Page 30 of The One I Love
I can tell myself that until I’m blue in the face, but I don’t know if it’s going to help anything.
I’m nervous. I’m never nervous around Shane. He’s the last person in the world I’d ever feel nervous around. But as I walk into Mona’s Diner, I think I forget to breathe.
He’s looking directly at me, his stare burning into me like it did at the wedding. Then I thought maybe it was because I was all dolled up. Today I’m in leggings, a tank top with a lightweight cardigan, and I might have gone home and swiped a little makeup from Mariah. Better than my normal oversized T-shirt and sweatpants.
Then there’s him. A black Henley shirt clinging to his muscular biceps. His hair is slicked back in that way that always looks like he just got out of the shower, and the closer I get, the more I can smell the leather in his cologne.
I thought nothing could smell better than Mona’s waffles, but I’m wrong. I was so very,very,wrong.
The nerves ramp up to eleventy-million as I approach the booth. If this were any other Saturday morning breakfast, we’d just start shooting the shit, catching up on our lives and families. He’d ask me about Luke and Mariah, and I’d ask if he had heard the crazy story my mom told me about his mom. We’d talk about sports and the guys; specifically, right now what the hell is up with Oliver because that man has dropped off the face of the earth. There wouldn’t be an impending talk about us. Or our future. Or if we could actually do this. I definitely wouldn’t be staring at his pecs. Or wondering if his cologne would stay on my sheets if he ever stayed the night.
How quickly things can change in just a small amount of time.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the booth.
“Hey, yourself.”
Shane’s smirk creeps through and it makes me want to giggle like a schoolgirl. Shane Cunningham doesnotsmirk. He barely smiles. And when he does, it’s because no one is around or he’s fucking with Simon. But this? This is making me feel some sort of way.
I smile back and feel my face get flush as Mona, the owner of the diner who refuses to quit waiting tables despite being in her seventies, comes over with my coffee. “Here you go, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Mona.”
She looks at me. Then back to Shane. Then back to me. “Something up with you two?”
My eyes go wide. Shit, am I that obvious? Damn my cheeks blushing from a smirk. “What? No. Why would you ask that?”
Her eyes narrow as she gives each of us a onceover. “I’ve known you two your whole lives. You used to sit next to each other in highchairs while your mamas came in for their weeklylunches. And in all those years, and all those cups of coffee I’ve poured you, neither of you have ever looked like this.”
“Mona, maybe it’s time to take a day off,” Shane says.
“I don’t need a day off. But I do need to know why you have been fiddling with your coffee cup for a half hour and why Amelia over here decided that today was the day she’d get out of her pajamas to come here.”
“Hey! I don’t come here in my pajamas. It’s called loungewear.”
She gives me a knowing look. “Amelia, don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Something’s up, but I don’t have time to figure it out. I’ll be back with your food in a minute.”
Mona walks away without taking my order, which I couldn’t care less about right now.“Well…there you have it. Mona knows, therefore the whole town is going to know by the time the dinner rush hits.”
Shane is smiling again. Twice in one day is odd. Twice in a matter of minutes is a freak of nature. He definitely doesn’t smile when one of the busiest of town gossips is a few sniffs away from figuring out that something is indeed different.
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because you look beautiful, and I’m glad someone other than me noticed.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I almost choke on my words. Because frankly, I don’t know how to react to that.
Believing words is hard for me to do. People lie. People can use words as weapons. People can say what they want to make you have a distorted way of thinking. I should know—I was married to one of those persons for ten years.
I look down at my outfit, feeling a little self-conscious, then back up to him. Holy shit, his gaze is just as strong now as it was at the wedding. He really means it, doesn’t he?
If he wanted to, he would.
“Thank you,” I say. “I heard you talked to Mariah today.”
He nods and sets down his cup of coffee. “I did. I hear I’m going to another track meet on Tuesday.”
“You know you don’t have to,” I say. “You can tell her no.”
