Page 51 of Until Tomorrow
“No.” I shook my head, keeping as casual a smile on my face as possible. The last thing I wanted was to spend another minute with Chad. “I’m parked over that way, but thank you.”
“Cool, cool.” When he came at me with his arms open for a hug, I took one long step back. No hugs for Chad. Not from me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not a big touch person.”
Another white lie.I just wasn’t a Chad person.
“No big deal,” he replied happily. “We’ll loosen you up. We should do this again sometime.”
We absolutely would not.But I just nodded because I had no idea how to respond to that. I’d do that when I had time to sit down and formulate a damn good response on the app.
Chad went one way, and I headed in the other. As I did, I took out my phone. There was a small chance Eva would answer, depending on when she left for her date. The phone rang twice before she answered.
“Did you know that Thai place we went to once?” Eva demanded when she answered. “With the cute little patio?”
“The one with the dog you tried to take home?” I asked as I frowned. That was the only one that stuck out. We’d been to quite a few Thai restaurants over the years.
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “That one!”
“What about it?”
“Did you know that it shut down due to cockroaches?” she continued. “Cockroaches, sweetheart! Do you think they had cockroaches when we were there?”
“That was…” I faltered. Shit. How long ago had we gone to that place? “Honey, that was like… eight years ago. Eight? I don’t know. Something like that.”
“Still rude,” Eva said, and I chuckled. “All that is to say that the restaurant I was supposed to go to tonight is not where I’ll be.”
“Where are you going instead?” One of our biggest rules was making sure we let each other know where we were going, with whom, and when. It was purely a safety precaution.
“There’s a country bar across the street,” she told me. “A real hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Nothing crazy. I hope anyway.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t a big fan of this plan, but I trusted her. “Do you even like country music?”
“I mean, I’ve listened to some country music and liked it.” A fact I filed away for later use. I liked learning little new things about my wife. “But either way, I don’t know. We’ll see. He’s going to be fifteen minutes late for some reason or another. It was a lame excuse. How was your date?”
“Oh.” I blew out a long breath. “Is this what we missed out on by not dating?”
“That good?” She laughed.
“Chad wasn’t bad,” I told her. “But Chad was… Chad. He’ll make someone happy… somewhere. Maybe. But I did it.”
“Yes, you did, sweetheart.” I could hear the smile in her voice. It brought out my own. “How’s your anxiety about everything? Better?”
“Yeah.” I stopped to lean against my car door as I talked. “I can’t say it won’t come back next time, but at least I know I can do it.”
“I’m proud of you, Logan.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Eva.” I meant every word of that. “Go have fun tonight. Or tell him he’s a douchebag for making the best woman in the world wait because he didn’t plan for traffic or some shit.”
“I’m giving him twenty minutes before I leave,” she said. “That’s a five-minute courtesy.”
“That’s five minutes more than he deserves from you. I love you.”
“I love you too. Be safe getting home.”
“You too.” I hung up the phone and glanced at the time. I didn’t want to go home. Not yet anyway, so I called Elliot.
“Lord, have mercy on my soul! Is this Logan Alexander Ashwood? Calling me? This late at night?” he exclaimed dramatically as he answered, making me chuckle.
