He breaks the kiss. “I wanted to kiss you all night.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, that key thing was just an excuse. Sometimes you just have to hit the button a few times to get the car to open.”
I laugh. “So you said that to kiss me?”
He nods. “Totally.”
“I’m glad you tricked me,” I whisper, as he bends his head and kisses my neck, blazing a trail of sweet and sexy kisses down to my throat, and it’s almost sensory overload the way he ignites me. Forget tingles, forget goosebumps. That’s kid stuff compared to this. My body is a comet with Chris. I am a shooting star with the way he kisses me. I don’t even know if I have bones in my body anymore. I don’t know how I’m standing. I could melt under the sweet heat of his lips that are now tracing a line down my chest to the very top of my breasts as he tugs gently at my shirt, giving himself room to leave one more brush of his lips. Before he stops.
He looks at me and the expression on his face is one of pride and lust. He knows he’s turned me inside out and all the way on.
“That was so unfair of me,” he says with a wicked grin. “Getting a headstart like that on all the other candidates.”
How can there be any other guys after a kiss like that? It’s a kiss to end all kisses, it’s a sip of lemonade in a hammock on a warm summer day. It’s a slow dance on hardwood floors while a fan goes round overhead, curtains blowing gently in the open window.
If he feels half as much for me as I do for him, then I want to sail away with him in the moonlight, and that scares the hell out of me. I have to extract myself before I let this go any further. I don’t mean the contact. I mean the way my aching, broken heart is reaching for Chris.
Chapter One
Four weeks ago…
I used to have sucky parking karma, the kind where every single time I needed a spot, and especially if I was racing to a lunch meeting, the only one I could locate would be in the next county, and in some cases, the next time zone.
Then one year ago, a miracle occurred. No, my ex-boyfriend didn’t fall back in love with me and announce it was all a joke when he eloped with some chick in Vegas at his bachelor party the night before our wedding. But another miracle transpired. Since then I have never failed to land a parking spot on the same block as my destination. I am quite sure this is the universe’s way of making up for precisely how he said sayonara – via voicemail mere hours before I was about to walk down the aisle.
And because of this awesome, amazing, powerful parking karma I no longer worry that I’ll drive around scouting out a spot in the city of San Francisco, even though time in this city can truly be measured by the quest for a parking spot.
One less thing to stress about is a good thing in my book, so I give my gorgeous dog, Ms. Pac-Man, a kiss on the snout as I grab my purse from the entryway table. She wags her flag-sized, blond fluffy tail and places a big paw on my leg, her way of saying goodbye. She’s a good dog, she’s well-trained, and she’s also particularly well-mannered when I leave her home alone in the Victorian she and I share just a few blocks from San Francisco Bay. She spends the entire time I’m gone snoozing on her Pac-Man decorated dog bed. I know this because I once set up my phone camera to verify what I suspected – that she was indeed a perfect canine.
“I’d tell you to be good, but I know you will,” I say, as I scratch her ears. She leans her soft head into my hand, and I smile as I pet her. Sometimes, I think this dog is the only reason I’ve smiled at all in the last year. Not much has made me happy, but yet here she is, ably filling that role as only a dog can.
Then I’m off to another solo Sunday breakfast, heading down the stairs, to the garage, into the car, and onto the street, driving past a local grocery store, where bag boys fill canvas sacks with organic chickens, locally-grown asparagus and all-natural, wheat-free cereals, then a membership-only nail salon that I don’t go to. Because I do my own nails, in alternating colors, and today I am wearing mint green and purple.
I turn the radio up louder, and even though I should listen to angry girl rock given how my heart’s been in a sling for the last year, I can’t bring myself to like that kind of music. Because deep down I am still the old standards I love. So I sing along to the music – Frank Sinatra’s I’ve Got You Under My Skin – as I motor up steep hills that burn legs while walking, then down a rollercoaster-y dip on my way into Hayes Valley. The station shifts to the King, another favorite of this retro-loving girl, and he’s now crooning Can’t Help Falling in Love.
My favorite song ever.
The song Todd didn’t want to be our wedding song since he’d insisted on Have I Told You Lately That I Love You, the perfect tune since that’s how he felt about me, he claimed.
A red Honda scoots out of the prime spot right in front of the restaurant. As I glide my orange Mini Cooper into the space, I mouth a silent thank you to the parking gods. Don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful for the way they look out for me and reward me with perfect little nooks for my car, but I have other daydreams too.
Yet those ones seem so far out of reach.
Mainly, I’d like to find a guy who’s not a weasel. The kind of fella who doesn’t ring you up from Sin City to call the whole thing off the day before you’re supposed to slip into a gorgeous white dress with that perfect ‘50s flair you were looking for.
“Listen, I’ve had a change of heart,” Todd said on his voice mail because I was on another call with the cake shop. It would have been a perfect wedding. We had what I thought was a perfect life. Cramped but cozy apartment in the Mission, my business was taking off like crazy and he’d helped launch it, we’d even picked out names for kids we might have some day – Charlotte for a girl and Hunter for a boy.
Then he had an epiphany at a poker table in Vegas when he met a gymnast he married instead.
