“Yeah.” I lean further against the heat of the wall, trying to dissolve my feelings into languid forgetfulness and instead just getting more sweaty.
“You have to let him go.” Her voice is unexpectedly gentle. “Don’t pick someone who didn’t pick you. That’s the most important thing I learned from my divorce.”
I nod. “It’s just—when he broke things off, he said a friend told him he wasn’t ready to date yet. What if it was her? What if Eliana talked him into breaking things off with me because she wanted to sweep in and start seeing him again?”
“He’s not a baby deer, Laura. He’s a grown man. If he wants to let his ex-girlfriend make decisions about his dating life, he gets to do that.” Jody shrugs, looking out into the street. “In my opinion, if he were worth having, he’d be out here on his knees, telling you he was an idiot and wanted you back.” She glances back at the entrance, her tone withering. “Oh.”
“What?”
I turn around and see Ollie approaching us.
“Hi,” Ollie says to me. He glances over, looking nervous. “Hi. It’s Jody, right?”
“I’m going inside.” Jody pushes off the wall, irritated. I watch her leave and then turn to face him, my heart speeding up all over again. He looks hot and tired and very handsome. I am still getting used to him without the beard, and some unhelpful part of my mind wants to touch his face to see how it feels.
“Congratulations,” I say, aiming for polite but probably sounding petty. “You guys did well.”
“Laura, listen. I’m not trying to be confusing or—I want to explain. When we were together, I really liked you.”
I want to turn and run again, but I just nod.
“I just kept thinking about…” he goes on, “I kept thinking that any second you were going to get back together with your ex, and then you didn’t, and I just kept waiting for it. I thought that maybe if I broke things off, you would finally just pull the trigger and do it. I didn’t want you to leave me two years into our relationship or something, so I guess I tried to find a way to make it happen sooner, so I’d be out of my misery.”
“Your misery?” I don’t even know where to start.
“Yes!” His green-brown eyes look earnest. “It was miserable. Knowing I was falling for you, and…My wife was still in love with my brother the whole time we were married. And your ex-husband…I saw him. You told me he couldn’t be with you until he got successful, and now he is in a band that has dates at Madison Square Garden.”
“I don’t want him. I wanted you.”
“I know that’s what you said. It was just…” He looks frustrated. “With my history, that was really hard to believe. And you said yourself that you weren’t attracted to me.”
“I was trying to cover for how embarrassed I was that I didn’t know how to talk to you.”
“I know that’s what you said.” He grimaces. I can feel skepticism radiating off him.
“I told you I loved you!”
He nods. “And then you said you didn’t mean it.”
“Oh, come on. It’s not me who rushed right back into a relationship with my ex as soon as we broke up.”
“I’m not in a relationship with Eliana.”
“She kissed you on the lips.”
“In a friendly way!”
“Oh, right.” I take a breath, trying not to blow up at him. “Quick question. When you broke things off with me, and you said that you were talking to one of your friends who didn’t think you were ready for dating yet, did that friend happen to be Eliana?”
He looks down, which is as close as I’m going to get to confirmation. I almost laugh. “It was, wasn’t it?”
“She didn’t tell me to break up with you,” he says, but he can’t meet my eyes. “She just said that any reasonable person would know that you were still in love with your ex. That I was deluding myself if I didn’t realize that.”
My jaw drops open. A number of things are coming together in my mind: Ollie’s question about Nick, Ollie’s statement that he was ‘giving me space.’ He was expecting to be dumped, and a small part of me feels sympathy for him, but the larger part of me feels outrage at Eliana. “And you didn’t think she had any kind of ulterior motive?”
“I didn’t think she did, no.”
“Oh, come on. Ollie, she tried warn me off you.”
