I feel Giuseppe stiffen against me.
“You’re moving out?”
I sigh and pull away to look up at him.
“All of this,” I say, waving a hand around me. “It was all…well, it was all him. The furniture, most of my clothes, even the rent on this apartment. He paid for all of it.”
A shadow crosses his face, something somber and unreadable.
I choose to ignore it, looking away. “I can’t very well continue to accept anything from him after…after what he’s done. After what we’ve done.”
“Right,” Giuseppe says, staring distantly ahead as though lost in thought.
I don’t like it, the way his face is suddenly back to being unreadable.
“I have friends I can move in with, Jerome has let me stay with him before. And I’ll have to get a job of course, a day job since my nights are obviously taken. But I think it will be good, doing something productive with my days. I’ll just donate the furniture and clothes, though I should probably consider selling them to earn some money.”
I’m rambling, mostly to snap Giuseppe out of whatever is going on inside that damn head of his. The longer it goes, the deeper the dread I feel setting in.
I grab the covers and pull them up to my chest as I draw away. I kneel on the bed to face him.
“What? What is it, Giuseppe?” I ask, exasperated.
He blinks and turns to face me.
“It’s nothing, Honey. I just—” His face clouds again. “I don’t like the idea of you and him…that way.”
So he’s judging me, then.
“I see. Well…I don’t like it either. Not anymore.”
He just nods somberly.
There’s a silence that hangs in the air.
I force a smile to my face. “Does it bother you enough to take back your invitation to the gala?”
His face wrinkles in confusion. “No, why would it?”
“Wouldn’t want to let Emily down.”
He looks off in thought, a deep crease in his brow. “Emily.”
Yeah, Emily! I scream in my head.
“Well,” I say briskly, moving away from the obviously troublesome topic. “I suppose we should think about getting started with the day.”
Now that the morning is ruined.
His brow lowers in consternation. “What’s going on, Honey?”
“Nothing,” I say in a chipper tone.
He considers me for a long moment. I forgot how penetrating that gaze of his can be, even without the aid of his glasses.
I relax with a sigh. “Nothing, Giuseppe, I’m fine. Really.”
“Good,” he says with a concerned expression. “Do you want to get breakfast? Or I suppose it would be brunch at this point.”
That lifts my spirits again.
“I think it might be hard to get a table today,” I hint with a smile.
His mouth turns down in thought. “Right, Sunday.”
“Yeah, Sunday,” I tease.
“You’d probably know better than me how crazy it gets at brunch. I could pick up some bagels or something instead?”
“Bagels,” I repeat, wondering if he’s joking.
“Too many carbs?”
“Among other things,” I say, giving him an incredulous look.
“I’m afraid I only have leftover Chinese that’s probably a day too old and a few bottles of beer back at my place.”
I stare at him, realizing that he either doesn’t remember what day it is, or is deliberately avoiding addressing it.
“Or you could go into the office to catch up on work?” I say in a dry tone.
His brow wrinkles in bewilderment. “Is that what you want?”
I exhale a laugh.
If he hasn’t picked up on what day it is, I’m certainly not going to shove his nose into it.
After all, it was just one night of sex.
Despite everything that was said in the heat of it.
We aren’t dating. We’re not “official.”
Hell, I just got dumped yesterday, even if it was via the news.
And right now I have no idea what’s going on inside his head with regard to Emily.
“You know what? That’s fine. Go into work,” I say without a hint of sarcasm or bitterness.
In some way, it’s actually funny.
Perhaps I—we?—can look back on this and laugh one day.
“Are you sure? I can easily go out and get something and come back to—”
“No, no. Go ahead. After all, I have some packing to do.”
That obviously reminds him of Francis and that cloud comes over his face again. It clears as he focuses on me again.
“I’ll see you tonight then?”
“Yeah,” I say with a half-smile, still staring at him in wonder. “Tonight.”
He gives me one last uncertain look. “You’re sure everything is fine? I can stay.”
“No, I have things to do. You go and get some work in.”
He doesn’t look convinced, and I’m this close to telling him, but let it go.
“Okay,” he finally says.
He pulls me in for a kiss. He lingers in it, but I’m the one to pull away.
“Tonight,” he says, giving me one last piercing look.
I return a convincing smile and watch him slide off the bed.
When he’s back in his pants and underwear he wore last night, I flash one last smile to match his as he leaves.
I stare after him with the taste of moonshine and resentment still on my lips.
How could he forget that today is Valentine’s Day?
Chapter Twenty Honey
“He didn’t even acknowledge it was Valentine’s Day!”
Rose gives me a sympathetically amused look. She’s the only one of The Girls who isn’t otherwise occupied today. I know Annabelle is with her Peter. Esmerelda could be up to a number of things, with a number of men.
“Men can be dense about this holiday, Honey. It sounds like he hasn’t been in a relationship for a while so it makes sense he might forget it.”
“I suppose,” I say, frowning into my mimosa.
As it turns out, it wasn’t so impossible to get a table for brunch, despite the holiday.
That doesn’t mean couples aren’t taking advantage. I stare around at the twosomes surrounding Rose and me in the restaurant and feel my heart sink again.
“I know, it sucks,” Rose, says sympathetically. “Especially after this news about Francis. What a son of a bitch!”
I put a hand
