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if he’d meant what he’d said about not hiding. He hadn’t so much as flinched at the possibility of being spotted. But mostly,
seeing Owen reminded me of why I’d pulled into that parking spot in the first place.
“We’re having dinner with Cole and Laila. Are you okay with that?”
He did a double take and shifted in his seat toward me. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. And just to be fair, I don’t know exactly why they want to see you. I mean, I think they’re hopeful that things with
you are, you know...”
“On the up-and-up?”
“Yeah. But I don’t think they’re really convinced. I’m guessing they want to see for themselves.”
“I’d love to see them.” He swiped at his eyes one more time and smiled.
And I couldn’t stop looking at him as he faced forward again, once again staring out the window, looking at the Bean Franklin
but no doubt seeing Marietta’s.
He was so overdressed in his undoubtedly custom-tailored, slim-fitting gray suit and starched white dress shirt.
Sans tie and open at the collar, it was actually dressier somehow.
Like he was a modern Hollywood icon casually formal on a red carpet.
His Italian (just a guess) loafers would have been much more at home on a red carpet than on the poorly shoveled sidewalks of Adelaide Springs, that’s for sure.
“You really do look nice,” I said softly and then snapped my head back to the front, horrified, and gave the rearview mirror
all of my focus.
“Thank you. I don’t have real clothes, I’m realizing.”
It wasn’t surprising that I found him attractive, I assured myself as I backed out onto Main Street. Not surprising or weird
or even unexpected.
I mean, it was unexpected. There is no adequate way to convey just how unexpected it was. To me. But it really shouldn’t have been. For one
thing, he was attractive. With certain guys, it just wasn’t subjective. He was one of those guys. Trust me. I’d seen him with
braces and going through puberty and during the unfortunate mullet stage. I’d also seen him the day his braces came off and
he smiled more than he ever had before.
And now he had the same slightly lopsided lips and piercing blue eyes that had made me weak in the knees as a teenager, but
he was also stylish and confident and rocked the six-pack abs of which dreams are made. (And no, for the record, I hadn’t
seen adult Wes without his shirt on, but sometimes you just know these things.) On top of all of that, he smelled like he
was sitting in a leather armchair next to a fireplace at a manly Buddhist temple designed by Tom Ford, smack dab in the middle
of the redwood forest. (Not that I hadn’t been into him during his Drakkar Noir days, mind you. I very much had.)
What are you doing?
Nothing. I’m doing nothing. So quit asking yourself stupid introspective questions, Adelaide.
I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat and attempted to swallow down the lump that had formed in my throat without also accidentally
swallowing my tongue, which, for whatever reason, suddenly felt like it was blocking my airway.
“I could run home and change real quick. A dress or something. So we match, I mean. Well, not match . I’m not suggesting your cummerbund should complement my dress or anything.”
He laughed. “Seafoam. Those were my marching orders. I had to go all the way to Grand Junction to find a place with a seafoam
cummerbund and tie.”
“And all for a dress I hated.”
I’m pretty sure I heard him gasp. “Why did you hate it?”
“It was way too short—”
“Beg to differ.”
“—and way too tight—”
“Beg to differ.”
“—and definitely far too low-cut.”
“Um, do I even have to say it?” Our gaze met for a moment, and I caught his mischievous smirk and rolled my eyes at him, which
caused him to laugh softly. “But seriously, all teenage lechery aside, you completely took my breath away. Not just in that
dress, to be fair, but the dress...” He whistled softly through his teeth.
Seriously, Addie, what are you doing?
The introspective question didn’t seem quite so stupid the second time around.
“Yeah, I’ll just wear this.” Heat flooded my cheeks as disappointment in myself washed over me. Had I really been considering
rushing home and trying to make myself pretty for Wes Hobbes? And why did the memories of when looking pretty for him mattered
to me create a different sensation of warmth?
Doesn’t matter. Moving on.
Did I even own a dress? Well, yeah. Sure I did. But they were all stashed away in a storage unit in Bethesda, Maryland, where
I continued to waste far too much money each month rather than face whatever painful memories of Joel awaited me inside the
ten-by-fifteen space. An entire life together reduced to nothing more than hastily packed boxes and inadequately protected
furniture.
And that was all that was going on here, of course. I released a deep breath, slowly and quietly so Wes wouldn’t take note of it. I willed the conflicting heats of disappointment and desire to dissipate back into the cold that was so much more befitting the company and the clear, icy night.
I hadn’t been with a man since Joel. And I don’t just mean I hadn’t been with a man, though that probably goes without saying. I hadn’t even spent time in the presence of any men. Not men who counted as men, anyway. I’d
hung around the extremely happily marrieds (Cole and Sebastian) a little bit. The extremely olds (Fenton) a little bit. And
the extremely you’re-such-a-little-boy-I-just-want-to-bake-you-cookies-and-ask-you-about-your-day-at-schools (Neil) a little
bit. But Wes didn’t fit into any of those categories. I certainly hadn’t spent time with any others whom I would have to describe
as the please-just-let-me-watch-you-do-pushups kind.
And in not being around any men, I’d naturally felt as if I’d lost all interest in men. So this was good, really. I was still alive. I was still breathing. I could still appreciate a chiseled jawline and
broad shoulders. Bully for me. But I couldn’t allow myself to forget that this particular chiseled jawline and set of broad
shoulders and lean, strong hands and fingers that seemed to be continually itching for action—even when they were mindlessly
tapping away on his knee, as they were now—belonged to the man who didn’t so much as leave me a note or a message on my answering
machine. So... fine. I could begrudgingly admit to myself that I’d felt more alive in the past twenty-four hours than I
had in all the twenty-four hours of the last two years combined. And yes, like Wes had said, it was maybe even okay not to
hate him. We were no longer two small-town Colorado kids brought together by having an entire life in common, but it did feel
good, after nearly a year back with old friends I no longer knew, to be able to make a Pineapple and Pearls joke. But that
was as far as it could go.
Which was probably why it was a really good thing that we were having dinner at one of the very few locations in town where
Wes Hobbes and I had never made out.
Table of Contents
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- Page 25 (Reading here)
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