Fan-fucking-tastic, Mia thought.
Jackson spent most of the evening carrying the conversation. Jeff and Mia couldn’t talk to each other without Jackson interrupting. Natasha eventually looked bored and sat back with a glass of wine in hand that she continually had refilled.
Mia had never been so thankful for a date to end. The awkwardness was eating her alive, and she needed to get out of there. Once they got to the parking lot, Mia moved to get into Jeff’s car when Jackson called out.
“Mia, you should ride with us. We’re neighbors, after all. It would make the most sense.”
Mia looked over at Jeff, who smiled.
“It’s up to you. If you want to ride with Jackson, you can.” As if on cue, Jeff’s phone pinged, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Oh, um, yeah, you should go with Jackson. I need to go deal with something.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yep. I’m good. I had a nice time with you,” he said.
Mia closed the passenger side door and stepped away from the car. “I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t know he was going to show up.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. Are you good riding with Jackson?”
She nodded, so he waved, got into his car, and drove away.
Mia stared after the tail lights wondering what the hell just happened. She walked over to Jackson’s truck and pulled the door open. Natasha was already seated in the front passenger seat and looked surprised.
“Oh sorry,” Mia said. She awkwardly closed the door and walked around to Jackson’s side. She got in and scooted across the bench to the middle seat.
“Hello, again. Sorry for crashing…” Although she realized how dumb it sounded considering her date was crashed first.
“This is the weirdest date I’ve ever been on,” Natasha muttered.
Jackson slid into the driver’s seat, squishing Mia between him and Natasha. She tried to make herself as small as possible.
“This was fun!” he said.
Mia stared at him incredulously. While she loved her best friend—and loved him more than that—this was not cool.
And being smashed between him and his date was certainly not cool.
Natasha raised her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
Jackson pulled out of the parking lot and drove down the street to a neighborhood nearby, to where Mia assumed Natasha lived. He pulled into her driveway and put the truck in park.
“Well—” Jackson started, but stopped when the door slammed.
Natasha hopped out of the truck as soon as it quit moving and closed the door without a word. Jackson watched her walk inside, surprise etched across his face. Mia snorted andunbuckled her seatbelt before sliding into Natasha’s vacated seat.
“Um… it was fun,” he said to no one.
“Maybe for you,” Mia said.
He shrugged and backed out of the driveway. “You didn’t enjoy yourself?”
“Are you for real right now? That was so awkward.”
“Why?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Why? Because you crashed my date with Jeff and brought another woman. Essentially torturing her in the process and making things incredibly awkward for everyone.”
“Geez. Tell me how you really feel.”
“What did you expect? That couldn’t have been fun for her.” Mia studied Jackson as he drove. “How’d you meet her, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Just a dating app.”
Jealousy roiled in her stomach. He was on a dating app? She didn’t have a claim on him, but damn if that didn’t feel like a punch to the heart.
“I see.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. Jackson pulled into his driveway and shut off his truck. He turned toward her. “I’m sorry if I upset you by crashing your date. I just thought it would be fun to hang out as a group.”
“Maybe next time we should plan it that way,” she said, not quite believing the words coming out of her mouth. No, she didn’t want to plan a double date. She never wanted to double date with him. Seeing him with another woman was torture of the worst kind. But what option did she have? Clearly, she needed to move on.
