“Because I fear he'll never let me go.”

“Aren't you divorced? You already got away.”

“Tell that to the psycho who crashed my date tonight.”

Touché.

“It’s annoying because if he’d shown me this much attention during our marriage, I would’ve never left. But the problem was he showed this much attention to people who weren’t me.”

I arched an eyebrow. “He cheated on you?”

“And cheated and cheated and…cheated.”

I grimaced. “I know what that’s like.”

Her eyes softened as she looked at me. “You too?”

“Yup.”

“Is that why you’re so hard?”

“You think I’m hard, Goldie?”

“Like a diamond.”

I shrugged. “It’s one of the reasons.”

“How many reasons do you have?”

“More than I could count.”

She frowned and somehow seeing her sad made it hard for me to take my next breath. “I’m sorry that life has hardened you, Alex.”

“It’s okay.”

“No,” she disagreed. “It’s not.”

She was right. It wasn’t. Still, it was my reality.

She paused her steps and tilted her head to study me. “What was her name?”

“Her name?”

“The one who cheated.”

I hesitated for a moment as I moved forward with my steps. She floated with me as her arm was still looped with mine. “You’re too tipsy for this conversation.”

“I’ll sober up for it,” she replied.

“Why do you care?”

“Because Tatiana is convinced you and me are supposed to be friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yup. During my third glass of sangria, she came over and told me that you want to be my friend.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Is that so?”