Page 2 of Tell Me Something True

Goddamn her.

Gone was the girl he’d known. The girl he’d been in love with.

It wasn’t just that she’d changed—after a fucking decade, he expected no less.

And it wasn’t the physical changes he could so clearly see that pissed him off.

It was because this new version of Tabitha Ewings—if Ewings was still her last name—was a stranger.

And it was going to replace the image of her he’d held in his head all these years.

The image he’d learned to live with when he’d had to learn to live without her.

With a smirk, he lifted his gaze to hers so she could see his disdain. Trying to enact some petty revenge in the hopes of making himself feel like he had the upper hand in this situation. But it was a mistake because she smiled. Wide and warm, bright and genuine.

As if she really was glad to see him.

And she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.

Some primal part inside of him roared to life, like a wild animal sensing its mate. Adrenalin raced through him, had his muscles tensing, ready to give chase. His fingers curled, ready to grab what was meant to be his.

To conquer.

To claim.

Except he’d felt those things before. The same sense of certainty. Of completeness. Like two puzzle pieces locking into place.

Like they were meant to be together.

But it’d been a lie.

“I asked what you’re doing here,” he reminded her.

Her smile wobbled. Dimmed.

But then she shored it up again, amping up the sunniness by a few thousand degrees, about blinding him in the process. “I’m joining an old friend for a drink.”

He frowned. Glanced around. There was a middle-aged white couple seated at a table near the hallway leading to the bathrooms, a younger Black woman and white man occupying the table by the front window, and a trio of white, twenty-something guys at the pool table flirting with Hayden Stabinski, the bartender, while she delivered their drinks.

Slow night at The Cockeyed Chameleon.

Exactly why Miles was here instead of at Binge, his brother Toby’s restaurant downtown.

And while he searched the bar for whoever Tabitha could possibly know in Mount Laurel that qualified as an old friend, she lifted her ass onto the stool next to him.

“Is that what you think we are?” he asked while she set her purse on the bar. “Old friends?”

Facing him, she tipped her head to the side. “Can you think of a better description?”

When she looked at him with her big blue eyes and innocent expression, it was easy to forget it was all an act.

It was that angelic face of hers. The vulnerability in her eyes she couldn’t quite hide. They made it easy to believe she was a wounded bird that needed to be cared for. Protected.

Too easy to believe every word she said.

“We used to fuck,” he said, the words quiet. Brutal.

“Careful,” she chided lightly, the insult of his words rolling off her. “Your sentimental side is showing.”

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