Page 56 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

“She travels a lot.”

She stepped closer to me, her hand still resting on my chest. “I heard about what you’re doing for Chloe. I think that’s so amazing.”

“Thanks.”

Even though Nadia and I weren’t together and I was in my thirties, I still felt like I was sixteen and doing something wrong speaking to Kendra. She’d been such a trigger in our relationship that I was practically looking over my shoulder to see if anyone could see us.

“How long are you going to be in town?”

“I’m not sure.” I stepped back, and Kendra’s hand dropped.

“Well, we should get together. Catch up.”

“Maybe.” I continued walking to my truck. “I gotta get back to work.”

I hopped in and backed out, leaving Kendra standing in the parking lot waving. As I drove to Nadia’s, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Harlan had said. Why hadn’t she had another relationship? Did that mean something? If it did, what?

All these years, I’d just assumed she was with someone. Several someones. I knew Nadia. She loved being in relationships. I would have classified her as a serial monogamist. If I was wrong about that, I wondered what else I was wrong about.

19

NADIA

“HasCallum mentioned anything to Miles about anyone since he’s been back?” I not-so-subtly posed the question to Zoe that had been stewing in my brain for the last four hours as we pulled up to her house.

Our girls’ day had drawn to a close. Ashley picked Zoe up for the fitting, but after our spa day, she was feeling nauseous, so I volunteered to chauffeur the bride-to-be home. I would have offered regardless, but the one-on-one time gave me the opportunity to grill Zoe on intel to find out if Miles had heard anything from Callum about Kendra Abernathy.

“You mean Ariana?” Zoe unbuckled her seatbelt when we came to a stop.

“Ariana?” Why would Zoe think I was asking about Ariana? I was referring to Kendra “Handsy” Abernathy.

On the way to the spa, I drove by Southern Comfort and saw Kendra rubbing up against Callum like a cat in heat in the parking lot. First, she initiated a hug and then stood so close to him she could smell what he had for breakfast while she kept her hand on his chest like she was using it to pledge allegiance to the flag.

Kendra had always had a crush on Callum, and she wasn’t shy about it. She used to lean over his desk to talk to him and squeeze her arms together, then shove her cleavage in his face. She’d drop pencils as an excuse to bend over whenever she had a short skirt on, offering him a perfect view of her ass. She baked him cookies and attached notes with poems about how hot and tasty both he and the cookies were. She volunteered for the senior class end-of-year trip car wash when she was a freshman and stripped down to a bikini when she was washing his truck. She even crashed our senior prom. We’d broken up a week before, and, shocker, she’d tried to swoop in and take him. But he hadn’t succumbed to her pom-poms and short skirt. That wasn’t a euphemism; Kendra was the captain of the cheer squad and drill team. Instead, he’d opted to go to prom solo, and I’d gone with Zoe, who was already a mom at the time, and her husband, Austin, was overseas. Kendra’s prom crash was futile; Callum and I were back together by the end of the night.

“Ariana Culpepper,” Zoe clarified. “I figured you were asking about her because Chloe and Kendall are best friends, and the girls are having a sleepover tonight.”

Kendall was Zoe’s son AJ’s girlfriend, so it made perfect sense that she would have the inside scoop on Ariana. Still, I wasn’t sure what the girls having a sleepover had to do with Callum.

“Ariana mentioned she was planning to invite Callum in for a drink when he dropped Chloe off.”

And there it was.

“She did?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You keep saying nothing is going on between you two.”

I wanted to argue with her, but the truth was, I had gone out of my way to let it be knownnothingwas going on between us.

“Didn’t you say he’s working on your house today?” Zoe reached down between her legs and grabbed the bag of goodies she’d gotten from the spa.

“Yes.”

“If you want to know if something is going on between them or if he’s interested in something happening, why don’t you just ask him?”

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