Page 41 of The Gingerbread Bakery
Could he have pushed the matter? Probably. Over the years, there were plenty of times he could have forced the issue and demanded that they get all their bullshit out in the open. But then he would have had to face the fact that she really did hate him and that she would never forgive him. So, he hadn’t pushed it, at least not until today. She’d made it so that they couldn’t ignore their history anymore: because she’d altered it.
I faked a lot of things.
‘Mac?’
‘What?’ He shook his head trying to rid himself of thoughts of Annie and her soft hand on his mouth in that dark closet and everything she’d said afterward.
‘You’re up,’ Bennett told him.
‘Right.’ Mac got out of the booth and took the darts from Noah. They were in the back corner of the pub, away from the crowded main dining room where a group of teachers were having their end-of-year party and were engaged in a rather contentious round of secret Santa, along with the volunteer fire-department’s annual celebration and awards ceremony. It was nuts in here. He made a mental note to give Amber a raise in the new year.
He tossed his first dart and missed the board completely.
Noah and Logan both turned to stare at him. ‘Dude, what was that?’
Mac shook his head. ‘A shit throw.’ He tossed the next dart, which barely made it onto the board, hitting the outer ring.
‘Everything okay?’ Logan asked, a look of actual concern drawing his dark brows together.
‘Everything’s fine.’ Mac chucked the last dart, and it bounced off the wall.
‘Holy shit,’ Noah breathed. ‘I’ve never seen you play this bad before.’
Mac tried to shrug it off. ‘It happens.’
‘Not to you,’ Noah insisted, and unfortunately, he was right. If there was one thing Mac had gotten good at while spending years of his life in his father’s pub and so many others, it was darts. And he’d spent far too many nights kicking Noah’s ass at the game to try to claim that he wasn't any good.
‘Forget it,’ Mac said, heading back to the table. Bennett had just returned with another round of beers and Archer had joined them.
‘Hey, what’d I miss? I had to wait for the babysitter.’
‘Logan's going to sleep with Jeanie the night before the wedding and something's very wrong with Mac,’ Noah reported.
Archer raised an eyebrow. ‘Wow.’
‘Nothing’s wrong with me,’ Mac insisted, except he felt like everything was wrong with him at the moment. He’d lived so many years convincing himself that there was nothing between him and Annie. That it had all been some teenage fantasy, blown way out of proportion. And then he'd moved back here and he was screwed, because Annie was exactly as perfect as he'd remembered. But she didn’t want him, and he’d done his best to move on. He’d set up a life here. He’d dated other women, grown his business. He’d made fuckingfriends. And then he’d spent one morning with her, and she'd destroyed his resolve to stay away.
He couldn't think straight.
And he certainly couldn’t play darts.
‘He spent the morning with Annie,’ Archer reported, and if he didn't have a baby on the way, Mac might have punched him in the face.
‘Really?’ Noah said ‘Interesting…’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Iris. She said you and Annie stormed the Y this morning.’
‘You were also spotted together at the café,’ Ben added, taking a slug of his beer. These grown men, his alleged friends, were worse than the book club with their gossip.
‘Jesus. You can't do anything in this town without everyone knowing about it.’
Archer chuckled. ‘It’s the truth, but what were you guys doing together? I thought she didn't let you near her.’
Mac shook his head, downing more of his beer. That was more true than he wanted to admit.
‘I was at her apartment this morning,’ he glared at Noah before the man could jump in with questions about things that definitely didn’t happen, ‘fetching Logan’s cufflinks. And her car was out of gas. I helped her run a couple of errands. That’s it.’
