Figuring it Out by Shawn Lane

Author:Shawn Lane [Lane, Shawn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Published: 2013-03-03T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

It was a couple of months after working at the diner with Hank when I saw Joe’s ex. I’d given up my job at the auto insurance company and had enrolled in some business courses as Hank had suggested, but most of my days and some of my nights were spent at the diner learning what it was like to be a business owner. I hadn’t been on a date for longer than I could remember. Not even a one-night hook up. I was exhausted most days and just fell into bed.

So when I went out to my car for my jacket during a lull in the afternoon crowd, I looked twice at the blond hottie who was heading toward the doors of the diner. There was something vaguely familiar about him but I couldn’t really place him.

He stopped and frowned at me. “You still work here?”

I frowned. “Do I know you?”

“Avery, right?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “Joe’s boyfriend, Jeff. Or I was. I guess you are now.”

I blinked and stared, shook my head. “Joe and me? No way.”

Jeff’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? You aren’t with Joe?”

“Why would I be?” I hugged myself, feeling the fall chill in the air.

He snorted. “You’re the reason Joe and I broke up.”

“What? No. Joe said you told him you weren’t ready to play house.”

“Well, that was part of it, yeah,” Jeff admitted. “But I might have tried harder if it wasn’t for you.”

“Me? I don’t get it. Joe and I didn’t have anything going.” Not then anyway.

Jeff stared at me. His expression told me I was an idiot or pathetic. Or a pathetic idiot. “He never stopped talking about you. It’s always been you, Avery. He’s been hung up on you since high school.”

I shook my head in denial. “No. It’s not true.”

“It is true,” he insisted. “No one was as good as Avery. Certainly not me. I figured he’d finally get together with you after we broke up.”

And we had. Sort of. But I’d thought it was a rebound thing. Now that I thought about it, though, I’d done most of the talking when it was over. Joe hadn’t had much to say. He hadn’t tried to stop me either.

“Said something about tired of waiting around for his dreams to come true when they never would.” Hank’s words of a couple of months earlier came to mind and I wondered if there was some deeper meaning I had been missing all this time. But I couldn’t have missed Joe being interested in me, could I?

Our kisses. I had thought they were fueled by my own desperation, but maybe it had been more mutual than I had ever guessed.

“I don’t even know where Joe is,” I said. “He moved away.”

Jeff shook his head, clearly bemused. “Okay. Well, I guess, sorry, man. I shouldn’t have said anything. Well, I’m meeting someone inside. See you, Avery.”

He went inside the diner and I stood there feeling like some kind of fool.

****

“This is weird,” I told Mom as she straightened my bow tie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.