Anne winced. “I’m sorry it’s so late.”
It was just after ten. “Not late. We have an early start tomorrow, that’s all.”
They climbed the stairs to the third-floor walk-up.
Kelsey had a tendency to bring her work home, which meant there were vintage tools and salvage items everywhere. A tin lunch pail, a box of rusty hinges, some old picture frames stacked against a wall. He’d stashed his duffel neatly under a table, but the sofa bed stood open in the middle of the room, taking up most of the available floor space.
He’d rolled out of bed as soon as he got Anne’s message. He could hardly suggest she fall into it the minute she walked through the door.
“Want anything?”
“Well, I was drinking cosmos. I’d never had one before. Tart, pink, pairs well with rejection.” A half-formed smile. “I think that’s the cranberry juice. Because it’s bitter? But it might be the vodka.”
“How about tea?”
“Tea is good. Also, I should probably stop with the alcohol before I become a drunk, weepy cliché of a woman scorned.”
Joking. That was a good sign.
He rustled around in a cupboard, glad to have something to do. Put a cup of water in the microwave. Anne perched on one of the dinette’s two chairs, checking her phone, twisting her handkerchief, checking her phone again.
After Britt left him on Christmas Eve with a pile of unopened presents and a shitty sense of failure, Joe hadn’t felt much like talking. His mom had tried. “You need to process your feelings,” Nicole had said. “So you can move forward.” Personally, he’d rather smash his thumb with a hammer, but if that’s what Anne needed…
He searched for something to say. Fixing a broken heartwasn’t like mending a chair or patching a rotten step. “So, I guess you’re not going to Atlanta now,” he tried.
Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Hell. Should have kept his mouth shut. He plunked the tea in front of her. Pushed the sugar bowl silently across the table.
“Thanks.” He watched as she dumped four spoonfuls into her mug. “I should have stayed home.”
He waited, the way Rob would have. Nothing. “I don’t know what to say here,” he confessed.
“You don’t have to say anything.” She ran a finger delicately under her eyes. “You came. You showed up. That’s enough.”
Her lashes stuck together in spiky clumps. His heart gave a tug. “So did you.”
“He didn’t want me there.”
“Then he’s a dick.” She made a sound, half laugh, half sob. Encouraged, he added, “Not to criticize your taste in guys or anything.”
“No, that’s okay. It’s very…”
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t say sweet.”
“Very supportive.” She took a sip of tea. Did not gag on all the sugar. “Chris isn’t really a dick,” she said. “He just…”
Another wait. “What? Plays one on TV? Dr.Dick. Has kind of a ring to it.”
Another puff of breath that could have been anything. “He’s moved on.”
“Total dick move.”
“With another resident.” Her throat moved as she swallowed. “She was there tonight. With him. At the hotel.”
He winced a little in sympathy. Nothing he could say about that. Nothing that would help, anyway.
“And his parents like her!” Anne wailed.
