Page 17 of Claiming What Is Mine

Chapter Nine

Meredith

It’s not a date.

We’re just two people (who, okay granted, may have recently slept together) getting together to return a lost phone…while getting a bite to eat and talking. I know. It kind of sounds like a date. But it can’t be a date. Not if I spend the entire time explaining to Gabe all the ways we’re wrong for each other. Besides, it’s not like he’s picking me up and taking me someplace luxurious. We’re meeting at Belle’s. For lunch. It won’t even be dark out. Pull yourself together, girl.

Why am I trying so hard to convince myself it’s not a date? I know how I feel. It’s plain as day.

I don’t have feelings for Gabe Wilde.

Well, not anymore.

I don’t have feelings for Gabe Wilde. Anymore.

Well, I mean, I still care about him as a person.

Okay, I don’t have those kinds of feelings for Gabe Wilde. Anymore.

But the other night, after all those things he confided?

I put my mascara down and take a good look in the mirror. Eye to eye. “NO. You stop that. You stop that right now,” I say to the middle-aged woman staring at me through the glass. “You are thirty-five years old, and have just begun to pick up the pieces of your life. This is not an opportunity to relive what could have been. Gabe Wilde and his antics, don’t factor anywhere in this equation.” I nod my head in agreement and then worry if talking to oneself is a sign of dementia, or early onset Alzheimer’s, or something, before I shove my lip balm into my purse and head downstairs.

My head bops in time with the radio on the drive to the diner, focusing a little too much on the music, or the scenery, or anything really, as long as it doesn’t have to do with Gabe. Every time I catch myself thinking about him or the thought of seeing him again, my stomach flutters with butterflies.

After parking in the lot adjacent to the diner, I fold the visor down for a final once-over in the vanity mirror and try again to reassure myself. This isn’t a date.

Is it?

So much for reassurance. The butterflies in my stomach take flight, which has my hands shaking as I slam the door and cross the parking lot.

Three bells strung above the entrance ring as the door brushes past, prompting the woman behind the counter to look up from her task and offer a warm smile. “Welcome to Belle’s. Sit anywhere you like.” I’m questioning whether it’s too late to stop and run away, but then I see Gabe. He sits in a booth at the back, biting at his nail while he stares out the window. If that isn’t enough, there’s a bouquet of flowers on the table in front of him, which instantly melts my heart. There’s no way I can bear the thought of standing him up. Gabe turns his attention to the commotion, the uncertainty on his face fading as his eyes light up. He scoots from the booth as I approach, grabbing the flowers as he stands.

“Hey, you.” He extends the bouquet. “It’s a little cheesy, I know, but these are for you.”

“Gabe. You shouldn’t have.” I accept the flowers and skootch into my seat, temporarily forgetting all about how this is not a date. We pull menus from the wire rack containing the salt and pepper shakers. “I haven’t eaten here in…I don’t even know how long.”

“I doubt much has changed, regardless. You know how change works in a small town.” Gabe briefly scans the options and sets the menu down on the table.

“You know what you’re getting?”

“Yep,” he says confidently.

“Do tell—maybe I’ll have the same.”

Gabe chuckles. “I don’t know, it might be a little unorthodox for you.”

I sit back in my seat. “What could you possibly order for lunch, here of all places—” I motion around the diner “—that would be so out of character for me?” Before he can answer, the woman with the sweet smile walks up to the table with a notepad in her hand.

“How are you all doing today? My name is Mollie and I’ll be your waitress. Can I start you off with something to drink?” she asks in a soft, but well-rehearsed way.

“I’m good with water.” I look over the menu, hopeful to find something that appeals to me, quickly.

Mollie turns to Gabe. “And for you? Oh, hon. Your eye. Is that from the wedding?”

Gabe’s cheeks flush with embarrassment. “You saw that, huh?”

“I did,” Mollie answers. “You poor thing. You tried to do the right thing, putting yourself between your brothers like that, and look what it got you.”

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