Delaney scoffs. “That doesn’t sound obvious at all. Maybe she’s just flirty and he’s just friendly with people he works with.”
I huff, hardly wanting to admit she may be right. “Be that as it may, what would have been the point? He believed he didn’t know me. I didn’t need to open the old wound. I’ve done a pretty good job of putting what happened with him behind me. I’ve moved on. Lord knows I needed to.”
Her narrow-eyed look tells me she doesn’t believe me. “I don’t know if you’ve completely moved on. If you’d moved on, I think you’d have told him.” Her tone softens. “Just playing devil’s advocate.”
“It didn’t seem worth the time.”
“Then why did you say yes to dinner with him?”
I look away from her and watch the dogs play. The mastiff rolls onto his back, his front legs in the air. Shortcake paws his snout from that position. Mitch laughs loudly then returns to his phone.
“She’s so cute,” I say as I stare at my dog.
Delaney laughs loudly. “Oh my God, you still want him.”
I snap my gaze back at her. “Mitch?” I ask under my breath, casting my eyes toward the blond, bespectacled man. “We went on two dates and agreed we were better off as dog park friends.”
Mitch had asked me out a few months ago, and he’s lovely and funny and sweet, but we have very little in common besides dogs.
Delaney shakes her head. “No. I mean Gabriel. Obviously.”
“Please.”
“Why else would you want to go to dinner with him?”
“For work,” I say, insistently. Perhaps too insistently.
She nudges her shoulder into mine. “He’s still gorgeous, isn’t he?”
“No,” I say, denying the truth.
She shakes her head, her lips quirking up. “You so love bad boys.”
“You love bad boys,” I toss back.
She holds up her hands. “Never denied it.”
“Besides,” I huff, “I said yes because we have to plan the event.”
She nods, with skeptical eyes that say she doesn’t believe me. “You said yes to dinner because you want him to remember you. You want him to say he’s sorry. You want him to grovel.”
I heave a sigh. “Stop being a mind reader.”
She flashes me a smile. “One of my many talents. But I have a serious question for you. Did you not admit it was you because of him…or because of Gavin?”
My nose crinkles at the mention of my ex. “Let’s not speak of the cad.”
“The cad you almost married. Thank God you dodged that bullet.”
I shoot her a withering stare. “I did not almost marry him.”
Delaney taps her forehead. “But you thought about it.” She shudders in horror. “I’m glad he showed his true colors. He deserves to be strung up by his—”
I cover her mouth with my hand. “Don’t say it. I don’t want to think of his parts in any context. It’ll just remind me what he did with them and where he put them.”
Gavin, a regular donor to Little Friends, was my last serious boyfriend. I was sure he was going to propose. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to say. I had loved him, but I wasn’t convinced that he was the one. And near the end, I’d had the sense that I wasn’t the only one at all for him. A pilot, he was one of those roguishly handsome captains who made women swoon. In New York. In Los Angeles. In Chicago. In Dallas. He had a lady in every port. When I learned about his out-of-the-cockpit escapades, he tried to grovel his way back into my heart but I kicked him out. I didn’t want to hear his excuses, so I sent his things to his work address and told him to “buckle up as it might be a bumpy landing.” I was tough and take-no-prisoners on the outside, but then I licked my wounds with Ben & Jerry’s, badass breakup tunes, long runs in the park, and lots of Purple Snow Globe cocktails with Delaney.
I sigh. “I would just like to find a man who’s like a dog. Someone who’s loyal.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the mastiff now cavorting with a German shepherd, chasing the brown and tan dog around the edge of the park. Meanwhile, Shortcake tugs on the ear of a basset hound. Delaney and I crack up in unison. “Or maybe not,” she says.
“But in all seriousness, I guess I just thought it would be easier by now,” I say, turning all philosophical for a moment. “Love, you know?” She nods, and I continue, “Back when I was twenty-one and I fell for Gabriel in Spain, it seemed like it had the potential to become something real. I was young and foolish, and it lasted only three days, so maybe that was my fault for wanting more. But it really hurt when he didn’t show up.” I raise my chin. “I’m a big girl. I moved on. I’ve had some good experiences and some bad experiences. I’m not complaining, but what I’d really like is to have just one amazing experience with someone that lasts a lifetime. Is that possible anymore in this day and age?”
Delaney shakes her head ruefully. “Don’t ask me. The things I hear from my clients all day long…”
In her job, Delaney is privy to all sorts of tales. She’s told me the wild stories her clients share as they relax under her magic touch, their loose tongues revealing sordid stories of affairs, trysts, ménages, online crushes, and late-night secret rendezvous. “Sometimes I think we’re better off single.”