Page 59 of The Broken Hearts Club

He glanced at me. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. But since you asked, I was just thinking we need to have T-shirts made for our little, two-man broken hearts club.”

“I don’t think I’m following.”

“In my case, my heart was literally broken and needed to be repaired. But yours was broken too, figuratively speaking, by your ex. They’re different situations, obviously, but somehow the remedy for both is pretty much the same thing. We both needed to give ourselves time to heal, and we definitely needed this self-care.”

“I thought self-care meant drinking enough water, and exercising, and eating balanced meals…”

“It can also mean being nice to ourselves, and maybe a little indulgent. Junk food, cuddling up with a cat and a fuzzy blanket, and binging trashy TV shows all definitely qualify as forms of self-care.”

I wanted to argue that I was over my breakup. It was ancient history, with a year separating me from the bomb Bruce had dropped onto my life.

Except… maybe Collie was right. Maybe I was still healing. And maybe this was helping, because right now I felt incredibly good.

13

Collie

I was pretty sure Miller had almost kissed me. We’d been standing face-to-face in the den the night before, and we’d had this… moment. He was looking at me, and I was looking at him, and then his gaze had shifted to my mouth.

That meant he’d been thinking about kissing me. Didn’t it? Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part…

I’d never know what might have happened, because I’d started to feel a bit unsteady as I stood there waiting for him to do something already. I’d swayed, just barely, but that was it. The bubble popped, and he carried me to bed—not so we could bone, but so I could rest. Talk about frustrating.

Okay, yes, I could have gone ahead and kissed him instead of waiting and hoping, but the ball was in his court. I’d had a crush on him since the day we met, so he had to know I’d be into it. At the same time though, he was shellshocked by his last breakup, and he claimed he didn’t want to get involved with anyone, ever again. If we were going to redefine our relationship, it had to come from him, on his terms, and at his pace. That was just the way it had to be.

And there was literally no way I could ask him about that moment in the den. What if I was wrong, and the thought of kissing me had never crossed his mind? I’d curl up and die of embarrassment.

I was contemplating all of this about an hour before Miller had to leave for his meeting. We were in the backyard, which had become our favorite hangout. He was answering emails on his laptop, and I was sneaking glances at him while pretending to read something on my phone.

When he looked up and caught me staring at him, I asked, “Are you nervous about your meeting?”

“A little, but I know I gave it my all, and I’m proud of what I produced. I’m going to try my best to sell them on it, but if it still misses the mark, then there’s not much I can do about that.”

“They’re going to love it. Your drawings are amazing, and you had so many great ideas. They’d have to be nuts not to see that.”

“But maybe they want apples, and I gave them oranges. Who knows?”

A few minutes later, my phone rang. Jeannie’s name was on the screen, so I answered with, “Hey chickie, what’s up?”

She yelled, “I’m in labor, and Brad’s out of town!”

That was so loud that Miller heard it, too. We both leapt to our feet, and I put the phone on speaker as I asked, “Where did he go?”

“To Seattle, for work. I called him and he’s on his way back, but it’s about a seven-hour drive.”

“That doesn’t make any sense! He’s an air conditioning repairman. Was there some kind of air conditioning crisis in Seattle, so it’s all hands on deck?”

“His boss sent him for training.”

“Now, when his wife is thirty-nine weeks pregnant?”

“My other babies were late, not early. I wasn’t due for another week.”

I asked, “Where are you right now?”

“On the way to the hospital.”

“Please tell me you’re not driving.”