Page 7 of Moments in Ink

I couldn’t.

“Well, I am the fifth wheel here,” Aaron said after a moment.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m only saying, between these two making googly eyes at each other, and you and Zia acting like peacocks trying to figure out exactly what you feel towards one another, I’m totally the fifth wheel.”

“She’s my neighbor. Your friend. That’s it.”

“I don’t know,” Bristol said softly. “She never looked at me the way she looks at you.”

“You two used to date?” I asked, wondering why I was surprised.

“Yes, but we were better suited as friends. And I just want her happy.”

I didn’t know if there was a warning in that or not, but it didn’t matter.

“Not happening,” I said.

“I don’t know,” Aaron began. “I think I’m going to be singed by looking at the two of you by the end of the night. And while Ethan might be fond of having two loves of his life, I’m not getting in the middle of that.”

Marcus and Bristol snorted, and I shook my head. “Not that you’d ever be invited, Montgomery,” I said, doing my best version of a haughty tone.

The three of them burst out laughing as Zia came back, confusion on her face.

“What did I miss?”

“Aaron being put in his place,” Marcus said, shaking his head.

Thankfully, Zia didn’t ask exactly how that had happened. We went back to our drinks, all of us keenly aware of what we weren’t saying.

But it didn’t matter. I did not have a thing for Zia. She might be hot, might be exactly my type, but I wasn’t looking.

Once we’d finished our drinks, we each paid and headed our separate ways, Aaron and me promising to see each other again, and me being nice to the others.

It was good to find new people to speak with, to stop shutting myself in my house like a hermit. But I was ready to go home and do exactly that.

I pulled into my driveway at nearly the same time as Zia did in hers and tilted my chin at the other woman.

She walked towards me along the stone path between our houses, the connections between them so stark that it sometimes seemed odd that the two homes had been sold separately when so many things seemed to be shared between them.

“Hey there,” Zia said.

“Hi,” I said.

“I have your coat. I can get it to you.”

“Um, maybe tomorrow. I need to go in. Headache,” I lied.

She seemed to understand that I was lying. But I didn’t care. I didn’t know what to make of her, and I needed to get my thoughts in order first.

It was hard to do that with her standing right there looking sexy as hell.

“Sorry for how we met. It’s a funny story, but I can be a little out there, so I apologize if I embarrassed you.”

I shook my head, confused. “You didn’t embarrass me at all. I’m just glad that you made it inside your house, and you have good friends that could help you. There were a lot of connections tonight. I guess it confused me.”

“Yeah, me, too.” She licked her lips, and my gaze went straight to her mouth. I didn’t think either of us had meant for it to happen.

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