Page 69 of Fire
“Okay, I can see you’re gonna make this difficult for me. How about this? Story Time.” A small smile curves his lips, and I love that after all these years, this is still our thing. “One bright summer day, you’re walking down the street on the way to the grocery store. You’re minding your business, and up ahead, there’s a guy. He’s on his phone, doing whatever…and isn’t paying attention to what’s ahead of him. You try to step aside, but Phone Dude moves at the same time and slams into you. He looks up. Your eyes meet. What do you do?”
“Story Time doesn’t involve questions.”
“Humor me,” he replies.
“I…” My initial reaction is to say I would obviously give that guy a piece of my mind and tell him to watch where he is going, but then a memory pops into my head.
Tanner and I are at a charity gala. I feel like a fish out of water. The dress his mom picked out for me is heavy, and the shoes are too tight. Everyone keeps congratulating Tanner on finishing his residency. They say nothing to me. We’re heading to the bar so Tanner can refill his drink, when a man knocks into me from behind. Pain tears into my shoulder.
I look up. “Fucking hell,” the man curses, glancing at his stained jacket. I clutch my injured shoulder as he looks at me expectantly.
I glance over at Tanner, hoping he’ll say something, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t stand up for me or ask if I’m okay. Suddenly,I feel embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. It was entirely my fault.” I say.
And the worst part is, I believe it.
The words must be clearly written all over my face, because Hendrix doesn’t wait for me to respond.
“I know you want to apologize for canceling on me, but there’s no need,” he says, his voice low and full of emotion. “I know you wouldn’t have done so if there wasn’t a good reason.”
“Are you sure?”
He grins. “My mom also taught me this other valuable lesson, probably more than once, since I was a little shit growing up. It’s this crazy notion that the world doesn’t revolve around me. Crazy, right?”
I can’t help but laugh.
I’m starting to think I’d like his mom.
“It comes in handy in certain situations, like, say, for instance, when you get a vague text from a woman canceling a date.” I grimace, biting my bottom lip. I feel that instant need to apologize again. Jesus, maybe his mom is on to something, after all. “Someone else might assume they did something to cause the cancelation, while I can take a moment, rationalize that it’s not always about me, and realize you might just be having a bad day.”
This is where you tell him about your bad day, Zara.
He stares back at me, patiently waiting for me to respond. He doesn’t say it, but I get the feeling he would sit there for howeverlong I need, just soaking in the silence while I find the courage to talk.
This man is nothing like Tanner.
In my heart of hearts, I know this to be true. And yet, when I think about taking this leap with him, opening up to him about my mistakes and the fears that cling to me because of it, it feels scarier than any kind of physical attachment we could form.
“Tanner called,” I begin, and I see his posture stiffen just ever so slightly. “Like most of our conversations lately, it was less than cordial. He accused me of trying to make him jealous and said that even though we are divorced, I will always be attached to his family, and I would do well to remember that.”
“What the hell does that mean?” The gentle-natured Hendrix has vanished. He leans forward in his seat, his hands clenched into fists.
“Just that I am expected to carry myself with decorum and that gallivanting around the country with a bunch of rock stars?—”
“Or perhaps one specific rock star?”
I nod. “Yes. He did mention the video of us in front of the hotel last week.”
Hendrix rolls his eyes. “Decorum? The absolute hypocrisy of that family, I swear.”
“What do you mean?”
He tilts his head and gives me a curious expression. “Tanner used to hang out at our house from time to time during college. I overheard some wild shit during those four years.”
“Like what?”
“Let’s see.” He taps his fingers against his thigh. “Tanner got caught sleeping with a professor during our junior year. And his dad had to pay off a lot of people to keep it quiet.”
My chest tightens. Not from jealousy. I fell out of love with that man a long time ago. It’s more to do with how much I didn’tknow about him and how well he hid it from me. “Honestly, nothing surprises me about that man anymore.”
