One
Valentine’s Day is meant to celebrate love, not end it. Somehow, I managed to get through the ending I needed, only to discover this? Austin’s announcement that he and Lucy broke up rides a merry-go-round in my head, whirling endlessly, making me dizzy.
I’m having a Princess Bride moment. When people say they’re shocked, I don’t think it means what they think it means. What’s happening to my body isn’t your ordinary surprise pumped up a notch or two. I’m talking about true immobilization of limbs and brain function.
Timing is everything, and sadly, Dawn has none. “Chloeeeeee, wait for meeee,” she slurs, rushing toward me in the parking lot where I stand, slack-jawed, staring at Austin. “Could you give me a ride home?” She teeter-totters to a stop, unaware she’s preventing me from asking Austin why Lucy ended things.
“If it’s too much trouble…I’ll just sleep here.” She waves her hand vaguely at the parking lot.
“No, no,” I pull myself together and say. “Of course it’s not too much trouble.” And I’d do it even if it were. I almost killed a man once, and that’s the sort of thing that haunts you. Leaving Dawn in a parking lot in February would definitely be tantamount to murder.
“Thank you. Where’s your hawt drummer?” She turns to Austin before I can answer. “Your girlfriend caught the bouquet. Aw. Invite me to your wedding.”
Technically, Lucy stole it, but that’s not important. What’s important is Austin’s strained smile is painful to see.
“She’s not my girlfriend anymore,” he says. “We broke up.”
Dawn gasps. “Oh gosh. How awkward. I’m so sorry,” she says, disappointing me when instead of asking what happened, she launches into a rambling story about how if she’d only worn different heels, maybe she’d have caught the bouquet. “Of course, maybe catching it is a bad thing? Phew, glad I didn’t catch it. Not that I have a boyfriend, but if I did, we might not be together anymore. And then I’d be sad.” She scrapes her red nails down the lapel of his tux, nearly causing me to rethink leaving her in the lot. “Are you sad?”
“I’m good,” he says.
“You are,” she says. “I can tell. Speaking of telling, don’t tell Charlotte I had too much to drink.”
After we pinky swear, Austin is a gracious gentleman at foiling her attempts to “help him forget” as we load her drunken body into my car, buckle her in, and shut the door.
“Do you need me to follow you to her house? And then I can follow you home.”
An uncomfortable silence lingers in the brisk air before I answer. “Oh, that’s okay. I, uh, was on my way to Logan’s from here.”
“Ah.” He steps closer, but not close enough in the dim lighting of the parking lot for me to read what’s going on in his mind. “Chloe…I…”
Dawn knocks on the passenger window with a succession of sharp raps. “Ready when you are.”
“Just one minute,” I say, and turn back to Austin. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”
Dawn opens the door and sticks her head out. “Set a timer on my phone. Forty-five seconds left and counting.”
“I’ll be right there,” I say as she counts down how much time remains.
Austin chuckles. “You should get going. We can talk later.”
“I can drop her off and come home—”
“No,” he interjects, “I need to run by the restaurant and check out some things.”
Call it intuition, but I don’t believe that. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, but I’m not convinced. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He walks away, and I do the only thing I can think of to make him feel better.
“Austin,” I call out as he opens the door of his car. “Did you know the moon is actually shaped like a lemon and not round?”
His crooked grin makes me grin. “I did not know that. That’s why I like you so much.”
Of course he waits for me to leave the lot before he drives away. I blow out a breath. They broke up. There was a time I dreamed of this very thing happening. But now that it’s happened, I don’t know what to think. Chances are they’ll get back together, so it’s best I not think about it at all.
But thinking about it is all I do as I drop off Dawn at her apartment and get her inside where she hooks me up with a change of clothes so I don’t have to do a walk of shame a second time.
I think about it more as I drive to Logan’s and park in the driveway. Then I don’t want to think about it any longer and tuck it away so I can regroup and focus on having a good time with Logan…and the band?
“Hey, C,” Liam greets me as I enter the kitchen with Logan. “Want to join us for poker?”
“They cheat,” Belinda says from her spot at the island. “Fair warning.”
I scoot on the stool next to her. “I’ve never played so I’ll just stay over here.”
Logan kisses the top of my head and joins the guys at the table, and I put my focus on having a great night. Sort of.
“How’s Lucy?” Belinda asks. “Liam said she nearly killed you catching the bouquet. Guess there will be a second wedding soon.”
“I don’t know,” I say, squirming in my seat. “She and Austin broke up.”
Her brows raise. “The last time I saw her, she said they were moving in together. Huh. That’s a shocker. Maybe when she thought about what catching the bouquet truly meant, she freaked out.”
Belinda tells me a cute story about how she panicked and ended things with Liam when he proposed to her. Right now, I kind of wish she were boring, so I could tune her out, but I listen with rapt attention as she tells me it’s normal to get cold feet with serious commitment and more than likely they’ll get back together.
“So does that mean he’s staying at your place?” Logan asks.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Does that mean you’re not moving? Because my offer still stands.”
I have no answer and luckily, I don’t need one because Will throws down a royal flush. Logan asks to see what he’s hiding in his pants.
“You just want to see my dick again.”
Their continued banter makes me laugh. This is how my life would be if I lived with Logan all the time. And it’s…nice. Not like my home, but nice. Huh. When did I start thinking of the place I share with Austin as home? It is, though. More than just the place I live. It’s where my heart is. Where I live, love, laugh. Where throw pillows get their inspiration.
Once everyone leaves, Logan takes my hand and brings me to the couch. His pillows don’t say anything, but they are extremely comfortable. “So, I feel you should consider an important perk of living here.”
“Oh, really? And what perk is that?”
He picks up a remote from the coffee table and music filters into the room from the surround sound system. “A striptease. One of many perks you’d get as my roommate.”
A slow, sensual song filters from the surround sound as he eases up his T-shirt, revealing luscious abs, inch by etched inch.