Page 69 of His Secret Gift

A few women make their advances, but I politely decline. Again, I’m only interested in Kayla at the moment.

“Whoa! The boss men are here!” a clearly inebriated Denver exclaims before giving us both big, sweaty hugs.

“You’ve got a real Danny Zucko thing going on tonight, huh?” I playfully jostle his hair.

His fingers touch it for a moment. “Oh, yeah! That’s right. I just thought it would be fun, you know?”

“Uh-huh. Hey! Have you seen Kayla?”

“Who?” He bends down closer to me.

“Kayla! Kayla Allen!”

“Oh.” He grabs my shoulders and looks around before snapping. “That’s right. She and Callie left.”

I feel a pang of anxiety in my chest. “They left? With whom?” My eyes are darting like a mad man.

He shrugs. “Some guys.”

My heart sinks. “Oh.”I guess that’s fair. I have been acting like a lunatic around her, and I told her there could never be anything between us.

Then, with nothing of interest to me inside the club, I go outside for some air.

“Jack? Jack Shelley?” I then hear from behind me.

When I turn around, I see that it’s Amine, an old buddy from college.

I gasp. “You’re kidding me!”

We shake hands and then slap each other’s backs.

“I heard through the grapevine that you were here.”

“What are the chances?” I mean, he’s from here, but he’s always travelling, like myself.

He laughs and tucks some longer hairs behind his ears.

I can still hardly believe my eyes. “So, how are you?” It’s been years since we’ve connected.

“Good, good. You know, just living the life.”

“Yeah.” I glance down and see that he also doesn’t have a wedding ring on. “Yeah, I do.”

“But this is just a quick stop for you, right? Where are you off to?”

“Greece.”

“Oh, yeah? Where about?”

“Karpathos.”

He gently smacks my chest with his forearm. “Oh, that’s beautiful.”

I then explain the whole situation with Yannis Drakos.

“Gotcha, gotcha. Hey, it was awesome to run into you. Let’s have dinner or something if you have the time before you leave.”

“I’d like that.”

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