I used to send Lindsey flowers every other week to let her know I was thinking about her—then again, I did that because I worked so much and would go days without much more than a few texts to remind her that she still had a boyfriend. The last time had been a congratulatory bouquet to her new office. Needless to say, it felt weird to be buying flowers for someone else.
The phone rang, and I abandoned my keyboard to answer. While talking, I quickly finished my flower order and paid extra for a speedy delivery and then turned my attention back to the phone. Thanks to Nellie, I’d perfected the art of multitasking.
By two in the afternoon, the flowers had been delivered and a happy Emily had pranced home for the day. All was forgiven, but the main attraction of the day still lay before me—dinner with Bridge. I went back and forth between feeling anxious and happy. It was a mixed bag of emotions, and I couldn’t put my finger on how I truly felt.
I threw myself into work and tried not to think about the impending meetup, but it was nearly impossible. I managed to make it through most of my inbox and signed nearly everything requiring my attention before I checked my watch for the twelfth time in ten minutes. It was only five thirty. It only took five minutes, if that, to walk to the place, but I couldn’t make myself wait any longer. I had to leave now. I set all the completed signature files on Emily’s desk to deal with on Monday and then gathered my things to leave.
The entire walk to Round Up, I tried not to anticipate what would happen. I tried to study the people around me or slow down enough to window shop, but I failed miserably. I quickly found myself in front of the pub and took a deep breath before stepping inside.
My eyes instantly found Bridge at a corner table located in the back. She studied the drink menu and, as if she felt my gaze, looked up. Her eyebrows knitted together, and her mouth hung half open in bewilderment. Did she not think I’d show? Or maybe my prompt arrival threw her off?
Her confusion made my steps falter. I mean, I didn’t expect her to jump up from the table and throw herself into my arms or anything; that shit only happened in movies. But I figured she’d at least greet me with a smile—even if it was small—not confusion.
“Hi. Did you order drinks yet?” I sat down across from her and realized her mouth still gaped, her face seemingly frozen in time. “Is something wrong?”
“I—I just wasn’t expecting you.” Her voice was quiet and laced with tension; it made me want to bolt.
“I don’t understand. I received a text from you…” There was obviously some big mistake. I fought the urge to show her the text to prove I’d received it.
“But I didn’t.” She shook her head, her brows still knitted together. She took her cell out and studied it for a minute. “Is your number…” When she rattled it off, I knew instantly it was mine.
“Yeah, that’s me.”
“But it’s listed as Nellie’s.” As if to prove her point, she handed me her cell and, indeed, my number was listed under my sister’s name.
“Huh.” I had no earthly idea as to why or how that had happened. And then I remembered something. “You mentioned that you just got your phone back. Did you get it fixed or something?”
“I actually got a new one, but it took forever because I had to send it off to the insurance carrier and then wait until I received one back.”
“Well, the same thing happened to a buddy of mine a couple years back. He had to get a new one, too. And when he downloaded his contact information, all the names and numbers got jumbled. It was a mess.”
“Are you serious?” Bridge’s wide eyes and arched brows made me laugh.
“Completely.”
“That’s insane. In this day and age? They can’t figure out something that simple?”
“Guess not.” I shrugged. “What happened to your phone anyway? Why’d you have to get a new one”
She rolled her eyes with a hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “When you texted me about how I had made something hard”—the sparkle in her eye nearly made it hard again—“Nellie tried to see who I was talking to, and to keep us from arguing, one of our other friends took my cell and dropped it into a cup of water. Don’t ask. So really, if you think about it, it’s all your fault.”
Feeling like a dick, I sat with the unopened menu in front of me. I’d resigned myself to the fact that she’d probably ask me to leave and quickly call Nellie to meet her instead. I fought the disappointment that slowly began to creep in.
“Well, since we’re both here, we might as well eat something. Right?” She giggled and then opened her menu again. “I seriously can’t believe this. Maybe it’s fate or something that we have dinner tonight.”
“It does seem surreal.” This evening just might turn around after all.
“So, what did your friend do? To get the contact information corrected. Please don’t tell me I have to go one by one and correct them all. That will take me forever! Not to mention, it will be nearly impossible since I have none of them memorized.”
“He just set it back to the factory settings and then started all over again. Thankfully, everything downloaded correctly the second time. It made for some funny stories, though. Because his mom got texts meant for his girlfriend and so on. We still tease him about it.”
After the waitress took our order, the air around us seemed more relaxed.
“I’m sorry that I showed up instead of my sister. I can call her quickly and ask her to join us if you want.” I only offered that to make her feel better, but I secretly wanted her to say no so that I could have her all to myself.
“Nah, she probably already has plans. I’ve been talking to her back and forth all week using other people’s phones, so she knows I’m not MIA. She just doesn’t know I got mine back. But I’ll text her when I get home and fill her in on what happened. She’ll probably think it’s hilarious. That girl seems to find the humor in everything.”
