Only to collide with a man’s chest.
I looked up, and when I met those familiar brown eyes, my heart forgot how to beat.
9
FUN FACT: ENCOUNTERS WITH EXES SHOULD COME WITH A WARNING LABEL. #PUBLICSERVICEANNOUNCEMENT
DAKOTA
“Mathew?”
My ex was here?
If I wasn’t so consumed with shock, maybe I would have sensed the weight of familiar blue eyes burning into me from across the restaurant. Maybe I would have remembered that I wasn’t supposed to be having intimate moments with other men tonight.
“Dakota?” Mathew’s voice glided over my skin and engulfed me in an invisible hug.
I couldn’t believe I was standing here in front of him. Everything seemed to freeze in place. Even the dust particles in the air, dancing through the light like they had been present in our love story.
A relationship that, arguably, wasn’t supposed to end.
After just three months together, we were talking engagement rings and imagining what our future babies might look like.
And then … he was gone.
I thought I’d never see him again, but now here he was, rocking my entire world by simply breathing the same air as me.
Those charismatic eyes swept over my body, like he was in shock that he’d bumped into me. The good kind of shock, the best kind of shock, and slowly, his light illuminated like a light bulb, turning up the brightness, his mouth slanting up.
It wasn’t until this very moment that I realized I hadn’t moved, I hadn’t even blinked, for Chriminy’s sake. But in my defense, I had zero idea of what to say to him.
What do you say when your ex suddenly reappears? Do you tell him how many nights you had spent staring at the ceiling, your cheeks burning from salty tears? Wondering if you had made the biggest mistake of your life?
But where was that feeling now? I’d expected my heart to leap. To feel that old familiar rush. Instead, there was just … shock. And underneath it, a strange emptiness where all that love used to live.
“Wow.” His eyebrows shot up as his intoxicating gaze glided over my red dress. “You look beautiful.”
I should feel something. Anything. The flutter I used to get when he looked at me like that. But it wasn’t there.
I smiled anyway. “What are you doing here?”
“I got back three weeks ago.”
I know. I saw online.
He sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. “New job.”
“I didn’t think you’d come back to this country.”
“As it turns out,” he continued, his eyes searching mine for something, “being a world away from the people who matter isn’t something I want for the rest of my life.”
The people who matter.
I waited for my heart to respond. Waited for that surge of hope, of vindication. He came back. This was supposed to be the moment I’d dreamed about.
So, why did I feel nothing?
“Plus,” he said, his voice dropping to that tone that used to make me surrender every defense, “I was hoping to see you.”
