Marble, probably, and the mirror in front of it is fancy with a gold frame, and the wallpaper in here is a choice but it’s clearly a well-done, expensive choice. I’ve been here a bunch of times with Anna Grace but it’s never felt quite so foreign before. I’ve never felt quite so much like I don’t belong here.

He’s blowing you off, says a small voice in the back of my head. He found something else to do and couldn’t be bothered to remember to tell you, so now he’s leaving you alone to make small talk.

It’s ridiculous, and I know it’s ridiculous, and it doesn’t matter that I know. It doesn’t matter that it’s his work event and every single thinking part of my brain is calmly reminding me that present-day Silas is the mostly-responsible man who distracted people at karaoke and took me to an abandoned building.

I’m panicking because he’s not here—not even texting me back—and his coworkers are practically hovering outside the bathroom door and I can’t sprint past them and drive away because the whole point of me right now is to show up and act right.

Oh, God, I’m gonna throw up in this sink.

I don’t, but it’s close. I’m nauseous and a little dizzy, and I almost wish I would puke, but I don’t. Instead I take some deep breaths. I name some things I can see and touch and hear. I check my phone five more times and wonder where he is and if something is wrong, but I also know he probably got caught behind a tractor or something and can’t text.

Finally, I pull myself together and look at myself in the mirror. I’ve got all the good armor on: the expensive eyeliner and new lipstick. My hair’s in an extremely classy low chignon. I’m wearing a sleeveless, knee-length black dress—classic—and I’m even wearing pearls, for fuck’s sake, because nothing screams lawyer girlfriend like pearl earrings and a pearl necklace.

“Okay,” I mutter at the mirror. “Let’s do this, Nakamura.”

* * *

Fifteen minutes later,Silas still isn’t here, and I’m starting to panic for different reasons. Not that I’ve stopped panicking for my initial reasons; there’s plenty of panic space in here to panic for every reason imaginable.

“Annie Mae’s is fine if you want somewhere in town,” Linda is saying to the small knot of people gathered at this end of the hall. “But for my money, the best apple cider donuts are at Jackson Orchard. They make ‘em fresh right in front of you and mm-mm-MMM, they’re good. They only do it for September and October, though.”

I pull my phone out of my purse for the thousandth time in the last several minutes. Silas is now thirty-five minutes late, which is way too much. I already called him once, and nothing. The he abandoned you to the wolves part of my brain still hasn’t shut up.

“We took the kids up there last year, they had a blast,” someone else says. I should know his name and don’t. Should I start calling other people? Will Anna Grace know where he is? Will Levi? I don’t have Levi’s number, but I bet Anna Grace either does or knows someone who does, or I think Lainey is friends with—

“Darlin’, you okay?” Linda asks, her cool hand suddenly on my shoulder. Everyone in the small group—five people—look at me and I know I turn stoplight red.

I force a smile anyway and take a breath past the tightness in my chest. It’s not a panic attack yet, and I don’t think it’s going to turn into one, but I’m watching it warily anyway, like a tiger across a river.

“Fine,” I say, even though the way I’m gripping my phone probably gives me away. I should’ve taken the free wine. “Just wondering where the heck Silas is!”

Wow, apparently I’m a person who says heck.