Page 49 of His Heart

Sebastian

A waitress tookour order and Charlie went back to being glued to his phone. Between meeting the Harpers, and sitting with Brooke afterward, it felt like I’d been in restaurants for half the day. And here I was at another one. But Charlie and I had spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel pool, and we were starving.

“What’s going on, man?” I asked.

“Nothing.” He typed for a few more seconds, then put his phone away. “Kimmie’s being weird.”

Kimmie was Charlie’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Apparently they were on at the moment. I wasn’t Kimmie’s biggest fan. But it was Charlie’s business, not mine.

“She mad about something?” I asked.

“Just bitching about me leaving town,” he said. “I told her I was going with you, but she’s still pissed. I don’t know what her problem is.”

I wanted to say her problem was that she’s a whiny drama queen, but I didn’t. I just shrugged. “Who knows. Women, right?”

“I don’t understand them.” He took a sip of his water. “Speaking of, are you and Tracy still a thing?”

“No,” I said. “We weren’t much of a thing anyway. But I called it off.”

“Shitty,” he said.

“I guess.”

Tracy and I had dated for a while, but nothing had come of it. Just like Jessica. And Brianna before her. I hadn’t had a serious, long-term girlfriend since Cami. They had all been nice girls. Pretty. And come on, I liked sex as much as the next guy. But there hadn’t been anything there. We just went out, talked a little. Maybe fucked afterward, if we’d gotten that far. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, exactly, but it wasn’t that. I wanted a woman who did something to me. Set me on fire. Made me feel alive.

That made me think of Brooke, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

“How did it go today?” Charlie asked. “You haven’t really said anything.”

“It was intense,” I said. “They were such nice people. It sucks that their son died. They wanted to know about me and my illness and everything. And they told me a lot about Liam. It was good, though. I think they felt good about meeting me.”

He nodded. “Sounds like it was worth the trip.”

“Definitely,” I said. “A weird thing happened afterward, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Liam’s fiancée, Brooke, was supposed to be at lunch, but she didn’t show. It was obvious the Harpers were really worried about her. And their daughter, Olivia, was kinda pissed.”

“She was pissed at this Brooke chick for not being there?” he asked.

“Yeah, but more frustrated because she was concerned about her, I think. Anyway, when I left, I saw Brooke across the street.”

“How did you know it was her?” he asked. “Did they show you pictures?”

“No, I’d never seen her,” I said. “But I took one look at her, and I knew.”

Charlie furrowed his brow. “How the hell did you know?”

“I said it was weird. I have no idea. But I saw her and there was no doubt in my mind it was her. So, I talked to her.”

“You what?”

“I went across the street and talked to her,” I said.

He chuckled. “What did you do, just walk up and ask who she was?”

“Basically, yeah.”

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