Separation Anxiety (9 page)

For some reason, that thought sent a pang of
despair through my heart.

I fired up my laptop and typed some parent emails to
send the next day. I worked each task trying to forget about him, but my heart was sad as the thought of Jesse leaving me during our lunch together to go see another woman weighed heavy on my mind.

It was finally time to meet Quinn, and I found her sitting at a table with her iPad while she waited for me. I ordered a skinny caramel macchiato and sat across from my best friend a few minutes later with my drink.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, sipping her chai tea latte.

I sighed. “How do you always know?”

“It’s what best friends do. Well, that, and you look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. What’s going on?”

“I
don’t even know where to start.”

“Everything okay with you and Richard?”

I chuckled mirthlessly. Nothing would ever be okay between Richard and me again, but that wasn’t why I was upset. I shook my head, feeling the threat of tears behind my eyes.

“No?” she asked, placing her hand over mine across the table. “Veronica, talk to me.”

I stared down at the table, knowing that if I looked into the concerned eyes of my best friend, I’d lose it. “Richard and I are getting a divorce.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “What? What happened?”

I took a deep breath, held onto it for a moment, and then let it out with a whoosh. “Nothing happened, really. It’s not like one big thing happened and it was over. It’s been building toward this for a long time.”

“Jesus, Veronica. I had no idea. And here I am saying how best friends always know when something’
s up.” She shook her head. “I always thought you two were perfect together. What changed?”

“He has just become this person I don’t even know anymore. He’s condescending and controlling and manipulative and I
am just done with him.”

“When did you file?”

“I haven’t yet. I gave him the papers yesterday, but he’s refusing to sign them.”

“Fucking asshole.”

I nodded. “Completely. He told me that I’m stuck until he decides he’s ready to sign them.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’ll sign them.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ll fucking cut off his balls if he fucks with you.”

I chuckled, thankful to have such a loyal friend on my side. Leave it to Quinn to figure out the solution. I was briefly reminded that Jesse also had a solution that I never actually got to hear.

“I’m so sorry, Veronica,” she said, her eyes shining with sincerity.

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Sure I do. I introduced you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t make me marry him, Quinn,” I reminded her.

“Stay with me,” she said suddenly, her eyes lighting up.

No fucking way I was leaving Jesse’s now that I was there.

I realized for about the ten millionth time that I was flirting with disaster, but I didn’t care. I had to see how thi
ngs were going to play out with Jesse.

How was I going to tell her this one? Did I even want to tell her about Jesse? The answer was clear in my mind: fuck yes I wanted to tell her. I wanted to talk to somebody about it. I was dying to tell her – well, I was dying to tell
anyone
, really – about the “so goddamn beautiful that sometimes it hurts” comment. I knew I’d told myself it had been the wine talking, but he’d still said it. Even though he’d run off to see another woman, I could still convince myself that he meant those words when he said them to me.

“We’ll have so much fun together! We can gossip all night; we can carpool to work. It’s perf!”
She was still going on about me moving in with her when there was no chance of that happening.

I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble. I loved Quinn
to death, but the thought of sharing the same space with her for days on end was a little overwhelming; she was loud, she could be raunchy and irreverent and obnoxious, and from what she told me, she had a lot of sex. Sounded like an even bigger recipe for disaster than shacking up with Mr. Drake.

“I
actually left Richard yesterday morning. I’m staying with a friend,” I said, skirting the details.

“Who?” she pressed.

“Um,” I took a sip of my coffee followed by a deep breath. “Jesse Drake,” I said with a sigh. I didn’t even mean to sigh when I said his name. It just happened.

“What?!?!” she screeched. Like, literally screeched. Heads turned in our direction at her volume. “You’re living with Jesse fucking Drake?”

I shushed her. “I’m not ‘living’ with him. I’m just crashing at his place for awhile.”

“In his bed?” she
asked, her voice still a little louder than I would’ve preferred.

“In his guest bed. ‘Guest’ being the operative word.”

“Right. How long’s that gonna last?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, feeling my face heating up.

“You’re fucking blushing, Veronica! You want him!”

“Shh,” I whispered. “Take it down a notch, please.”

“Fine,” she said in a loud whisper. “You want to sleep with him. Don’t deny it.”

“I’m not sleeping with anybody until my divorce is finalized,” I said, my voice low.

“You didn’t deny it,” she said.

“Because there’s nothing to deny. He’s fucking gorgeous. Who wouldn’t want him? But I can’t just jump into his bed because I’m leaving my husband. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Oh, Veronica. So innocent and pious and prude. He invited you to stay in his house, a detail we will get to in a minute after I’ve convinced you to fuck him. My sweet friend, men do not ask women to ‘crash’ at their place without wanting more.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He doesn’t
like me like that.”

“Are you sure
?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I saw the way he was flirting with you at the bar on Friday. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, my friend. I think he likes you like that.”

I rolled my eyes, but
something inside of me hoped that she was right.

“Okay, so if you’re going to avoid that topi
c, at least tell me more about Dreamy Drake.”

I grinned. “He is pretty fucking dreamy,” I said.

“Shit, I was jealous that you got to ride in his truck, and now you’re living with him. Jesus, that body.” She sighed dreamily. “So what’s his house like?”

