I glanced back at Brittany, hoping she hadn’t noticed where my attention had been, even as everything north of my chest went hot. “Where’s your family from?” I got out, trying todistracther.
She lifted a shoulder. “My dad’s from Ethiopia. My mom’s Creole. They’ve been in Louisiana forever,” sheexplained.
“Was Des the one who moved to Shreveport in elementary school or was that Max?” I asked at the same time a cute laugh from the direction of the bar reached my ears. I tried,I triedmy hardest not to look at the baragain.
Ifailed.
I peeked, just out of the corner ofmyeye.
Aaron was still laughing at something the waitress was saying. That handsome face had a pleasant, easy expression on it, his body language was forward… and he wasn’t looking at her the way he looked at me. Affectionately. Or like a puppy. He was just…looking.
I’m not sure why that made me want to throw up, but it did. Realistically, I should have been happy he didn’t give everyone the faces he gave me. And it wasn’t like he was taking her in like he was interested either. I’d witnessed that face enough in person to recognize it for whatitwas.
He was just looking at her. And it still felt like a knife blade into my belly. Because I knew what it meant, what it remindedmeof.
One day, regardless of what he said about relationships and marriage, he was going to have another girlfriend. It could be a month from now, it could be a year from now, but it was going tohappen.
And there was nothing I could doaboutit.
He wasn’t my boyfriend or my lover, and I needed to be grateful I even had that much, I told myself as I squeezed my hands into fists beneath the table. He was my friend who cared about me. He was a man who didn’t want to get married. He was a man who only wanted to share part of himself with me. I had no business looking orcaring.None.
Andyet….
“Des is the one who’s known him his whole life. Max moved to Shreveport when they were in high school,” Brittany explained, her words helping me focus on her and not anyone oranythingelse.
I nodded, swallowing down a ball of what I wasn’t going to consider being agony.“That’scool.”
Brittany nodded, her own eyes flicking in the direction where mine really, really wanted to go to again. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. The cute, high-chiming laugh belonging to the waitress seemed to carry across the freaking restaurant one more time, and it was so cute and sweet it made me feel like mine sounded like a donkey, loud and abrasive, uncultured and just… me. Awkward. This was why I didn’t compare myself to otherpeople.
My traitorous eyes slid toward the bar even though I knew better. And I saw that the waitress had her hand really close to Aaron’s on the bar counter. I glanced back as fast as I could, luckily beating out Brittany’s gaze. I was too strung out to notice the frown on hermouth.
“She’s a real fucking flirt, isn’t she?” she stated under her breath, her eyesnarrowing.
Pressing my lips together, I tried to actstupid. “Who?”
“The waitress,” she said, still looking in that direction. “Every time we came in here last time we visited, she was just a little too friendly even to Des, seeing me sitting next to him. I don’tlikeit.”
I couldn’t tell her I didn’t like it either, but I smiled like I could understand where she was coming from. “Des isreallycute.”
That had Brittany instantly grinning over at me. “Heis,huh?”
Inodded.
“Aaron’s not too hard on the eyes either if you like that kind of Captain America thing,” shejoked.
Yeah, me playing it cool ended there. I didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid and instead giggled.Giggled. How much more fake could I get? I hadn’t giggled since I was seventeen and aroundHunter.
It must have been obvious I was full of crap because she laughed. “I’ve tried asking Des what’s going on between you two and he says hedoesn’tknow.”
“Oh, there’snothing—”
She rolledhereyes.
“Really, there’s nothing. He called me his little sister one day,” I explained, reaching up to scratch atmyneck.
Brittany’s mouth twisted to the side for a second, like she thought I was full of crap, but she didn’t say anything else, settling for just taking a sip of hericedtea.
There was another laugh from the bar that had my throat knotting up, and I knew what I needed to do. Pushing my plate forward, I took another sip of my water and shoved my chair back. “I was thinking about taking a walk around and see if I can findMindy.”
