I regret the words as soon as I say them. What thirty-something-year-olds actually wait around for each other?
“Jules, I swear. Audrey and I didn’t even speak. We—” he hesitates over his argument and I swallow hard. “It’s complicated. Audrey and I have a really long history.”
Then I nod once. “Fine.”
“Do you believe me?” he asks
I scrub the clean pot in my hands harder. “Sort of.”
He laughs. “We were on a break.”
“Okay, Ross Geller.” I snort, and he laughs because there’s often humor in the heartbreak.
“We were done. I promise,” he adds. When my only response is handing him the last dish to rinse, he says, “She cheated. I promise I was done.”
“It’s fine. I told you to date. It’s not like we swore there was a promise of us or bound our oath in blood. We were an idea—a moment that meant something.” I shrug. “And I told you not to wait, we just were...”
“What could have been,” he finishes for me.
“Exactly.” Blood drains from my face as I pull the plug from the basin. I grab a dish towel and wipe my hands, turning to lean against the counter. He rinses the dish and places it on the rack. I toss him the dish towel, and he wipes his hands. Every droplet of water disappears from his hands onto the gray cotton.
“I didn’t know I was actually a rebound,” I admit.
He rolls his eyes. “Way to make it about you.”
I smirk. “Way to insinuate it is.”
He smiles a perfectly coy smile. “I’ve missed you.”
I shake my head. “Don’t say things like that.”
I watch the panic in his mind as he backtracks. “I didn’t mean—I just really like talking to you. We had fun. I mean, I’m happy now. But we were...”
I nod as his voice trails.
This makes me laugh.Likeis such a flippant word.
“That first night was a core memory, though. That summer was—” he starts, but I stop him. I can’t hear it.
“Don’t finish the sentence, JP.”
He presses his lips together and shoves his hands in his pockets, then looks up with a handsome yet boyish expression. “One last drink?”
“We just did the dishes,” I say, and he raises his eyebrows, so I shrug and concede. “Sure.”
He swipes the almost full bottle of champagne off the counter, takes a swig, and hands it to me. I do the same. It bubbles up, tickling my nose, and I wipe my upper lip and laugh, embarrassed. His eyes dance over my face, adoring me in a way he shouldn’t.
“You’re good with Anjali and Alyson,” he says.
“You are, too. It kind of surprised me,” I counter.
He takes the outstretched champagne from me. “Really? Why’s that? I am a kindergarten teacher.” His emphasis is as right as it is adorably endearing.
“Fine. It’s not surprising. It’s just...” I search for the words I don’t know how to say. The words I’m notallowedto say. I stuff them down into the recesses of my mind, then say them anyway. “It’s just very attractive.”
He smiles wide. “So I don’t need a Kevin, just a baby?”
I laugh, thinking of my dog at home with my dog sitter. “Kevin is one of a kind. And please don’t just have a baby to add to your hot dad swagger, but it suits you.” I shrug. “Makes me think of how you’d be.”
