Jilted

by Tess Thompson

  “He’s a fool. You know that, right?” Bobby asked.

  “I guess. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the other way around.” Her attention was drawn to the end of the counter where Jamie and Darby were still talking, both animated. “How are the lovebirds doing?”

  Bobby chuckled and mumbled something about busybodies under his breath.

  She made Jamie another martini and took it to her. “I’m going home, so I thought I’d say good night.”

  Jamie’s eyes flashed with mischief. “Thanks for the drinks. Darby and I might head out soon too. We thought we’d share an Uber.”

  Darby was looking down at his beer, looking suspiciously nonchalant. Nothing like a hookup to help a person get over a broken heart. Or so she’d heard.

  “You two have a great night,” Sophie said.

  “You too,” Jamie said as a flush rose to her cheeks.

  Sophie left them and turned her attention back to Bobby, who was putting a maraschino cherry into a piña colada.

  She untied the back of her apron and folded it over her arm. “It’s been a long day. You okay to close up?”

  “You got it,” Bobby said.

  She poured herself a glass of wine. “One for the road.”

  “Remember what a catch you are,” Bobby said. “Don’t give that guy another thought.”

  She gave his shoulder a quick squeeze and waved goodbye to Jamie and Darby, who didn’t notice her. They were too busy kissing.

  Good for them.

  The easiest way to her apartment entrance was to exit onto the back patio, which meant she had to walk through the restaurant section. She lowered her gaze as she made her way around the tables toward the patio entrance. Seeing Nico again before she could make her escape would make a disheartening exit worse. But no, her traitorous eyes just had to look over at their table to find Nico watching her. Her cheeks flooded with heat. She averted her eyes and nearly stumbled. Her full wineglass tipped and splashed drops onto her hand. When she finally reached the back door, she stepped out onto the patio.

  The night air cooled her overheated skin. She breathed in the scent of the ocean as she meandered over to an empty table. Her feet ached after such a long day, and she should really just go upstairs and go to bed. However, the idea of being alone in an empty apartment was like going to a party where you were the only guest. She would drink her glass of wine out here in the cool air and then go up and take a long bath. Maybe have another glass of wine and let herself have another nice cry over stupid Nico. He was right to stay away. Seeing him only made her heartache worsen.

  Sophie released a tired breath as she lowered onto the bench. From somewhere in the grass, a cricket chirped. The leaves of the old oak tree that grew next to the building fluttered in the breeze. Behind her, couples nuzzled or talked softly. She pulled a paper napkin from the dispenser on her table and wiped her hand of the spilled wine, then took a long drink from her glass.

  String lights glowed from the overhang. She ran a finger along the weathered wood of the original picnic tables from the early days of The Oar. For fifty years, lovers had been etching their initials into the pine. One night, she and Maggie had found the initials of Hugh and Mae—clandestine lovers who had made Sophie on a night much like this one.

  From behind her, the sound of the screen door opening and closing broke into her thoughts. She turned to see Nico standing there, the lights from the rafters shining in his eyes. He held a glass of wine in his hands. Without saying anything, he crossed over to her. He didn’t meet her eyes as he shoved one hand in the pocket of his jeans and shuffled his feet. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  Hope flooded through her. And damn, hope was a dangerous drug. “Sure.”

  First he set his wine on the table, then sat across from her. Shadows under his eyes were more obvious under the white lights. Stubble on his face told her he hadn’t shaved for several days.

  He moved his glass of wine in a circle but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  He raised his chin. “Nothing, really. I just thought we should talk. I miss…seeing you.”

  Her fingers tingled with excitement. Stay calm, she told herself. There’s no reason to jump to any conclusions that he’d suddenly come to his senses. “You know where I am most days, right?” she asked gently. “You can come by and see me anytime.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just I feel bad about how things went…you know, because of the…thing.”

  “You mean when you kissed me?”

  He cleared his throat as he picked up his glass of wine and bent his head. His hair was cut into short spikes with the front slightly longer, like an attractive awning over his forehead. She knew how those silky strands felt in her hands now. What she would give to feel them again was embarrassingly high. The entirety of her bank account; her first child. But her first child would be his if she had her way.

  “Soph, are you listening?”