The day before our wedding.
“I don’t really see myself having kids with you, or a life with you, so let’s nip this thing in the bud,” he said in his phone message.
So yeah. That kind of sucked.
But as I listen to this song, I find myself longing for something more in my life. For someone to join me for breakfast at my favorite diner in the city. Maybe a sweet kiss, a nice goodnight make-out session, and maybe some love too, the kind of love that lasts, always and forever, without leaving you in the lurch, I admit silently, as Elvis croons about taking my hand, and my whole heart too.
Why do I do this? Why do I listen to this music that tortures me? I thought my almost-hubs and I were meant to be, and I was wrong, but yet as The King sings about falling in love, I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that wouldn’t mind falling in love again.
The kind where you can’t help it.
The kind that takes your breath away.
The kind that’s meant to be.
I know, I know. It’s like asking for the moon, so I’ll stop my silly daydreaming.
But, hey, at least right now I have a coveted parking spot.
I snatch my purse with its saucy cartoon of a pirate girl winking ironed on to the side and head into The Best Doughnut Shop in the City. It’s not really a doughnut shop. It used to be a doughnut shop and then the owner converted it into a diner with green upholstered vinyl seats. It’s my absolute favorite diner in the whole city and it feels a bit like my special place.
I tell the hostess I’m a party of one, and look, I’m not going to lie – it still hurts to ask for that solo table, even though Todd never once, in all our five years together, came with me to this diner. He said he didn’t care for cheap, hole-in-the-wall eateries. Snob.
But even when I came here all by myself for Sunday breakfast, at least I was still part of a two-some, even if the other someone was sleeping in. Now, it’s just me. Party of one.
I keep my chin up, as the hostess guides me to a two-top, one of the last remaining ones. The place is packed. See Todd? You don’t know what you were missing. This cheap diner knows how to bring it in th
e breakfast department.
I sit down and smooth out my flouncy knee-length poodle skirt. Even if I’m all by my lonesome, I still like to dress up. Fashion is like a shield to me. The clothes I wear center me, make me strong and steely with their distinctive style.
I order my usual – scrambled eggs, toast and a Diet Coke. Yep, I’m one of those people who drinks soda in the mornings. I’m sure I should kick the habit for many reasons, including the fact that Todd was my Diet Coke partner in crime, and we both downed the carbonated beverage morning, noon and night. But I refuse to let the memory of what we shared ruin my favorite drink.
One minute later the waitress brings me a glass that’s fizzing just the right amount. I thank her and take a drink, then reach for my laptop from my bag. I might as well work on my fashion blog as I wait for the food. As I flip open the laptop, the waitress guides a gorgeous young blond over to the two-top next to me. I scan her outfit first. The gal is wearing sparkling white running shoes with a pink swirly stripe, black workout pants and a color-coordinated pink and black form-fitting, snug workout top. There’s something about her face though that’s eerily familiar. Like I’ve seen her somewhere, but I can’t place it.
She flashes me a warm smile that shows off perfect teeth.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hey.”
“This placed is jammed today.”
“It’s like this every Sunday. The food is amazing.”
“I’ve heard great things about it. I’m so excited to finally try it.”
Okay, maybe I won’t need the laptop. Maybe this gal and I will chat for the next thirty minutes, seeing as she’s mighty friendly. I wouldn’t mind the company, to tell the truth. It beats eating over a keyboard. “You will not be disappointed. Everything’s good.”
“My husband said he’s been wanting to go to this place for the longest time. He’s just out parking the car,” she says and tips her forehead to the door.
I half expected her to say her dad was going to join her because she looks like a teenager. But maybe she was a teenage bride. “Well, both of you will love it then. I’m a total regular. A devotee, as they say,” I add in a silly little affected accent that makes her laugh.
“What do you recommend?”
“Anything. Except for hard-boiled eggs, because they’re totally gross.”
“Oh god, yes. They’re so gross. Like the most disgusting food ever.”
I lean closer and say in a conspiratorial whisper. “My ex used to love them. I couldn’t even be in the house when he ate hard-boiled eggs.”
“You want to hear something funny? My husband used to love them too. But I laid down the law. No hard-boiled eggs ever in my house. I cured him of his hard-boiled egg addiction like that.” She snaps her fingers.
I hold up a hand to high five her. “You deserve major points for that.”
“Oh, look. There he is,” she says, and when I turn to follow her gaze, it’s as if I’ve just had a pair of cleats jammed into my belly, and I don’t even play softball. But I bet this is what it feels like when the batter slides into home and you’re the catcher who’s not wearing a chest protector.
Blindsided.
Because she’s looking at Todd.
The diner is shrinking. The walls are closing in, gripping me. I can’t breathe. This has to be a mistake. An error. She has to be joking. I have to be seeing things. There is no way her husband can be Todd. There must be another man behind him, maybe a short man I can’t see. A pipsqueak little fellow right behind Todd, who’s walking over to her table. But there’s no mini man hiding behind him. It’s just him, and he freezes when he sees me, then quickly recovers, taking the seat across from his wife.
Wife.
