Page 75 of Two Chances

Wednesday morning, I headed to the mall as soon as it opened to play Santa for the nieces and nephews who always had high expectations from their childless uncle.Even though Thanksgiving hadn’t yet arrived, red and green decorations made the mall festive.Jolly.Christmas carols played on speakers in some of the stores I visited, buoying my mood regardless of my lack of a love life.

Bags quickly loaded down my arms, but I stopped at the coffee shop for a pick-me-up since I hadn’t slept well the night before and had a long drive ahead of me.

I stood in line five-people deep, too needy for caffeine to walk away.

The warm scent of a cologne I recognized flooded my senses, and I swallowed hard, forcing the image of Xavier from my mind.Lots of men wore the same—

“Kellen?”

Oh fuck.

Teeth gritted, I glanced over my shoulder.

A nightmare come to life greeted my eyes.My ex along with his fiancé stood directly behind me, all cozied up in each other’s personal space like when I’d last seen them together—but with clothes this time.

They were not the fucking people I needed to see when I’d just started to feel good about shit.

Ignoring them, I turned back around as if I didn’t recognize them.

“Rude,” Xavier muttered, his voice as petulant as I remembered.

I hesitated a second to inhale deeply, but my anger, the bitterness I’d been holding inside for too many years erupted inside me.I didn’t love the man anymore, didn’t pine for him, but the hurt still festered.

Spinning, I allowed my eyes to blaze with the heat of a thousand suns, ready to take the opportunity to cut him off at the ankles and leave him floundering as he’d done to me.

“What’srude,” I hissed, leaning toward him, “was cheating on me right before our wedding and leaving me without a backward glance to pick up the pieces on my own.”

His brow furrowed, and his little lover Teddy squirmed, glancing around as though my quiet outburst had made him uncomfortable.Good.Maybe he’d feel half as shitty as I had once I was done saying my piece.

“It wasn’t what you thought,” Xavier murmured, his face flushed.

I barked a laugh at that fucking line he’d spewed at me that day before I’d turned around to gather myself—the same fucking words JJ had stated to me while up at camp.But I wasn’t an idiot.

“There was no mistaking what I saw, Xavier,” I stated, “but what was even worse?You took off the second I gave you privacy to untangle yourself from your little boy toy so we could work things out.But you ghosted me without an explanation.Blocked my number, blocked me on social media too.And when I went to your parents for answers, they wouldn’t even talk to me through the door.”

Xavier didn’t speak—big fucking surprise because he had no fucking argument for what he’d chosen over the potential he’d made me believe we’d had.

“You ignored me as though I’d been nothing but a blip on your life’s radar,” I continued.“Never mind our years together, the dreams we’d shared, the debt we accrued creating the perfect wedding you wanted.”My voice raised, but I didn’t give a shit.Xavier had cost me a lot more than just a shit ton of cash that had taken me months to pay off.

On my own.

Because he couldn’t be bothered to communicate whatever he’d obviously felt had been lacking between us.

“Then you spread your legs for this…twinkwho looks nothing like the man you claimed was the one of your dreams.”

Xavier and I stood almost nose to nose, his height slightly less than mine but his gym-rat shoulders wider.Pecs thicker.He looked like a pure top, a dominant alpha—exactly as he’d been with me.

“Hadeverythingbeen a lie?”I asked, straightening and peering down my nose while glancing over him, remembering how he’d given up his ass to someone completely my opposite.

He vibrated with tension.“It isn’t what you’re thinking,” he repeated his bullshit.

Yet another laugh burst from me, full of sarcasm and vinegar, and I didn’t bother keeping down my voice any longer.“I walked in on you letting this kidfuck you, Xavier.There wasn’t muchthinkinginvolved considering you were moaning like a whore while he railed your ass.”

Teddy squeaked, pressing in closer to Xavier, the little twerp.

My ex sputtered, his face going red from my outburst that the entire cafe had to have heard.But he deserved to feel shame and embarrassment over what he’d done to me.I didn’t give a flying fuck who listened in on the drama or what people thought of him.Hopefully the worst, because that was exactly what he’d been for me.

A waste of my motherfucking time, and I was done.Beyond having a capacity for any relationship.Dating.Hell, even fucking.

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