A trait I didn’t possess, and to be honest, I had no idea where she’d inherited it from. Certainly not either of our parents—they wouldn’t know humor if it smacked them in the face. For me, I found irony much funnier than jokes, but not my sister. Just about anything could amuse that girl. And now that I thought about it, I remembered Bridge had always been the same.
“To be honest with you, I thought you were ignoring me all week because of my texts Monday night.” I wanted to add that there was no way she would’ve avoided me after our rendezvous in my parents’ back yard on Sunday, but I figured that might’ve taken things too far.
She broke out into laughter, shaking her head. “I’ll admit…they took me by surprise.”
“I just want you to know that I was only teasing.”
Her high cheekbones tinged pink, and her smile fell slightly, turning into more of a shy grin than the curve of laughter from before. “I know. I guess I wasn’t expecting it. I’m still really embarrassed about what happened.”
“Don’t be.” I reached across the table and covered her hand with mine. “I mean it, Bridge, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You had a lot of wine that night, and it wasn’t like I’d done anything to stop it from happening. Everything’s fine, okay?”
She shrugged and turned her attention to her lap. “I really don’t want anything to change.”
“Good, because neither do I. Nothing has to change. We have so many ties between us with my family. Even though you aren’t close to my parents, they still care about you. And it seems like most of our childhood memories are interwoven. One make-out session won’t change that.” One very hot, intense, wet-dream worthy make-out session.
“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” She lifted her gaze and offered a small smile. “I’m really glad you’re here, though. I’ve been dying to know what all has happened with Heather, but I didn’t really have a way to find out. Not to mention, I wasn’t sure how things would be between us, and without a phone of my own, I was nervous to reach out.”
Heather had been the furthest thing
from my mind all week, but I couldn’t exactly tell her that. How was I supposed to explain that I hadn’t been able to think about anything other than her lips or the feel of her body pressed against mine? Or that her silence all week had driven me batshit crazy?
“Well, since I hadn’t heard from you, I wasn’t sure if the plan was still on, so I haven’t done anything about it. I was waiting to talk to you first.” Yeah, that made sense. Totally believable. She wouldn't question it at all.
The waitress dropped off our drinks and a basket of chips, causing Brooke to pull her hand from mine. And after a quick sip of her soda—it was not lost on me that she hadn’t ordered an alcoholic beverage—she cleared her throat and leveled me with a stare. “Oh, it’s still on. Like Donkey Kong.”
I practically spit out my beer, not at all expecting that to have come from her. “Can I ask you why you are so adamant about keeping this plan going? I get that he hurt you, but what are you wanting to gain from this?” I silently prayed she wasn’t about to tell me she wanted him back.
Her pink tongue slipped out and slowly ran along her bottom lip while she peered over my shoulder in thought. It was such a small gesture, but it was hot all hell. “I guess I just want him to know what it feels like.”
“Which I totally get, but why’s it so important to ensure that happens?”
“He stole my entire future from me, Corbin. He needs to know that, and no matter what I say to him, he’ll never get it until it happens to him. He’ll never understand how it feels until he falls in love with someone, plans to spend the rest of his life with her, makes her his whole world like I had done with him, and then loses her to someone else.”
I mulled that over in my head for a moment; I could see her point, though that didn’t mean I was suddenly on board with it. “So what is it you hope will happen? Like, how would this play out if everything went the way you wanted it to?”
“I hope she makes him happier than he ever thought possible, flips his life upside down, becomes so ingrained in his existence that he doesn’t know where he ends and she begins. I hope he goes broke buying her a diamond ring, gets down on one knee, plans the entire thing out to a T. And then I hope she cheats on him…like he cheated on me.”
The conviction in her voice felt like a punch in the gut. This Chase guy really did a number on her, and while I’d already known that he had hurt her, I would’ve never guessed she was as broken as she was. It made my heart hurt. And it made me want to do everything in my power to make it right—just not the way she wanted. I agreed that her ex shouldn’t get a happy ending after what he’d done to her, but right now, my concern was making sure she got her happily ever after. That she got over the hurt he’d caused. All without recreating the same devastation for him.
Getting revenge on him might’ve been her goal, but it wasn’t mine. My goal, as of this very second, was to make her see that he had done her a favor by letting her go. There were so many men out there who could make her happy, treat her right, never hurt her the way Chase had, and all I wanted was to help her see that.
Too bad that guy would never be me.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t show her what she was worth.
“How was work today?” I decided a complete change of subject was in order, because no matter what I said, I’d end up pushing her away. And no matter how temporary I knew this thing between us was, I wasn’t ready to close the book on it yet.
I also knew if I got her talking about her work—a very safe topic—she’d talk for hours without a problem. I didn’t knock her for that, because I could listen just as long. The way her face lit up as she discussed students intoxicated me.
Hell, everything about her intoxicated me.
I was so fucked.
Chapter 8
Brooke
This evening had not turned out as planned. But sometimes, those were the best kinds of experiences—once you learned to let go and allow things to happen.
I was not the type of girl who “let go” easily. I’d learned to roll with it better than I used to, though; life lessons will do that to you. If someone would’ve told me that Corbin Fields would show up tonight instead of Nellie, I would’ve laughed in their face. Yet here I sat with Corbin across from me. Not Nellie.