I giggled at her rambling.

“His house is beautiful. The outside is perfectly landscaped, like he really takes good care of it. And the kitchen…” I trailed off, closing my eyes in appreciation for that perfect dream of a kitchen.

“The kitchen?” she prodded.

“It’s like one of those kitchens you see in
Architectural Digest
or something. It’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about the kitchen,” she said, resting her elbow on the table and her chin on her palm. “I want the deets on his bedroom.”

“He’s got this gorgeous bed that somehow looks bigger than a king,” I started, and her grin widened. “What?” I asked.

“So you’ve seen his bed.”

“Oh my God, Quinn. Not like that. He gave me a tour of his house.”

She nodded and winked as I took a sip of my coffee. “Sure. Okay. So how many women do you think he’s fucked in that lucky bed?”

“None,” I answered immediately, and then I wanted to kick myself. His confession about his house just being for him seemed like the sort of thing that he probably wouldn’t want shared between friends, but it was too late.

“None?” she asked. “Yeah right.”

“He didn’t say much, but he sort of indicated that he goes where the fun is.”

“Interesting. Does Jesse Drake, bad boy extraordinaire, have a soft side?”

“It would appear so.”

“Yes it would.”

“Don’t forget the fact that he works with teenagers. He can’t be too bad a boy if he’s doing that.”

“I beg to differ. I’ve slept with my share of the male teachers around town, and they can be some very, very naughty boys.”

I giggled.

“Tell me more.”

I thought about telling her about the tattoo. Maybe she could shed some light on it. And I thought about telling her about the woodworking. But both of those things seemed private somehow, like he didn’t want people to know that side of him. I thought about all the times he’d grabbed a shirt when I caught him without one in just the past two days that I’d been staying with him. I thought about the dedication he had to that table he was working on in the garage. Those “deets” seemed like details of Jesse at home, not the Jesse we knew from work. And it wasn’t my place to tell Quinn about those things. If he wanted to reveal them to her, like he had to me, he would.

So I kept my mouth shut.

But I had to give her something. She’d stop at nothing to get it out of me.

“He likes to cook,” I said.

“Is he any good?”

I nodded. “
He makes this homemade salad dressing that’s just about the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“I’ll assume you haven’t tasted
him
yet from that comment.”

I glared at her.

“Has he cooked you anything else?”

“
We made dinner together last night.”

“Sounds romantic. Like a first date?”

“No. Like roommates cooking together. Although we kind of had a moment while we were beating some chicken.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

I giggled. “No. I was pounding out some chicken for chicken marsala, and he came up right behind me and grabbed my hand in his and showed me how to hit the chicken properly.”

“Jesus. I’m horny just thinking about that body right up against mine.”

“Right? Then his voice was all low and throaty and right against my ear. He backed off a second later, but I kept replaying that moment.”

She sighed.

“And then I got wine drunk and told him he was hot.”

“Fucking wine.”

“I know. I was mortified.”

She shrugged. “He has to know he’s gorgeous.”

“Doubt it. He’s so humble that I really don’t think he realizes how great he is.”

“Someone’s smitten.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Someone is. But he’s being a good friend and I’m not going to ruin that. Besides, I already told you, I can’t just hop to the next bed. I haven’t even filed my divorce paperwork yet.”

“Details, details. So how’d he react when you told him he was hot?”

I blushed. Damn red cheeks always gave me away.

“Spill it, sister. What happened?”

“Nothing.” I glanced away.

“Your tomato face says otherwise.”

“Fine. So I told him he was a catch. I told him he’s a good cook, he works with kids, and he’s hot as hell.”

“Hot as hell?”

“Shut up.”

“Accurate,” she
nodded, taking a sip of her tea.

I nodded. “Well, that turned into another moment.”

Her eyes widened. “Go on,” she said, dragging out the word “on.”

“
He told me that I was a catch, too, and then he said that I was beautiful.”

Quinn squealed. Literally.
Again. Her reaction was so high pitched that I’m pretty sure she woke a few sleeping dogs in the next town over.

“How’d he say it?
Exact words.”

“He said, and I quote, ‘You’re so goddamn beautiful that sometimes it hurts to look at you and know that I can’t have you.’”

Her eyes widened. “Holy hell that’s hot.”

“Tell me about it,” I said dreamily. And then I snapped back to reality. “But it had to just be the wine talking.”

“Only you would find a way to deny that he wants you after what you just told me he said.”

I shrugged. “He doesn’t want me, Quinn. We both know that he’s not the relationship type.”

“So what? Who says you need to get into a relationship? He said that it hurts to look at you and know he can’t have you. So what’s stopping him from having you now that you’ve left Richard?”

“Me, for one.”

“Why?”

I looked away. Why was certainly the question of the hour. “Because I just can’t.
I don’t feel right starting something with someone when I’m still married. And besides, there’s Carly and Allison.”

“Who the fuck are Carly and Allison?”

Shit. Me and my big fucking mouth.

I hadn’t meant to say anything about Allison, but there it was, out in the open.

“Carly is some girl that called him awhile ago and he ran out the door to see her. And I’m not sure who Allison is. I just know there’s an Allison.”