I felt every single word slash through me.
I loved Rita. And, thanks to a bottle of tequila on Lucas’s fourth birthday, she and Greg knew all about my situation. But my affections for her didn’t stop the familiar resentment from roaring to life within me.
It happened when people tried to sympathize with me, comparing whatever sucky situation was plaguing their lives at the moment to the utter devastation that had destroyed mine. Sure, they were usually well meaning, but the words felt like a low blow, trivializing everything I’d experienced. Even coming from someone as kind as Rita, it felt like an insult.
She was losing her husband. I’m sure her heart was breaking, but it was still beating. It hadn’t been ripped from her chest. Hope wouldn’t become her greatest enemy, nor would guilt be her only company. Her days might be gray, but they wouldn’t be midnight, every sunrise darker than the last. She had no comparison to the hell that was my life. I hated that Greg had turned out to be such a dick. It had pained me for her when the truth had come out.
But it wasn’t the end for her.
One day, she’d get over him and start her life again. She’d smile and laugh and realize that it had all been for the best. She’d find someone better and start a family, thanking her lucky stars that he’d let her go so she could bask in the sunlight of her new life.
Meanwhile, I’d still be frozen in time, holding my breath for a future that would never come.
Unless…I could figure out how to change.
Swallowing hard, I faked a smile and tried to keep the cyclone of pain hidden.
“Enough heavy for one day,” I urged quietly.
“Yes. Yes. You’re right.” She sniffled and swiped under her eyes, though no tears had escaped. “Go on. Get out of here and have some fun.”
Like that’s going to happen.
Lifting my tickets, I pointedly shook my them at her and made my escape.
“Oh, wait, Char!” she called.
Reapplying my mask, I turned back to face her. “What’s up?”
“Do me a favor and take this over to the guy at the grill?” She thrust an empty pickle jar in my direction. “He needs a way to collect the tickets for lunch.” She smiled—like, huge.
So huge that I went on alert. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” she said innocently, but that fucking smile stretched even wider.
I swirled my finger in the air to indicate her face. “Like that.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
Swear to God.
Her.
Smile.
Grew.
Suspiciously, I glanced over my shoulder at a large, white tent positioned next to a grill with a pluming cloud of smoke floating out of it. There was a tall man with unruly, blond hair sticking out in all directions. The cause was clear as he fisted the top of it in frustration. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a white apron that had large, black handprints smudged across the front. His mouth moved a mile a minute as he scraped whatever he was massacring into a cardboard box at his feet.
Rita pressed the jar into my hand. “You should go talk to him.”
I should have gone and rescued what I feared was going to be lunch from its fiery death. Instead, I continued watching him with curiosity as he slapped another round of raw burgers down, sparks shooting up around them.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Go ask him.” She nudged my shoulder.
Understanding dawned on me and I swung my gaze to her. “Are you trying to set me up with that guy?”
“Dear God, no.” She slapped a hand over her heart. “I’m about to reenter the dating world for the first time in eight years. I can’t afford to risk that you’ll praying-mantis a hot one like that.” She shoved me forward. “Stop being so damn suspicious. He looks like he could use some help, and I’m smart enough to know that you’re about to find somewhere to hide for the next hour until you can leave. So do us all a favor and do it”—she pointed a perfectly French manicured nail at the man—“over there.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but she had been pretty much spot-on, so I quickly closed it.
“Go make sure there will be edible food to serve people and then you have my full permission to leave in two hours.”
“One hour,” I countered.
“One and a half.”
“One hour, Rita. I need to get up to the hospital.” Totally the truth. Mr. Clark was raising hell, and the nurses had been blowing my phone up while waiting for a discharge order.
“One hour and fifteen minutes,” she bargained.
I extended a hand toward her. “One hour and I’ll pay to keep the baseball team until five.”
Her eyebrows shot up and her hand landed in mine so fast that I almost laughed.
“Deal.”
* * *
“Son of a…” I trailed off before I had the chance to scandalize the ears of any children nearby. “Sorry, Porter. I can’t make it. Angie needs me. You at least know how to grill, right?” I mocked my brother’s voice while scraping another burnt burger off the fire and into the hidden bin at my feet, where at least ten others were in similar condition.
No. The answer was no. I didn’t know how to grill—at least, not effectively. I must have missed that day in Manliness 101. But did I tell Tanner that? Fuck no. My brother was a jackass. He’d bailed on me only fifteen minutes before we were supposed to start because the woman he had been dating for approximately seven seconds needed him for moral support because her dog had died. I was a dog lover as much as the next guy, but come on. He’d known how much I was depending on him.
Then, in another show of astounding maturity, he’d hung up on me and turned his phone off.
I plopped another hand-molded patty on the grill. Using the long, metal spatula, I pointed at it and ordered in a low voice, “Don’t fucking burn.”
It was safe to say that I was seriously stressing out. Burning over a hundred burgers was hardly going to carry me into the good graces of the ageist Dr. Mills. But, just that morning, I’d held Travis as he’d struggled through yet another worthless breathing treatment. Something had to give.
Turning my attention away from the sizzling grill, I scanned the crowd. Children ran rampant through the grassy park, weaving between games and refreshment stands. That should have been Travis. Instead, he was at home with my parents, laid up in bed, too sick to even attend school anymore. His immune system was shot, and I’d been forced to make the decision to pull Hannah from the daycare she loved to keep her from bringing germs home to her brother. She would have loved that damn Spring Fling too.
Strings of uncaught cotton candy floated in the air while the sporadic grinding of the snow cone machine interrupted the sound of Disney classics playing on a loudspeaker. A circle of little girls was letting it go when movement to my right caught my attention.
A woman ducked under the ropes partitioning the grilling area off, and her long, black hair whipped into her face as the wind curled around her.
“Hi,” she said, her voice almost robotic.
As she fought to get the hair out of her face, I took the moment to rake my gaze over her thin frame. She was cute, understated, in a pair of dark jeans and an oversized hoodie that hugged her about as well as a lawn and leaf bag, and not even a hint of makeup covered her olive complexion. She reminded me of a girl I might see cozied up in one of the overstuffed chairs at a coffee shop in the middle of August, desperately pretending it was December: sweatshirt wrapped around her, eyes aimed down at a book, plump lips sipping a steaming-hot chocolate while the hot sun blazed in from the window behind her.
Intriguing enough for you to notice.
Closed off enough to keep you from approaching.
Beautiful enough to keep you thinking about her for days after.
“Um…hi,” she repeated awkwardly when I continued to silently stare at her. “Pickle jar?”
I blinked and traced my gaze down her delicate arm to her hand. Sure enough, she was offering me an empty pickle jar, complete with a green top, a narrow slit carved out of the center.
“It’s a ticket-holder thingy. Rita told me you’d need one.”