Life had a weird way of showing you who was boss.
I definitely didn’t have control of what happened in my life, and things like this continually came up to remind me of that fact.
When Corbin had asked about my work, I inwardly did a happy dance. Whenever I spoke of my students or my job, he didn’t have to fake interest. He truly cared. Or he was one hell of an actor—which I highly doubted.
“Today was unexpected. I guess this evening speaks volumes of how many surprises were in store for me.” I’d already told him the story of Mady dropping my phone in my glass of water. He thought that it hysterical. I still didn’t, but I loved the girl. She’d been there many more times than a stupid phone could count.
“Luck of the draw, I guess.” He held up his glass and chuckled when I overly clanked it with mine. It had become sort of a thing between us since our first meet-up for drinks. Not that I kept track of these types of things or anything.
We’d just finished eating and were taking the last sips of our drinks. I had successfully won the fight and paid for dinner, considering he’d covered the last two…again, not that I was counting.
“Ready to go?”
I wasn’t, but I couldn’t tell him that. I’d had so much fun hanging out with him that I wasn’t ready for the night to end. But it was a Friday after all, and there was a good chance he had plans—by himself, most likely, but plans were plans, no matter how many people they involved.
However, rather than say anything, I nodded, grabbed my coat, and pulled my purse over my shoulder.
“What movie should we watch?” His question caught me off guard and made me pause.
I stood on the sidewalk, just outside the front door of the pub, and stared at him in confusion. I had to have misunderstood him, but the way he regarded me, a devious smirk brightening his blue eyes, told me otherwise.
“Did you change your mind already?” he asked, his head cocked to the side.
“When did we decide to watch a movie?”
Corbin huffed dramatically, reminding me of his sister—it didn’t happen often, but when it did, it took me by surprise—and said, “While we were eating. We had an entire conversation about what we were doing after we ate.”
I would’ve definitely remembered that, although it seemed he had a way of making me feel like I’d lost my mind. Last weekend had been a prime example of that. “Oh, yeah. I recall that now. But if my memory serves me correctly, we agreed you’d pick the movie.”
Two can play this game.
“Funny, I don’t think that’s how the conversation went.”
“You wouldn’t, because we never made plans for after dinner. But good try, buddy.” I wagged my brows and fell in step next to him along the sidewalk. “Although, now that we have made plans, you get to pick the movie.”
He hummed to himself while glancing off into the distance, as if he had to put a lot of thought into which title to choose. “Well, romantic comedies are out. And so is anything with graphic sex scenes. We don’t want to tempt ourselves or anything.” He winked at me, and I found myself giggling. He was funny, even though I’d never admit that to him.
“That pretty much leaves us with nothing, so I guess I’ll see you later,” I teased.
“Have you seen Aquaman yet?”
I stopped abruptly and waited for him to look my way. With a scowl, I said, “Ew, no. I’m a Marvel fan through and through.” I curled my lip in disgust. “Pick one of the Avengers, and I’ll agree to watch a movie with you. Anything else, and you can watch it by yourself.”
He blinked at me, a mixture of shock and awe covering his face. “You’re a Marvel girl?”
“Is there any other way to be?”
“Be still my beating heart!” He grabbed my had and practically ran down the sidewalk to a tall building two blocks down. The animation that colored his every move had me laughing the entire way.
From the moment we left Round Up until we made our way off the elevator at his condo, we took turns rattling off Marvel trivia . I couldn’t tell if my vast knowledge impressed him, or if he was just happy to finally have someone to talk superheroes with. Either way, I’d enjoyed every second of it. It was funny because it was the only interest Nellie and I didn’t have in common. She hated all things comic book with a passion.
“Did you know there’s a new untitled Marvel movie coming out?” I asked him, still excited over the news. “It’s featuring Black Widow.”
“Yup. I can’t wait to see it. With my work schedule, I don’t have a chance to visit the theatre very often. Are you already reserving me so we can go together?”
“No, Corbin.” I laughed, hoping he couldn’t see through my lie. In reality, the thought of seeing it with him on opening day filled me with giddiness. “Did you know that Captain Marvel was planned out from the beginning? Like back to the very first Avengers movie, but not a lot of people remember it even being mentioned.”
“I don’t remember that!” Corbin admitted as he unlocked his front door. He lived in a high-rise on the twenty-second floor, and his number was two twenty-two. I found it oddly amusing.
“Was this a coincidence?” I pointed to the numbers on the front of his door.
“Actually, no. Two is my favorite number. When I was looking to buy a place, this building hadn’t been finished yet, so they were selling the units at a lower price—some pre-built special that a lot of new places offer. I think it’s to fill them up so the developer isn’t stuck with a bunch of empty condos. Anyway, there were only a few left, this being one of them. I picked it based on the numbers, sight unseen. It could’ve been a shithole and I still would’ve bought it simply because of all the twos. You have no idea how excited I was to find out it wasn’t the size of a shoebox.”
The unEXpected Plan Page 8