One day next week?
It was the one in the message that I kept stumbling over. When I returned from my trips, even when she was still married to Will, we had breakfast every morning. I’d bring it to her office, or she’d bring it to mine; I’d make her crostata or panettone, my mother’s recipes; she’d bake scones, cinnamon rolls, or coffee cake.
Opening the door to Tea and Sympathy, I lamented the lack of cinnamon rolls since my return. Did I mention she could bake? She could and did, often. For my birthday every year, she’d—
What. The. Fuck.
I halted just inside the door, my brain tripping on the sight of Alice sitting at a table next to a man, his arm along the back of her chair, his body angled toward hers, his eyes moving over her face and neck with unveiled appreciation.
I also halted because the tables were so crammed together it was difficult to navigate the space, even when it was empty. But even if it had been empty of everything except Alice and this dude, I suspected I wouldn’t have been able to move.
Blood rushing between my ears, drowning out the crowd of patrons and their conversations, I watched Alice with the man, merciless to the warnings of my heart.
Look away.
Leave. Leave. Leave.
I couldn’t.
He nuzzled her neck, and she allowed it. She allowed it. She didn’t flinch away. She didn’t tell him to get his damn hands off her. She faced him and smiled, and if an employee hadn’t stepped in my field of vision, giving me a moment to process what I’d just seen, I might’ve broken the arm along the back of her chair.
“Dr. Magi,” the girl said. She’d never been able to pronounce my last name, so I’d told her to call me Magi. “Hey. Are you here to meet Dr. Hooper?”
Struggling to swallow, I nodded dumbly. But then I shook my head. “I’m here for, uh—”
The man’s laugh, loud and irritating, interrupted, making it hard to think or speak. Gritting my teeth and acting on pure instinct, I lifted my glare to Alice and her companion. At just that moment, she looked up, her eyes coming to mine, recognition and welcome lighting behind them, and I flinched at the impact. My heart spasmed like someone had wrapped their hands around the organ and squeezed.
“Milo!” She stood, waving me over, a big, gorgeous grin on her face.
Automatically, my feet carried me to her even as my brain told me to flee. Leave. Leave. Leave.
“Hey! Come sit with us.” She gestured to the vacant seat across from hers. “Milo, this is Pete. He’s getting his PhD in Fine Arts—”
“We’re dating. I’m her boyfriend, she just hasn’t gotten used to it yet,” Pete said, his tone teasing as he interjected. He didn’t stand, but instead lifted his hand for me to shake from where he sat.
I wanted to cut it off.
Alice huffed a laugh and continued, “Pete, this is Milo. He . . .” her voice trailed off, like she didn’t know what label to assign or how to describe me.
“Ah, Milo.” He smiled, small and wholly insincere, his hand still outstretched. “Alice talks about you all the time. Nice to meet you.”
With an equally insincere grin pasted on my features and bitterness on my tongue, I took his offered hand and gave it a quick shake, determined not to squeeze too hard. I did not succeed. His smile fell, and he winced just before I released his fingers. Good.
Alice, looking a little flustered, tucked her hair behind her ears as she reclaimed her seat slowly, frowning. In the many moments that followed, she sipped her tea, opening and closing her mouth at intervals, as though trying to think of an appropriate topic of conversation given the animosity of our handshake and the fact that I hadn’t taken the offered chair.
The stretching silence was tense, which, I admit, was completely my fault because I glared at her, refusing to help make this easy, refusing to pretend I was anything but insanely jealous.
I’d been good at hiding jealousy over the course of her marriage to Will the Asshole. It helped that I’d dated a lot. Or I’d tried to. When my inability to move past Alice became clear, I’d stopped dating, opting for women who wanted no-strings-attached hookups instead. I’d put an end to all that when Alice and Will split, and I hadn’t been with anyone since.
It never settled well to think of myself in these terms, but I’d been biding my time. Waiting. Checking in at intervals to see if she was ready to date. When she is, I’d told myself, I’ll been ready. I’ll make her love me.
How fucking pathetic was I?
And now? Now that she was divorced from her cheating husband and had asserted for the last three years that she wasn’t ready to date anyone? Now that she’d been unavailable or avoiding me for days? Now that I happen to stumble across her laughing and sharing a scone at our tea shop with Pete from the Fine Arts Department?
Yeah. Fuck pretending.
“Uh, so . . . how’d you two meet?” Pete’s lips curled in a smile that resembled a sneer, clearing his throat, and returned his arm to the back of Alice’s chair. I glared at his hand on her shoulder, the one I’d just squeezed too hard.
And fuck this guy.
“We go way back.” My voice gruff, I volunteered this info before Alice could assemble her thoughts. “She tutored me in C++ when I was a grad student.”
“He’s my best friend,” she said softly, her eyes coming to me but not quite making it past my neck. She could tell I was angry; she always had trouble meeting my eyes when I was angry. Suddenly assaulted by a stab of guilt, I glanced away, working to rein in my anger.
She doesn’t owe you one goddamn thing, Milo.
I didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. I didn’t want to make her upset. And I didn’t want to feel like a piece of garbage. Unfortunately, in this moment, I’d failed at all three.
I needed to leave.
“Well”—I backed away, shoving my hands in my pockets—“I’ll see you around.”
Always a glutton for punishment, I looked at her just as her eyes flickered to mine and then away.
“Yes. I’ll—I’ll message you about getting together for breakfast next week,” she said with forced cheerfulness, and I wondered if it was for my benefit or for Pete’s.
Does it matter?
Fighting a bitter smile, I dropped my chin to my chest so she wouldn’t see my face and nodded. “Sure. Whenever. No rush,” I said, then I turned away.
Pushing out of the café on autopilot, I walked toward my office but decided halfway there that I would leave for the day. I would walk over to Central Park. Maybe I’d go to the Met, lose myself in the samurai rooms.
I thought back to her last message when three blocks became ten blocks, the one I’d read at least twenty times, looking for a hidden meaning. I can’t, she’d said. Grant deadlines and dinner dates.
Dinner dates.
I laughed, a sound devoid of all humor. Dinner dates had been precisely what she meant. Dinner dates. Dinner dates with Pete. How long have they been together? Are they—
The thought choked me, and I removed myself from pedestrian traffic, leaning against the cool concrete of a skyscraper, and closed my eyes. It didn’t really matter where I went. I was a fool. A complete and total idiot.
And there was no escaping that.