Page 67 of Capri

Which led to my surprise of seeing her here.

“You good, man?” Danny, one of my closest buddies in the States, asks me.

“I’m good.”

No, I’m not good. Not when I see a random man with his arm across the back of Capri’s chair.

Fuck. Has she already met someone?

This is exactly what I knew I needed to avoid. It’s why I do hookups only, especially week-long ones.

It’s my own fucking fault.

I met Danny at The Dove tonight to run through wholesale numbers. Danny is a medical supplier for a local healthcare company, the one I purchased beds through for my mother’s memory care facility.

I’m currently working with Paloma’s human resource department to finalize details on providing them with more basic needs: bedding, foaming for walls, support handles, and brain stem activities.

Maybe this is me overcompensating for my absence, but I’ve done my research enough to know it’s necessary, and Paloma hasn’t received donations or funding of any sort for as long as I can remember.

Well, as long as my mother’s been living there.

I turn to Danny, pushing away my thoughts of Capri for a moment. “I’m gonna go pay for this.” I hold up the receipt. “Meet you outside.”

Danny nods and leaves me to it.

I pivot to head toward the front of the restaurant before the sight of strawberry blonde hair rushing behind me catches my eye.

I don’t know why I do it, but I follow my golden girl toward the restroom with no plan in mind.

I catch her before she opens the door. “Capri.”

She freezes, slowly turning to face me.

Good fucking god. How is it possible for her to be even more stunning than a month ago? She’s breathtaking.

Hair wild and sexy with sky-high heels, and an outfit so killer I could drop to my knees right now and feel no shame.

Those big doe eyes watch me with an intensity I’ve missed.

“Jones.”There’s my favorite raspy voice.

“You’re here,” I say. In this case, less is more, or else I’ll be jumbling my words like a helpless idiot.

“I am. But then again, you saw that,” Capri says, nodding to the table she’s sitting at. My eyes drift to the crowded table, and I breathe a sigh of relief to find them lost in conversation.

But I can’t help but notice her catching my avoidance of her.

“Why didn’t you say goodbye?” I don’t want to sound hurt or accusatory; she doesn’t owe me an explanation, but I am curious.

Her head drops, and my eyes are drawn to the motion at her chest. She fidgets with an all too familiar necklace.

The bell. She kept it.

Fuck. That feels too good.

“I wanted to,” Capri says sincerely. “God, I wanted to, Jones. But it would have been too hard. I couldn’t…”

Suddenly, all the resentment I held flies out the window. Capri can’t seem to do any wrong as far as I’m concerned.

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