Page 39 of A Man After Midnight

Chapter Fourteen

“What’cha up to this weekend?” Aldy asked, the smacking of her lips coming through loud and clear on the phone.

Caroline had spent the past ten minutes of their phone call pulling the receiver away from her ear. “Will you stop eating? Or at least eat quietly.”

“Oh, sorry.” After some rustling, Aldy’s voice came in clear. “I put the chips away. Better?”

“Much. My eardrum isn’t vibrating harshly anymore with the sound of your mastication.”

“Masticate on this.” Aldy’s voice dripped with snark through the phone line.

“Bite me.”

“You wish.”

They laughed. Caroline missed her friend a lot. She decided she was going to have to fly out and see her soon.

“So,” Aldy said. “Again I ask, whatcha up to this weekend?”

“Going to celebrate Grant’s birthday in NOLA.”

“Grant––your pharmacist?”

“Yes. Remember? I went on a date with him last weekend.”

“Ah … yeah. So, just the two of you?”

“Nah, it’s a party at a place called The Red Room. It’s a bluesy-jazzy bar in the French Quarter.”

“Cool. So have you gotten over Wren?”

Caroline hesitated. She would have given anything to be able to say ‘yes’. But she couldn’t lie, especially to Aldy.

“No,” she said. “I have to figure out how to get over Wren before I jump back into dating.”

“All right,” Aldy said. “I’m here if you need me.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“We should go on vacation together again. Maybe we can find a hurricane in the Caribbean to put the knife incident to shame.”

“I was all in favor of a vacation together until you mentioned the knife.”

“Sorry. Too soon?”

“Yep.”

Still love me?”

“For now.”

****

Caroline watched the people around her dancing, laughing, and having a great time as they celebrated Grant’s birthday. She smiled when she needed to, talked and toasted when someone came over to say hi. But all the while her heart was heavy amongst the crowd.

She glanced down at her watch. Half past midnight. She wondered if now would be an acceptable time to give her regards and head home. She had long ago passed the time when this had lost its fun appeal. She simply wanted to go home and go to bed.

Stupid Murphy’s Law … she’d run from any type of emotional setting for so long that now when she was open to falling in love again, her heart was already taken. She wondered how the hell she could get over this damn stupid heartache.

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