It’s as if there’s a knife in my heart, digging for all the soft spots and scooping them out. Serving them up on the table for the two of them. The girl-child I’ve been chatting with, my new fucking breakfast best friend, is the college-age creature from Vegas who stole my about-to-be-husband.
I’ve never seen her in person before. I have only seen one photo I found of her on Facebook the day after his voicemail, as I sobbed and clicked, surrounded by unopened wedding gifts sent to our apartment. Now I feel stupid for not studying her photos more, for not hunting out more pictures of her online. I stopped after that one – a faraway shot of her at a gymnastics meet since, of course, she’s a gymnast – because it hurt far too much. But now with her here in front of me, I catalogue her features. Her cheeks are red and rosy, her skin is soft and smooth, her hair is natural blonde and sleek, and her boobs remind me of Salma Hayek’s.
They’re so freaking huge.
Fine, I’m only six years older, but I have dark hair, and weird eyes that are sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes gray, and my breasts are decent, but not dead ringers for cantaloupes. I’m only twenty-seven and I know it sucks to be left at any age. But the fact that he left me for a co-ed – giving himself a trophy wife for all intents and purposes – didn’t help my self-esteem. I’d been with him for five years; she’d been with him for one night, and she got him all the way to the altar. I got stuck with two mixers I never use, and party-of-one as my middle name.
“Hi McKenna,” Todd says in his best business-like voice.
“Oh….” It’s like a long, slow release of air from Amber, as her mouth drops open, and she shifts her gaze from him to me, registering who she’s been chatting with.
She recovers faster than me though, because I’m still speechless and stuck in this chair, sitting next to Amber. She is the name of all my heartbreak, of all the ways I fell short. Amber is the name that drummed through my brain for the better part of the last twelve months, like an insistent hum in the pipes you can’t turn off. Amber, Amber, Amber. The woman he wanted. The woman he chose. I will never hear that name without thinking of all that she has that I don’t. The man I once wanted to marry.
“You know, why don’t we just get a new table?” she says to Todd.
He scans the restaurant. This is the last empty table. “There’s no place else to sit,” he says, and it’s clear he has no intention of leaving.
What’s also clear is that he’s the only of us – him and me – who doesn’t care that he ran into his ex-fiancé. That realization smacks me hard, but it reminds me that I need to pull myself together and channel whatever reserves of steely coolness I have in me.
“It’s fine. I’m almost done anyway,” I manage to say even though my food hasn’t arrived.
“So how’s everything going with you?” he asks as he reaches for a menu and scans it. He doesn’t even look at me while he’s talking. It’s not because he’s rude. It’s because I am nothing to him. There’s a stinging feeling in the back of my eyes. I tighten my jaw. I won’t let them see me cry.
“Great. The blog is great. The dog is great. Life is great,” I say, pretending I am a robot, an unfeeling robot who can spit out platitudes. I have to. I have to protect my heart because it feels like it’s being filleted. “I see you like this place now?”
“I love it. Favorite diner in the whole city.”
My throat catches, and I grit my teeth. “That’s great. And such great news about the hard-boiled eggs too.”
He gives me a curious look.
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I affix a plastic smile when the waitress brings me my food. She turns to Todd and Amber. They order as I slide my laptop into my bag, and consider ditching the place right now. Who needs food when there are ex-fiancés and their new wives to remind you of all that was stolen from you?
“And I’ll have a coffee too. No more soda in the morning for me,” he adds before the waitress leaves.
The burning behind my eyes intensifies. It’s just coffee, I tell myself. But he used to hate coffee. He detested it, and now he’s drinking it instead of Diet Coke.
He turns his attention back to Amber. “But no coffee for you still,” he says to her in a babyish voice. She smiles at Todd, who could be Amber’s b
ig brother with his matching blond hair and blue eyes. He lays a hand gently on one of hers. I try my hardest to mask the all-too familiar feeling of my insides being shred by him. God, I loved this man. I was a fool, but I loved him like crazy, I fell for him the day I met him randomly at a bus stop several years ago. He was mine, and he was wonderful, and he was the only one I wanted.
“Well, it was great seeing you,” I say, and start to push my chair away.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yeah. I totally forgot that I ate a bagel already today. Stupid me,” I say and smack my forehead, as if I’m shocked at my own forgetfulness.
“I do that sometimes too,” Amber says. “Forget stuff. I think it’s because I have baby brain right now.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh,” she says, and there it is again. That long expression of surprise.
Todd nods several times. “We had a baby. Two weeks ago.”
My heart races into a very painful overdrive of disbelief as it pounds against my chest. This can’t be happening. Todd clasps his hand over Amber’s and she beams at him, and that smile, for her, just for her, threatens my precarious sense of I’m-totally-fine-with-being-ditched-the-day-before-our-wedding.
“We have a little blond, baby girl. Her name is Charlotte.”
The diner starts spinning and I grab the edge of the table. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping, praying that’ll do the trick and hold in the tears that are threatening to splash all over my face right now. He changed everything for her, all the way from children to breakfast choices. And he took everything from me, including our name for a baby he wound up having a year after leaving me a voicemail that said he didn’t want to marry me because he couldn’t picture having kids with me.
Rock With Me Page 27