Page 82 of Just for Tonight

She waits and I fill the silence.

“Is this a habit of yours? Phoning people up and interrogating them on random weeknights?”

“No.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “But you’re special.”

Mmm. I like the sound of that. It’s a guilty pleasure. “How so?”

She pauses for a beat. “You listen.”

Ah. I don’t know what to say. I officially have a warm-fuzzy, perhaps my first ever, and I don’t know what to do with that either.

“How’ve you been?” I ask instead of answering her leading question.

“Fine.”

“Time for the harvest yet?”

“Not quite. The grapes need to ripen a little more.” There’s silence between us for a long minute, then Mackenzie clears her throat. “I’ve been in Victoria visiting my mom.”

Ah. “I expect it was nice there.”

“Well, yes and no. Come on, Jake, enough small talk. Tell me about her.”

I could bluff my way out of this, but I don’t want to. There’s a reason Mackenzie is asking, and of all the people in all the world, she’s one person I trust with the truth.

“Chelsea,” I say, like it’s a confession. “Her name was Chelsea. She was the younger sister of one of my roommates from university. Well, she probably still is.” Mackenzie gives a breath of laughter. “We dated for a while.”

“Go on and tell me how many days.”

“A hundred and seven, although we didn’t see each other every one of those days.”

“That’s almost four months.”

“Yes. Fifteen weekends.”

“But you broke up, despite a promising early run,” she guesses, correctly. “Why?”

Again, I’m tempted to stonewall her, because it’s not pertinent to anything – but then, maybe it is. Mackenzie called and she called for a reason. Just because I don’t know what that reason is, doesn’t mean I should shut her down.

I’m glad she called and I should show it.

“It looked like a perfect fit. We had a lot in common. She’s an accountant. I’m a financial advisor. We were a good age to choose to be a couple.”

“Biological clocks.” She says this like it’s a hanging offense, so I leave it alone.

“And just general mating habits. Everyone I know seemed to get married between thirty and thirty-five. Although, of course, some of them are divorced now.”

“And you looked good together.”

“Yes. We did. Chelsea dressed well, always perfectly turned out. Pretty. Charming. Great laugh. Better than that, she was smart.” As I remember all of this, I’m wondering whether I was right to break up with her. “Probably still is. She loved to plan everything. She was organized. She had contingency plans for her contingency plans, which was impressive and thorough.”

“Maybe too organized?”

“Maybe. She sent me a spreadsheet every Friday afternoon on the dot of three, a schedule of all activities for our weekend ahead.”

Mackenzie chuckles, a throaty sound that sends fire right through me. “No.”

“Yes. Each cell was thirty minutes. She even scheduled sex. I knew what time to have it up.”