Page 152 of Failure to Match

My shoulders went rigid when I felt his presence grow behind me. How was he even walking?

Miray’s mossy green eyes slid to my right and up, up, up. Her long, curved lashes fluttered for a moment before her heart-shaped face split into another grin.

And, just like that, I was invisible.

“You must be Jackson,” she purred. He shook her hand and a small, bitter part of me hoped he was too drunk to notice how devastatingly beautiful she was.

“And you must be Miray.”

He remembered her name.

My stomach twisted as I watched them. Two gorgeous, successful people, who’d make a gorgeous, successful couple, and go on to produce more gorgeous, successful humans. Everything was as it should be.

I was going to be sick.

“Shall we?”

Jackson said it. His voice was slightly huskier than usual, his words slightly more slurred, but he was coherent. I’d never seen someone sober up so fast. He must’ve really wanted to go through with this date.

Miray’s attention reluctantly moved back to me. “So how does this work? Will you be joining us for dinner?”

My smile faltered, embarrassment prickling at my ears. “I’ll blend into the background,” I assured her quietly. “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

I was given a small, two-person booth in the back corner of the restaurant. It had a full view of almost every table, but all I could see was them.

I didn’t know what sins I’d committed in a previous life to deserve this level of torture, but they must have been bad. With a shaky finger, I tapped my phone to life again. Another eight minutes to go before I could run to the bar.

Or just run, period.

He was going to marry her. I could see it in the way they were leaning into each other, the way they chatted and laughed. She’d had her hand resting on his arm for the last four minutes and he’d done nothing to move it away.

He’d confessed to being drunk as we’d made our way to our separate tables, and instead of being put off by it, Miray had laughed it off. And judging by the way she was smiling at him, she was also charmed by his everything else.

Seven minutes left.

Miray threw her head back with laughter at something Jackson said, and he rubbed sheepishly at his chin, chuckling along with her.

“Would you like anything else to drink?”

I hadn’t even heard the waiter approach.

Without looking away from Jackson, without even thinking, I said, “Gin. Neat.”

The drink was placed in front of me less than two minutes later, and I downed it, cringing against the overwhelming burn. My tongue tingled, then went numb.

Burn was good. Numb was good. They were distracting.

Four minutes.

I gestured at the waiter, silently ordering another. It wasn’t until I’d shot back the second drink that I noticed Jackson staring. My pulse tripped when I caught his gaze, my lips parting. It’d been so long since he looked at me—reallylooked at me. So long since he’d talked to me, laughed with me.

I missed him.

I missed him so much that this tiny morsel of his attention made my chest squeeze. Except… what was he doing? Why was he looking at me like that?

He wasn’t laughing anymore. His brows were pulling into a sad frown, his throat was working with one rough swallow after another, and his fingers were curling into fists.

I tried my best to offer him a small, reassuring smile, but it was unsteady and unconvincing.

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