Curiosity seizes me, and I click on it, but there isn’t any info about the laser-eyed tabby. I toggle around his profile page for his relationship status.
Single.
I gulp, but then I remind myself he could be a single father. His status only proves he’s not with the mother of his child now. I click on a few more images, and quickly realization dawns on me. Against all my better judgment, I smile. I smirk. I grin. For some odd reason, I find myself ridiculously happy that I jumped to a big fat conclusion.
“She’s his cousin’s kid,” I admit softly, the smile tugging my lips higher. Why does this fact make my shoulders feel light? Make a butterfly or two try to flutter around inside me?
Penny claps. “Yes! That is great news!”
Nicole gives her the evil eye. “Why are you clapping? Because he didn’t impregnate someone?” She grips my shoulders protectively. “That doesn’t mean we can let our girl ride that ride again.”
I push aside that little flurry of happiness. Ignore it. Shove it back down. So what if he hangs out with his cousin’s kid? Doesn’t mean I should be all smiles and giggles. “That’s right. No rides will occur whatsoever,” I say, adopting a stern expression.
Penny stares at Nicole, and my two best friends volley like tennis players. Apparently, I’m the tennis ball. Or rather, my love life is. “Why is that such a bad thing to get together with an ex? I reconnected with Gabriel,” Penny says, since her fiancé is a man she met ten years ago then lost touch with until they reunited recently.
“Different,” Nicole says crisply. “You and Gabriel were star-crossed lovers, classic missed-connection style. You were destined to reconnect under the stars.” She turns to me and arches an eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Tyler the reason you didn’t go to law school? Something about a debate competition?”
The fresh, sharp memory of that last debate with him grapples me by the waist, yanking me to the ground. I’d made my choice shortly before then, but that competition was the nail in the coffin of law school for me.
“Not really.” I wave off this moot discussion. “Guys, I’m not getting together with Tyler. That’s not even in the cards. I simply wanted to know if he was single, a father, or something else. Now I know, and it all helps with closure. I’m not even thinking about him anymore.”
The waitress comes by and we order. When she leaves, I clasp my hands together resolutely. “Let’s do this. It’s time for me to start dating again.” If I’m ending this one-way thing my mind has had for Tyler, it’ll be far easier if I’m back in the saddle.
Nicole thrusts her arms in the air. “Victory! And I have someone to start with right away. This guy I work with. His name is Trevor, and he’s kind of a hottie, and he’s also quite smart,” she says, then rattles off a list of traits, pointing out that Trevor and I have a lot in common. Penny chimes in with a suggestion that I go out with her fiancé’s business partner, and soon enough my girls are deeply enmeshed in matchmaking games.
As they chat about my romantic fate, my phone buzzes, and I grab it. A Facebook message icon flashes on the screen. My heart beats faster, and it’s the oddest sensation. Like a wish against my better judgment.
I swipe and discover a message from him.
2
Tyler
* * *
When you went out with someone for a year, spent nearly every night with them, attended college hockey games together, grabbed late-night snacks at Josiah Carberry’s, watched reruns of CSI under the covers, pelted each other with snowballs on the quad, and then fucked her in the dorms, in the showers, behind the stacks, in your car, in a cab, in your buddy’s dorm, under the covers after CSI, in her roommate’s closet, and once in the history lecture hall when you snuck in after hours, you get to know someone.
And I don’t just mean physically. I don’t only know the roadmap of Delaney’s body. I know her. I know she loves her mom and her brother, fairy tales, and shoes, lilacs, and 90s hair bands, her nod to retro. Poison, Guns N’ Roses, and Aerosmith were her guilty pleasures. She used to joke about how she wanted to marry Axl Rose someday, especially since she loved his long hair. She’d say that as she ran a hand through my short hair.
I know that she never met a vegetable she didn’t fall in love with, that she liked to argue—thoughtfully—with our history and poli-sci professors, that she was terrified of getting in trouble and always tried to please people, and that was because her father was rarely happy with her, nor with her mother. Which is why the dickhead walked out on them when she and her little brother were teenagers. But she also believes in the power to change, that true friends are worth their weight in diamonds, and that you can do anything you put your mind to.
There’s something else I know about her, too. I once rocked her world.
Look, I’m not being cocky, just honest. We were the night sky and the stars, loud thunder and crackling lightning, a Stratocaster and a kickass amp.
Seeing her earlier today sparked all those memories, sent them rocketing back to the surface in seconds.
That’s why when I drop Carly at her home a little later that morning, I give my niece a quick hug good-bye, and as she runs off to play with her mom and their dog, I make a beeline for the door. I need to track down Delaney and set the record straight. I don’t want her to think something about me, us, or the way we split that’s untrue.