Changes

by Judith Arnold

  Chapter Nine

  After they’d finished the pizza, he drove her back to the community center, where she’d left her car. She’d made arrangements with the rental company to drop the car off in Boston tomorrow, after which she would pick up her own car and drive it back to Brogan’s Point. She wasn’t done here, wasn’t even close to being done. She wasn’t even sure what “being done” might mean. But whatever it meant, she’d rather have her own car while she figured it out.

  At least she’d figured one thing out: she had to end her engagement to Peter. It wasn’t just his reaction to her big coup today that convinced her. It wasn’t his inability to enjoy a beer in a working-class bar without passing judgment on everyone and everything in the place, right down to the glassware. It wasn’t his stuffiness, his grumpiness, his arrogance.

  It wasn’t even Nick Fiore’s kiss.

  That kiss weighed heavily on her during the brief drive back to the community center. She thought it best that they not kiss again, not only because she hadn’t yet officially ended things with Peter but because if Nick kissed her, her brain would go into melt-down mode and she would be unable to think at all. And she had a lot of thinking to do.

  The parking lot was nearly empty, and Nick was able to pull into the vacant space next to Diana’s car. He turned off the engine and twisted in his seat to face her. “Diana—”

  She braced herself. How could she say no if he kissed her? How could she deny them both something she desperately wanted?

  But instead of leaning across the gear stick, he simply studied her. Several glaring spotlights hanging from the building’s eaves illuminated the lot. The silvery light played over his face, emphasizing its sharp lines and angles and making Diana even more aware of how profoundly dark his eyes were.

  “If you’re breaking your engagement because of me…” He lapsed into silence for a moment, then continued, “I feel bad about that.”

  She sensed a subtext in his words, but she couldn’t decipher it. Was he saying he felt bad about the possibility that he’d broken her and Peter up? Or was he warning her that even if she ended the engagement, he wasn’t about to step in and take Peter’s place?

  She didn’t expect him to. They were still nearly strangers. Close strangers, strangers strongly attracted to each other, but strangers nonetheless. She hadn’t grown up with Nick. She hadn’t gone to school with him, or beaten him at backgammon, or discussed politics with him. She hadn’t seen him at his worst, and he certainly hadn’t seen her at hers.

  “It’s not because of you,” she assured him. “It’s because…” Because she felt freer and happier and more self-assured without Peter. Because she liked not having to keep taking his emotional temperature, soothing him, making sure he was happy. Because her world seemed more spacious when he wasn’t occupying so much of it. Because she was finally listening to herself rather than to him.

  She couldn’t begin to explain all that to Nick. Instead, she said, “It’s because of the song.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “I know.” She smiled.

  He smiled, too, and then leaned forward, as she’d expected him to earlier, and touched his lips to hers. Not a blazing kiss like the one he’d given her on the dock, but a gentle whisper of a kiss, full of promise, full of temptation. It was the sort of kiss that made her want much, much more.

  But first she had to sort out her life. She had to do the right thing. “I’m going to Boston tomorrow,” she said.

  He settled back in his seat, his expression darkening slightly. “So this is goodbye?”

  “No. I’ve got to be back here Thursday to oversee the packing and moving of the estate I bought.” That wasn’t the only reason she planned to return to Brogan’s Point, but to suggest more might be presumptuous. “I’m going down to Boston to meet with my boss and with…with Peter,” she said, carefully avoiding the word fiancé. She’d stopped wearing the ring, and she had to stop using that word in reference to Peter. “And then I’ll come back.”

  He accepted her statement in silence. Just as she didn’t want to make presumptions, he apparently didn’t want to, either. She would come back. They’d figure out their next step then. Maybe they’d return to the Faulk Street Tavern and hope for another song to emerge from the jukebox, telling them what to do.

  She would come back, and she’d turn to face the strange changes.

  A long moment passed between her and Nick. She wished he would kiss her again. She hoped he wouldn’t.

  He didn’t. “Thank you for inviting me to the game,” she said. “I’ll call you when I get back from Boston.”

  “Okay.” He managed another smile, this one tentative. He seemed as cautious as she felt, as eager and as anxious.

  God, she wanted to kiss him again.

  “Good night,” she murmured, then let herself out of his car.