Page 5 of The Bachelor

“Eight years.”

He choked, coughing into his hand, and putting his mug onto the linoleum table with a hard bang. “Holy shit, that’s a long time.”

“Too long,” she said with no small amount of regret. “What a total waste of time.” All that time waiting… for what? Nothing, apparently. Tonight was not the culmination of eight years of dating ending in an engagement and wonderful hotel-room sex, which was what she had been planning and expecting. No. It was just…nothing. A giant why-the-hell-had-she-bothered? What had she invested in? Hopes and dreams, clearly not reality. The realization drew a shaky sigh out of her.

“If you say what a waste of the best years of your life, I’m going to call bullshit. You have plenty of great years ahead of you to do the relationship thing,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to say the best years of my life, no.” They hadn’t been. They’d been content years, but also years of anticipating. She’d been stuck in a holding pattern, waiting for the future. For her real life to begin.

He studied her until she shifted uncomfortably. What was he thinking?

“How old are you?” he asked finally.

“Twenty-four.”

“Oh. I would have thought you were younger.” He seemed both surprised and relieved.

Great, just what every grown woman wants to hear. That she was so obviously immature her actual age was shocking. “I’m not. I guess I’ve been sheltered though.”

“So with the same guy since you were sixteen, huh?” He looked intrigued by the thought. “I’ve never been with anyone for eight years. I can’t even imagine it, actually.”

He was looking at her like she had achieved the unachievable. Like it was an Olympic record for dating or something. Clearly not a man who sought a commitment. “I take it you’re not married or anything then?”

“No. Happily single. I’m too…selfish to be in a serious relationship.” He actually shook his head to emphasize his point.

That seemed like a pat response. She didn’t know anything about him, but what she did know was that he had interrupted his night to help her, so he wasn’t entirely selfish. He’d offered her money for a cab. She had his cell phone sitting next to her. Maybe it was all an elaborate con to kidnap her, but that seemed a little farfetched.

She let his comment sit and instead asked him about the bachelor party. “Is it your friend getting married or a relative?”

“My sister. It works for them, but I’m not sure it’s my destiny. Too many beautiful girls to settle down with just one.” He gave her a smile and a shrug. It wasn’t a lecherous or bragging smile. It was a self-deprecating one. Like he didn’t understand exactly how he ticked, but he had accepted it.

Or maybe like he was hiding the truth from himself, and everyone else around him.

If he weren’t so sheepish, it would sound frankly unappealing. So playboy. Avery wasn’t sure if it was the truth or just what he liked to believe. Either way, it had nothing to do with her. She wasn’t the kind of girl a man like Shane would be interested in. She was the perennial friend, the guy’s girl, the little sister sidekick. That had been her mistake with Ben. He had felt all of those things for her, and she had mistaken youthful affection for love. And she had been wrong. So very wrong.

“At least you’re honest about it.” That was what chapped her ass the most. Ben didn’t want to be with her, so what? She could live with that. But he had made a job out of lying to her. Telling her they needed to stay pure until marriage, even when she’d been so crazy aroused, she would have done it in broad daylight in the middle of the street if he had given her the green light. She had been wanting to satisfy those increasing urges for at least four years and he had shamed her into thinking she was wrong for wanting it. Yet all the while he had been screwing around on her.

Her cheeks burned with renewed anger. It was a double betrayal. It made him just about the shittiest human being she had encountered in her life and she had spent eight years with him? Good Lord. Where was the Do Over button when you needed it?

“I’m sorry about your boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry I was a fool,” she said. She could feel the initial shock and grief again being consumed by the flames of rage. She took a sip of her coffee to stop herself before she went into a rant about liars, and lamented all those nights she could have had an orgasm and hadn’t in a diatribe to a complete stranger.

Ben had been so convincing, and for years she had wanted to be respectful of their relationship. Everyone in town knew her mama had been wild in her youth and Avery hated the way they had talked about her, not to mention the way they teased Avery herself as a grade school kid for being gangly and awkward, more into horses than sleepovers. She had wanted to somehow prove to them that her mother had raised a woman who wasn’t impulsive, who thought about the future. She had also yearned for the security of marriage and forever because she knew how hard it had been for her mother to be a single parent. All of which seemed decidedly less important now at twenty-four—but at sixteen years old, had been everything to her. Once the ball had started rolling with Ben, the years had ticked by.

Now here she was, finally in Nashville, her whole life behind her like a big giant joke, abandoned by the person she thought she loved. She had trusted Ben to be the one person from home who would back her, and yet, that was exactly the opposite of what he had done, made a total mockery out of her feelings for him. It hurt like hell and her stomach twisted in knots anew. She was stagnant, behind the dime in the game of life, a very twitchy virgin. Even this attractive stranger sitting across from her thought she looked like a kid.

“It’s not foolish to trust someone you love,” Shane said. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

Did she even love Ben? She wasn’t sure anymore. He was just…familiar. It had been Avery and Ben, since forever. The options in Rock Creek hadn’t been that plentiful. She and Ben had gotten along, and they had seemed a good fit. The move to Nashville had been exciting, the culmination of years of dreaming and planning, and she had felt like once here, she would truly start living. In her mind, tonight had been about them cementing that future.

Talk about best-laid plans and all that shit. She couldn’t help but want to laugh at how horrible and ridiculous and insulting it all was. It didn’t even feel real, sitting here, under the fluorescent lights, talking to a man who was so even and reasonable, unlike the way Ben had been the last year. Shane seemed steady, spoke maturely, much like she had imagined Ben would be as he grew up. But Ben hadn’t changed all that much in the years they had been together, and it seemed so damn obvious right now. He had stayed selfish and childish and patronizing. It was she who had changed, who strove to grow, leave the petulance of youth behind her.

It made her furious with herself, that she had chosen to ignore that truth about Ben. She’d known for a while, she had. But moving to Nashville felt impossible without him so she had turned a blind eye to her discontent and the red flags of his impatience and secrecy.

In retrospect, maybe she wasn’t as mature as she liked to think. But she was a work in progress. “How old did you think I was?” she asked, not sure she really wanted the answer.

“I don’t know.” Shane shrugged. “I knew you weren’t a kid but I didn’t think you were on the high side of twenty.”

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