“Right. Whatever possessed you to marry a guy like Joe?”
She sighed and took another sip of wine. “It’s a long story.”
“I have some time.”
“You are so weird,” she said.
“Me?” I raised my eyebrows. She had to be kidding me right now.
“Yeah. What are you still doing here? I basically just sexually assaulted you in the bathroom. I should have been arrested ten minutes ago. I was waiting for the cops in there…”
“I told you I wasn’t going to report you.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “I thought that maybe you were joking.”
I shook my head. Honestly I’d just found the whole scene hilarious. I would never call the cops on her.
“Well, in that case…can we just start over and pretend the last few minutes didn’t happen? Let’s pretend I just walked in and sat down. And pretend I’m wearing a nice dress too. Use your imagination.” She cleared her threat. “Hi. I’m Ash.” She offered me her hand.
At least the pit stains on her sweatshirt were gone. I reached out my hand and shook hers. “Nice to meet you. I’m Matt.”
Her smile was so big that I couldn’t help but smile too.
“So, Matt. Tell me all about yourself.”
I really wanted to talk about Joe instead. But it wouldn’t hurt to play along. I had all night.
Chapter 17
Saturday
It sounded like Cupcake hadn’t changed at all. And the innocent, yet slightly crazy, woman in front of me definitely deserved better. She’d told me the whole story of how they met and how he’d proposed. But never in her story had she said she was in love. Because it was Cupcake. How could she be? “So you married him?” I asked and shook my head.
“What was I supposed to say? No?” She tore off a piece of the complimentary bread and dipped it into the olive oil. Her eyes lit up when she took a bite and she immediately tore off another piece.
“Yes. That’s exactly what you were supposed to say.”
Ash laughed as she finished her second glass of wine and her second roll. “In hindsight, I really wish I had. But he was my first boyfriend and I used to suffer from a severe lack of self-confidence.” She seemed to sit up a little straighter to prove that was no longer the case.
But I wasn’t so sure. Most self-assured women didn’t get naked in a public restroom and offer to blow a stranger a few minutes after meeting them. I wasn’t complaining though. Ash was freaking hilarious. I was having a really great night. Just not in the way that Penny had hoped. Ash and I could be really great friends. But…nothing more. And I was pretty sure she felt the same way. Our conversation flowed easily. But there wasn’t any sexual chemistry. I was simply curious about her.
She laughed. “Matt, I take back what I said earlier, you’re an amazing human.”
“Hmm?”
She gestured to the waiter who was carrying over two trays filled to the brim. “You ordered food for me.”
“Yeah, you were taking forever in the bathroom.”
She put her hands up to her ears. “Stop. No, that didn’t happen. We started over, remember?”
I laughed and grabbed her hands, lowering them from her ears. Her eyes locked with mine for a beat. A piece of me wanted to feel some kind of spark. Some draw to her. I felt nothing. I immediately let go of her so that the waiter could serve us our dinner.
“I love when people order food for me,” Ash said as the waiter walked away. “But what the heck is all this?”
“You never told me what you wanted. And you said to just order something a normal person would like. So I ordered a whole bunch of stuff a normal person might like.”
She looked around at all the food that had just been put down on our table. Plate after plate after plate. She abandoned the free bread, reached toward the middle, and grabbed a chicken finger from what I was pretty sure was a kid’s meal. “I think this is the best date of my life.”
I raised my eyebrows.
She held up her hand with a laugh. “Don’t freak out. I know this terrible date has been one for the books. But this food?” She groaned. “So freaking good. I could get lost knee deep in a basket of these chicken fingers.”
I laughed. She was adorable like I’d assessed earlier. And also smart and funny. And pretty. But…she wasn’t Brooklyn. I wanted to feel something. I really did. But I just…didn’t. I was very aware of the fact that my heart had stopped working years ago. I never seemed to feel anything. “So what happened between you and Joe? How did it go from sort of happy to divorce?”
Ash picked up a French fry. “Sort of happy.” She sighed. “That’s the funniest part. I thought I was happy. But looking back? And hearing my friends’ analysis of him. And yours? I don’t know what I ever saw in him. I just want to be loved, you know?”
I pressed my lips together. Yeah, I knew.
“I don’t need to go into specifics about how our relationship imploded. The gist is, Joe cheated on me with an Instamodel. And even though I totally fixed his family business for him and made us a small fortune in the process, he’s trying to leave me with nothing.”
“Have you hired a good lawyer?”
“Yes but there are…extenuating circumstances.” Ash cleared her throat and took another sip of wine. A big, healthy sip that had her reaching for the bottle for a refill.
That was a very weird answer. But honestly, half the stuff that came out of her mouth was weird. Before I could ask what she meant by extenuating circumstances, she changed the topic.
“So how do you know Joe exactly? I’ve just been blabbering on and on about him. But I’m so curious about how a guy like you could possibly be an acquaintance of Joe’s.”
“I went to high school with him.”
“And what was my ex like in high school?”
“A complete asshole, much like he seems to be now. He was hellbent on causing chaos and backstabbing everyone at every turn.”
“That sounds about right.” She paused as she took another bite of a chicken finger. “Something about the fact that I might be the first person he’s ever cheated on… makes me feel terrible. Somehow I want to be one of many? If that makes any sense. I’ve always wanted to ask someone that knew him. Was he always a cheater? I hear that phrase a lot. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“I have no idea.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her chicken finger as she doused it with ketchup.
“But any guy that cheated on you is an idiot, Ash.”
I could see her smile even though she was still concentrating on covering her chicken finger with way too much ketchup.
“If it makes you feel any better, Joe sold drugs and even planted some in my friend’s locker to get him arrested.” I wondered what had happened to Felix. I hadn’t heard from him in years. “Joe was a piece of work.”
“He sold drugs? Are you serious?”
“Yeah, he put them in the cupcakes.”
Her jaw literally dropped. “You don’t think he still…” her voice died away and she shook her head. “He couldn’t be. I oversaw the production.” But she didn’t look entirely convinced.