She looked down at her powder pink dress. “Thanks. I don’t love pink, but I loved theway this fit.”
“So,” Max said, clearing his throat. I looked at him and he mouthed “chatty,” making me laugh. He shook his head and turned his sights on Samantha. “Where’s he at?”
“He had to take a quick call. I know it’s so rude, but he’s been waiting on it all day. He’ll be here in a second.”
“How did you meet him?” I asked, figuring we may as well make small talk.
“At a bar. But it’s not what you think,” she laughed, tossing her curls behind her shoulder and pressing her lips together. “He was there with a client and I was there...well, I was there with Brielle with less honorable intentions,” she winked. “Oh, there he is now.”
I followed her eyes across the room to the tall, dark headed man walking towards us.
I grabbed the edges of my chair to keep myself from falling.
I couldn’t breathe.
My heart stopped beating.
Blaine!
NINETEEN
KARI
He was shoving his phone in his pocket with one hand, running his other through his hair like he did when he was nervous. He had on black dress pants and a blue dress shirt that I already knew was the same color as his eyes.
He looked a bit older than he had the last time I had seen him. His hair was shorter and his skin had more color, which surprised me with the skin cancer that ran in his family. He was always so careful to stay covered in the sun.
I couldn’t move, frozen to my seat. I gripped the chair with every bit of strength I had, knowing I’d fall out of it if I didn’t. I expected to feel the sting of tears, a surge of anger or sorrow orsomething, but I didn’t. I felt numb. Unable to feel anything, really. It was surreal.
Blaine walked to the table, his gaze trained on Samantha. He sent her a small smile, one that I knew was telling her that he didn’t really want to be here. I wondered if she knew it.
I forced my eyes closed, knowing that when I opened them, everything in my life would be different. And, quite possibly, ruined. These last few seconds very well might be the last few happymoments of my life, the last moments before things were sent into a chaotic spiral.
Fuck. My. Life.
I forced a swallow passed my rickety breaths and against the uneven beats of my heart before opening my eyes. Max was looking right at me, an uncertain look on his face. An eyebrow cocked, I saw the look pass across his features when he realized that something was really wrong.
Before I was ready, if there would ever be a time that I was ready, a voice familiar to me on so many levels broke the silence. I knew that sound in the early morning, what it sounded like angry, the sound of it breaking with sorrow. I knew the pitch it took when he was telling a secret, the deep timbre of it as he came down from an orgasm, the intimacy that was laced through it as he promised the world.
“Hey, Sam,” Blaine said.
I tore my gaze from Max’s, unable to look him in the eye. I glanced up at the face I hadn’t seen for so long, the face I would’ve given anything to see so many days and nights. The face that had been the star of my dreams and my nightmares just the same.
“Hey, Blaine.” Sam’s voice sounded miles away. “This is Max,” I heard her tell him.
He looked to Max, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He hated meeting new people. “Hey,” he said nervously.
“And this is Kari,” Sam said sweetly.
He turned towards me in what seemed like slow motion. I couldn’t smile or frown or even act surprised. I just...waited.
He opened his mouth to give the standard “hello,” but he realized a split second before anything got passed his lips what was happening.
His handsome features were swept with a look of incredulousness. His forehead creased, his eyes adjusting as if he were seeing an apparition. He shook his head a second. “Kari?” he asked breathlessly.
I swallowed again, trying to paint the walls of my throat with something to keep them from cracking. The room began to spin.
“Oh, hell,” he said, gripping the back of his seat, not looking away.
