“Hi,” I say, sliding in across from him.
He looks hollowed out, like someone scraped out everything soft and left just enough to function. But his storm-grey eyes are the same as ever and seeing them makes my heart flip over, same as ever.
I think of the crying toddler. The rainbow I imagined extending between us. It grounds me, strengthens me in ways I could never explain.
Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it go.
He studies me, a smile ghosting across his face. “You look…”
“Like garbage?”
His smile falters. “Like you did at school. You haven’t aged a day.”
I hate him. I hate his words. I hate the way he still manages to knock me sideways and flatter me all in one breath. I hate that I still feel it. I hate us both.
“Jersey,” I say, tossing it on the table between us.
He doesn’t even look at it. “I miss you.”
I miss him, too. That’s the worst part. That, and everything else.
“I just ran into your girlfriend.”
He frowns.
“Jenny. She dropped by Stabbies to have a go at Cece. Told me you two have been swapping nudes for years.”
His face tightens. “We haven’t. She’s been sending me pictures. Even when she was married, she was doing it.”
The pointlessness of this argument makes my blood boil. “And you just accepted them, did you? Not only that, met up with her without telling me?”
The waitress arrives just in time to save him. I flash her a smile. “Hi, can I get an Irish coffee and a prosecco, please?”
I chose liquored caffeine and sparkling wine because it seemed ‘brunchy,’ but from the way the waitress is looking at me, I’m still giving off ‘sad wino.’
Oh well.
“Anything to eat?” she asks.
“No thanks,” I say, looking Jake dead in the eye.
He doesn’t comment on my order. “Nothing for me either, thanks.”
“Then I’ll just get your drinks.” The waitress rushes away like I would if I felt the vibes at this table.
“So,” I say, picking up the sugar canister and tilting it back and forth, watching the brown crystals tumble. “How’s things?”
Jake glowers at me in that way that once meant I was about to be thrown against a wall and fucked senseless. I ignore it. I still want him, I’m not going to pretend I don’t, but I’d hammer a nail into my hand before I ever let him touch me again.
“I’ve beenbetter. How’d you pull up after I saw you last?”
“Fine.”
His jaw clenches. “You fuck those uni pricks?”
Not even close, but he doesn’t have the right to ask me that shit. “Guess you’ll never know. Next question.”
“You still coming to the reunion?”
