Page 50 of Still the One

“Happy to see your face.” My heart’s pitter-pattering inside my chest and my palms are so clammy, I can barely hold on to my phone. I miss her, which I can admit to myself, but not to her. “Are you sure I wasn’t too forward on our last call?”

“I’m just going with the flow here, Mac. I have no expectations and I trust you will respect the boundaries I’ve set.”

You might have to reset those, I think, but definitely do not say out loud.

“Let me rephrase,” I say. “Part of me knows very well I was too forward, but it was just so good to talk to you. So much fun.”

“Can I ask you something?” Jamie runs a hand through her lustrous hair.

“Shoot.” I nestle into the pillows and try to relax.

“My upstairs neighbor, Miss Carol, who is also my landlady and friend—”

“Miss Carol of the delicious home-cooked meals delivered to your door?”

“Yes, her. What would you say if, um, I told you she wants to invite me to dinner so I can meet a friend of her daughter’s that she thinks I would hit it off with?”

What’s happening? Did this call beam me into a different dimension? I was secretly hoping for FaceTime sex, not Jamie telling me her landlady wants to arrange a blind date for her.

“What would I say to that?” Is this some sort of test? “Is this a purely hypothetical situation?” My heart hammers furiously against my ribcage for very different reasons now. If it was Jamie’s intention to make me jealous, she has succeeded.

“No,” Jamie says drily. “She asked me last night.”

“What did you say?”

“That I had to think about it.”

I’m trying to keep my cool, even though I have no right to be even a little angry about this. When I got asked out on a date the other week, at least I had the decency to say no immediately, because of Jamie. Clearly, she doesn’t want to extend me the same courtesy. And why should she?

“Have you thought about it?” I ask.

“I don’t have to think about it, Mac. I was just letting her down easy, but it’s an interesting situation, don’t you think?”

My muscles relax, but only a fraction. “What are you really asking me?”

“I’m asking how you would feel if I went on a date with someone else.” She’s done mincing her words, then. I thought that, at least for the time I was away, we could keep this light and fun—possibly even sexy. But I’m not the only one in this interesting situation.

“I would be quite upset.”

“Even though you don’t want to be with me?”

I wish we weren’t on FaceTime. I feel like she’s calling my bluff and my poker face is crumbling quickly.

“Jamie, what are you doing?” I square my shoulders.

“I’m telling you about something that happened in my life.”

I shake my head. I can’t say that’s not something I want to hear, even though it’s decidedly not.

“I assumed that maybe you wanted to be friends,” Jamie continues. “Since you called me the other day.”

“I called you because you sent me a loaf of bread that said that you loved me.” It sounds ridiculous to say out loud, yet that’s what Jamie did—and I love her for it.

“This is not a trick or an ambush or anything like that. I’m only telling you I got asked out, just like you did last week.”

“After which you promptly decided you no longer wanted to see me.” What are we doing? How come we always end up back here, running circles around each other?

“You know why.”

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