My shoes, on the other hand? The black peep-toe heels that add four inches to my height say I want him to take the dress off me and demand that I leave only the shoes on.
Nerves rattle in my stomach as I bring a hand to my hair to tuck an errant strand behind my ear. I’m excited and anxious and worried and everything under the sun for whatever is to happen tonight.
That’s a lie.
I know what’s going to happen tonight. I’m going to be the new Blakely who takes what she wants. The one who was MIA the last time I saw Slade when we were standing in the parking lot at the lodge and was too chickenshit to tell him what I wanted—him.
I can do this.
I got the job, and now I want the man too.
Taking a left at the street corner, I halt in my tracks when I come face-to-face with Paul. Déja vu hits me. But this time Paul is alone. There’s no Barbie to distract him or flaunt like a trophy. It’s just me and him and a world full of baggage that I want to throw into a dumpster, light on fire, and never look at again.
“Blakely.” His eyes roam up and down the length of me, and if there were such a thing as buyer’s remorse, his expression would be the trademark for it.
Not going to lie and say I don’t enjoy seeing it.
“Paul. What a surprise.” When he leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek, I take a step back. “What are you doing?”
“Just saying hi. Since when is it such a big deal for me to kiss you on the cheek?”
“Since you left me. Since we’re divorced. Since I no longer have any desire to try to make things cordial with you . . . you lost the right to assume anything about me.”
His expression freezes, and he blinks his eyes several times as he tries to adjust to this new me. The one who speaks up instead of swallowing the comments as to not make a scene.
“Wow. Okay.” He nods as that smarmy smile graces his lips. “I wasn’t aware it was a crime to be cordial.”
“It isn’t. But cordial is all you ever were to me. There was no passion, no spark, no anything other than constantly trying to satisfy that overgrown ego of yours, and now that I’m no longer married to you, I don’t have to pretend anymore.” I glance to my right where someone laughs loudly. “If you’ll excuse me, Slade’s waiting for me.”
Proud of myself, I skirt around him, but then he grabs my arm. It takes everything I have not to give him the satisfaction of yanking my arm back. Instead, I look him straight in the eyes and raise an eyebrow in question.
“Where was this Blakely when we were married?” he asks.
“She was always here. You were too preoccupied with yourself to notice her.”
And without another word, I take off down the sidewalk toward Metta’s with an extra swing to my hips and the hope that he’s watching me and seeing what he gave up.
By the time I walk into Metta’s and request a table, I realize that I don’t care if Paul was watching. In fact, the best part about that whole interaction was its little boost to my confidence and the reinforcement that the new Blakely is here to stay.
Sliding into a booth in the back corner, I know for certain that I wasn’t off in reading Slade’s cues. I realize that Prisha’s advice was just that—advice—and that I should heed it but use my own interactions with him to form my own opinion.
And my opinion is that there is something between us.
With each passing minute, I’m more and more certain of it, more and more high on the anticipation of seeing him again and falling right back into whatever it is we can be together.
I jump when my phone rings and scramble to answer when I see Slade’s name on the screen.
“Hi. Everything okay?” I ask, realizing he was supposed to have been here fifteen minutes ago.
“It’s fine. I’m not going to make it.”
I shake my head as if I didn’t hear him correctly. “Slade?”
“Something came up,” he says as I hear a woman laughing in the background and déja vu hits me for the second time tonight.
It’s still of Paul, but this time it’s of the calls he’d answer but was always in a hurry to end. The ones where a throaty laugh could be heard just before he disconnected. The laughs I now know belonged to Barbie.
“Slade?”
“I have to go. I just—I’m sorry.”
Without another word, the connection goes dead.
And every ounce of confidence that I was just soaring on comes crashing down around me.
By the time I get home in my brand-new dress and sky-high heels, I’ve worked myself up into a tizzy. My lone text to him remains unanswered, and every excuse I’ve fabricated as to why I was basically stood up, I’ve systematically debunked.
One by freaking one.
The woman’s voice in the background doesn’t help my overactive imagination from reliving everything with Paul all while taking Prisha’s damn advice and twisting it to fit its narrative.
To put it mildly, I’m hurt and more than mad at myself for believing that this could be real.
That a good guy like Slade Henderson could really like an almost forty-year-old divorcée.
Then again, maybe there aren’t any good guys left after all.
Slade
My pulse pounds like a freight train in my ears as I wait for Dr. Schultz to go through the chart in his hand.
This isn’t how I expected tonight to happen. A phone call when I’m standing in the middle of the florist shop and then rushing
