My phone buzzed with a text from him. Speak of the devil. I didn’t answer it.
“He’s an interesting man.”Extremely attractive.“But I feel like he’s got this veneer no one can break through, sometimes. For a moment I’ll catch him saying something serious and then he backs up to be all jokey again.”
A lot beneath the surface.
I sighed. “He’s too cocky for his own damn good, sometimes. A lot of times.”
She sighed, too. “I know. But ... he’s sort of earned the right, hasn’t he?”
I nodded in agreement and chuckled. I couldn’t believe the surrealness of this conversation. Here I was, conversing with my husband’s ex, and not even feeling jealous.
Iwasfeeling jealous, however, of this unnamed woman who apparently still had a hold on Dustin’s feelings. He’d mentioned Jenny in passing, as his friend and a lawyer who was helping us out by taking a closer look at the legal proceedings to do with my immigration.
At no point, however, had Dustin even mentioned this mysterious ex—was she even an ex?—from his past. Someone once told me it was always the ones your significant otherdidn’tmention that you had to watch out for.
A confusing array of thoughts and emotions poured through me. Did I have the right to be jealous of a girl from Dustin’s past, even though we were essentially a marriage of convenience?
In truth, I didn’t know the answer. But this whole situation brought to light a blind spot in my situation with Dustin, and the more I considered everything, the more I knew we needed to have a define-the-relationship talk.
“So,” I decided to ask Jenny. “I have a question for you. You’re gorgeous. You’ve got your shit together ...”
“Well, aside from thinking it was a good idea to clean my friend’s house mostly naked.”
“You know what, let’s give you a pass on that one because I bet if he were available—that would be an incredibly hot gesture that a guy would love.”
She giggled. Even I couldn’t believe I was being so nonchalant about the whole thing, but something about Jenny put me at ease.
“My question is, why do you think it’s so hard to find what you want when it comes to romance?”
Before she could answer, our server came by and we ordered another round.
“I’ve been dating for some time now,” she said. “And guys just never measure up to everything I want. And I feel like if I drop my standards, I’m doing myself a disservice. So I’ll go on one or two dates with a guy and then decide I’m wasting my time. I thought I had found the right guy with my fiancé, but I was wrong about that.”
“We’re definitely kindred spirits,” I said.
For the next hour or so, Jenny and I chatted about life, dating, and work. It was one of those odd conversations where I got the feeling we had known each other for a long time, even though we had just met.
As we ordered another round, a couple of good looking guys came up to our table.
“Hey,” one of them said, tipping his chin up at Jenny. “What are you ladies celebrating tonight?”
“Celebrating? I’m in a hoodie,” Jenny deadpanned at the guy. He was tall and cuteish. I was trying to make up my mind if he was hot or not. His day-old beard gave him a rugged sort of look, but I couldn’t tell if I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt because I was on drink number three.
He didn’t know it, but he’d certainly picked the right time to flirt with Jenny. She was open to his advances.
His friend flirted with me, and I sat back and enjoyed the show. After a while, I asked them if they wanted to take the party back to my place around the corner.
They said yes.
I liked Jenny, and she needed a win right now. I’d be a good wing girl and bring her back.
CHAPTER 23
DUSTIN
“Can you drive a little faster, please?”
“Sorry Sir,” my Lyft driver said. “Lots of traffic for a concert this afternoon.”
