My shoulders sag in defeat. He has me on this.
And he knows it, because now his grin is back, transformed into full-blown shit eating evilness. “Do you remember Todd from our wedding?”
The suddenness with which my stomach drops to the floor and horrified, claustrophobic panic surges through my blood has to be some sort of record. There isn’t time for me to try to hide the reaction, not that it would do me any good anyway.
No one who’s had to spend more than five minutes with the man couldeverforget Todd.
“I thought you might.” Alex leans back in his chair, taking a self-satisfied swig of his beer.
Ellie’s cousin Todd is the only thing there is to possibly dislike about Alex’s wife. In one brief conversation, Todd managed to air out every bit of family gossip he could remember—or imagine—made it clear that he found the venue and food far too cheap for hisrefinedtastes, implied that Ellie looked fat in her wedding dress, and finished off the whole fiasco by offering me thehonorof blowing him in the bathrooms.
Cutting through my thoughts, Alex announces, “What you need is to get back out there—”
Nervous dread seeps over my skin, making me feel suddenly suffocated by the neck of my sweater. I do not like where this is going.
Alex blithely surges on, ignoring my part-baffled, part-panicked expression. “—Meet people. Have a little fun. Go out on a fucking date. Jesus, Jess. It’s been what, six years?”
“Five years and eight months,” I mumble under my breath, automatically reaching down to massage away the sudden, bone-deep ache that shoots through my right thigh.
His shoulders sag slightly, the maniacal glint in his eyes dimming for a moment as his face twists in sympathy and with his own grief. “I know, Jess. And you know I miss him too, even though I get that it isn’t the same. But what if it had been him that had been driving that night andyouwere in the passenger seat? What would you want for Stephen if it was him sitting here with me instead of you?”
My next breath is harsh and ragged in my chest, and I have to gulp down a quick mouthful of my beer to try to hold back the choking tightness in my throat as my leg gives anothervengeful twinge.
If Stephen had been driving, maybe neither of us—
This, however, is a pointless and infinitely destructive line of thought, as the therapist I saw until last year told me ad nauseum, until I at least agreed to, if not internalized, the message.
And goddammit, Alex is right.
“I’m not saying you need toget over itor some heartless bullshit like that. I’d never say that, and you know it. It was you,” he points sternly at me over his bottle, “who said, what, two years ago, was it? That you were ready to think about seeing someone? So I’ve been patient. Watched and waited to see some evidence. Someaction. Well, sorry, Jess. Time’s up.”
My defensiveness over the way he’s calling me out and my apprehension over what he’s proposing are seriously outweighed though by the fact that my mind is still thoroughly stuck on one part of what he’s said.
“What does,” the name sticks in my throat, coming out high and choking, “Toddhave to do with any of this?”
“Glad you asked,” Alex grins at me.
Did I say his earlier grin was shit eating? Apparently, that was only because I hadn’t seen this one yet.
“Todd,” he waggles his eyebrows at me obnoxiously, “is my insurance policy.”
I swear I can literally feel the neck of my sweater trying to strangle me now. I do not like where this is going. At all.
“You have a week to find yourself someone, ask him out on a date,goon said date, and report back to me. Otherwise, I’m calling Todd and setting the two of you up.”
“You wouldn’t.” Because this is low, even for Alex. He knows just as well as I do what an abrasive, insufferable ass Todd is.
“Try me.”
My stomach sinks as I realize his eyes are narrowed into that stubborn glare I’ve seen one too many times to doubt his sincerity.
And then the dreaded words, “I’m doing this for your own good. You’re twenty-nine years old, Jess. You’ve been alone, reliving your heartbreak for almost six years. That’s fucking long enough, and if Todd is the motivation you need…” He trails off with an unsympathetic shrug.
If that look in his eyes hadn’t confirmed how well and truly screwed I am, those words certainly would. Derailing Alex from anything he thinks isfor my own goodis impossible. An axiom born of prior experience, unfortunately.
Never mind the fact that he’s right. That maybe, after the way I’ve let my life slowly grind to a standstill, I do want something…more.
Nervously, I gulp down a swallow of my beer, futilely hoping it will wash away the fact that my mouth feels like it’s full of sawdust.
