Page 8 of My Heart Before You

He exhaled tightly. “We’ll see.”

“Since you’re new in town I could always—”

“No,” he interrupted. “No setups. And if I ever come to dinner and there’s a fifth person at that table, I’ll stop coming all together.”

The last thing he needed right now was to feel pressured into playing nice when he was barely holding it together during his working hours; something that used to come easily to him.

Max backed off, offering his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. No setups. I promise.”

Kate silently tiptoed into the room, bringing a glowing baby monitor in one hand, and waving a bottle of wine in the other. “Fire outside and I’ll open another bottle?”

“Great idea, love.” Max planted a kiss on her forehead.

Grateful for the distraction, Colin grabbed three wine glasses and raised them to his hostess. “Lead the way.”

?Chapter 3?

Pushing her knuckles against the condo door while holding the large mesh laundry bag in her arms, Emilie attempted a knock. A few seconds later, the door pulled back and the scent of fresh flowers tumbled out to greet her. With her cell phone to her ear and a look of apology, Ash retreated to her bedroom leaving Emilie in the foyer.

Stepping farther down the hall, the fragrance of roses and lilies intensified. She stopped at the hall closet to empty her dirty clothes into the bottom part of the stacked washer/dryer and tried not to eavesdrop. Even though she’d been washing her clothes here for months after Ash found out she was going to a laundromat and insisted, she didn’t want to impose more than she already was.

“Sorry about that,” Ash huffed into the hall.

As she pushed the start button, she registered her friend’s tight expression and downturned lips. “Want to talk about it?”

An exasperated sigh escaped over the sound of the washer’s large metal drum whirring within its small domain. Ash strode to the tiny table beside the front door and grabbed keys and a wristlet from the bright mandala painted clay bowl. “I’m going to need a milkshake to get through that.”

After a brisk walk, they arrived at the popular 1950s themed diner in the middle of the lunch rush. Standing next to her tall friend while they waited outside for a table, Emilie felt short, even though she was taller than average at five seven. Ash’s knuckles were white around the electronic buzzer as she shook it and finally started talking about what was bothering her.

“Ethan ditched me tonight. I can’t believe he’s doing thisagain. It’s the third time this month. Of course, he’ll send a huge bouquet of flowers and apologize for it tomorrow. Like that helps. My condo already looks like a funeral home.”

The explanation for the oppressive odor in the hall clicked in her mind as she said, “I’m sorry, Ash.”

Her friend paced back and forth on the sidewalk. “Sometimes, I think there’s something wrong with me. I always go after these guys who are complete jerks. He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was at a bar. A woman was purring his name in the background. It’s noon on a Friday! Who does he think he is?”

In the short time they’d been friends, she’d witnessed Ash date a few different guys and she definitely had a type—dysfunctional men that looked nice on the outside and held respectable jobs, but were rotten on the inside.

“I know I’m the one making these bad choices, but I just can’t help myself sometimes. I’m like a moth to a flame.” The buzzer went off in her hand, so they headed inside to the hostess stand.

Her friend had the expression in reverse. Ash attracted the wrong kind of guy like a brightly burning fire because having a heart as golden as her hair, she would do anything for another person. The jerks she dated saw and took advantage of this. Emilie told her friend as such, but only received a weak shrug as they were led to their table.

Ash’s forced exhale could be heard over the bouncy beat of “Runaround Sue” as she plopped into a red vinyl chair. “I’m getting too old for this. For this type of guy, though to give myself credit, Ethan’s a step up from the truly dangerous bad boys I used to date.” A groan preceded her head flopping over the Formica table. “I’m turning twenty-eight in two months.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but Ash’s raised face interrupted her. “Twenty-eight! I’m closer to thirty than twenty, and I’ve never even had a long-term relationship that wasn’t a complete disaster. I don’t even think I’d know what real love looked like if it bit me in the—”

A freckled faced nineteen-year-old appeared at the end of the table with a “Welcome to Bo’s.”

Her pink poodle skirt, cinched over a plain white T-shirt, swished as she walked away with their order a moment later.

“Have you ever been in love?” Ash’s words slapped her in the face.

Air quickly drew into her lungs as her brain rushed to decide the best way to answer that question without revealing too much.

“Yes,” she said, as the line of her spine tightened.

“Well . . .” Ash beckoned. “What’s it like? How do you know if someone loves you?”

Pressure built between her brows, but she kept her voice steady as she answered, “It’s the little things. It’s not the grand gestures or showy proclamations, like flowers, but the mundane everyday things that a person does for you.”

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