Page 75 of Miss Understanding

During the rest of the afternoon, he didn’t mention it, and I didn’t bring it up.

Later that night while I worked the bar, I pictured them together. All dressed up. Drinking champagne. Her hand on his leg during dinner. Him laughing about something sophisticated and smart that she’d said in a lawyerly way I’d never master.

“Whoa, whoa. What are you thinking about while you’re mulling the mint?” Jose asked.

I was certainly putting a lot of aggression into making a mojito. “Sorry. Guess I have some contained rage.”

“Anything to do with the suit from last week?”

I gave my coworker a smile. “Good guess.” I’d even put a new entry in my secret document: I hoped he got food poisoning tonight and barfed all over Tabitha’s dress. Petty, yes. But then again, the high road wasn’t something I was capable of taking this evening.

At twelve thirty I stepped in back for my fifteen-minute bathroom break. I shouldn’t have looked at my phone. But I couldn’t help myself. No messages. What had I expected? Knowing I had to go back to the bar for another couple hours, I found myself typing a text to him.

“Are you home alone?”

The dots appeared instantly. “No.”

My breath left me. Of course he wasn’t alone. I immediately turned off my phone. I was officially a stupid girl. Wiping my stupid tears, I put my stupid phone back in my stupid pocket and left it there.

* * *

“You want to hit the diner for pancakes?” Chloe asked me on our way out to my car after our shifts.

We went out for breakfast from time to time, but right now, there was nothing more I wanted than to go home and to bed. “Nah. Not today if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. But are you okay?”

I gave her a small smile, not wanting to get into my stupidity over everything with Liam until tomorrow, when I could cry on her shoulder with a tub of ice cream within reach. “Yeah. Just tired. Sorry.”

“Um, Kendall?”

“Yes?” I glanced up from the ground to her face.

“Is that your boss?”

My head swiveled in the direction of her stare. Sure enough, there was Liam leaning against his Tesla in our employee parking lot, looking incredible in a tux.

“Yeah. It’s him.”

“I feel like there was a lot from last week you didn’t mention. What is he doing here?”

“I’m not sure.” Why was he here after he’d said he wasn’t home alone?

Chloe smiled. “Why don’t you go talk to him? I can wait for your text letting me know if you’re coming home with me or with him.”

“’Kay.” I was already closing the distance between us.

I cinched my long belted sweater over my waist, covering up my short black skirt and shiny, off-the-shoulder red top. Seeing him in his tux, I felt it was never more evident we lived in very different worlds. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer my text messages.”

“The one telling me you weren’t home alone. Yeah, I wonder why.”

His brows furrowed. “You didn’t see my other messages?”

“There was no need. You had a date with Tabitha. Then you said you weren’t home alone. I get it.”

He pushed off his car and stepped toward me. “I had a business engagement with Tabitha. And I answered your question with no, because I wasn’t home. Not because I was with her or anyone else. I then sent you a text asking if you wanted to come over. Then I asked if you wanted me to come to the club to meet you here. You didn’t answer either.”