  She blinked and focused on his face. “What? No, sorry. I was thinking about something else. What did you say?”

  “I said I wanted to clear the air,” he said. “Make sure we could still be friends. I mean, it’s kind of awkward the way it is now.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me, so when you come into the bar it’s bound to be weird.” Sophie studied him as she tilted her glass to her mouth and took a sip of her wine.

  “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “Seems like it.” A spot in the middle of her chest stung. He’d most definitely been avoiding her.

  “I thought we could both use a little space.” He picked up his glass but didn’t drink. Instead, he swirled and sniffed. “I get a little funk on the nose.”

  “A bit, yes. Just the nose though.” Nico didn’t like the funk of some Washington reds. He often said it smelled of blue cheese.

  He sipped from his glass, holding it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. She clasped her hands together under the table to keep from touching him.

  “Nice finish,” he said.

  She looked out to the grassy area and then to the gravel parking lot behind as a couple got into a car. “What do you want? Because this isn’t helping.”

  “I’m weak when it comes to you, and I’m sorry for letting things get out of hand.”

  “I’m sorry you consider kissing me a sign of weakness.” Her eyelids burned with the effort not to cry.

  He groaned softly as his eyes darted around the patio. “Lower your voice, please. I don’t want people gossiping about you.”

  “No one’s paying any attention.” Several of the couples were making out. Another pair had their heads together, talking low as he ran his hand up and down her back. One couple was obviously fighting, given how the girl had her arms crossed tightly over her chest and the violent way the man shook his leg under the table.

  She thought of Hugh’s passage in the letter to her. A bar witnessed so much life on any given day: heartbreaks, first meetings, couples celebrating anniversaries. Was there any better explanation for why she loved her job? She was a witness to life.

  “What I mean is it’s not fair to lead you on like I did.” His voice dropped in volume and timbre. “Not when it can’t go anywhere.”

  She winced inwardly as the hammer pounded hard in her chest. Hold your breath. Do not cry. Keep it light. “I wasn’t sorry we spent so much time together. The more we were together, the surer I was that you’re the one. I didn’t regret finally getting to kiss you.” She rested her elbows on the rough tabletop and leaned closer to look directly in his eyes. “But I regret this. I regret that you’re running away from something beautiful because of some stupid social convention.”

  “I’m not the man you’ve saved yourself for,” he said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’m not in love with you. I’ll never be in love with you.”

  She recoiled as if he’d physically hit her. A smack would have hurt less than hearing those
words come out of his mouth. Defeated finally, she hung her head, ashamed as tears gushed from her eyes.

  “Please don’t cry. I mean, I can’t be in love with you. I can’t let myself go there. You and I are all wrong.”

  “I don’t agree.” She lifted her head, aware that her mascara was probably running down her stupid face, but she didn’t care any longer. Her belief that they belonged together had been all wrong. Nico didn’t love her. She’d practically forced him to say it—bullied him into being cruel to her when he was trying to let her down easy. “But I can’t make you love me.”

  Despite his admonition to lower her voice, his raised in obvious frustration. “I can’t love the wrong person again. I just can’t. I don’t have it in me to recover and rebuild—start over again like I did. Not after what happened with Addison. I’m not strong enough to watch you walk away when you figure out that you need a few more years to grow up—to do the stuff that women in their early twenties should do. And eventually you will want that. I can’t let myself fall for you.” The last sentence was a series of hard staccato notes.

  “You don’t know I’ll walk away. Not for certain.”

  “I can’t take that chance.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “The woman I loved with all my heart and soul—the one I wanted to grow old with—completely blindsided me even though I should’ve seen the signs. They were so close. Addie’s eyes lit up when Star came in the room. She seemed more alive when they were together. I’d hear them talking and laughing on the patio or on the phone, and I’d feel jealous. Like, why doesn’t she laugh that way with me? When something good happened, she called Star first, then me. I was such an idiot.” His voice cracked. He looked away before taking a sip from his wineglass.

  He’d never talked about his ex before, other than a flippant comment here or there. Naively, she’d imagined he was over the whole thing. How stupid she’d been to think so.

  Nico continued in a flatter tone. “It was the thought of the honeymoon that finally made her face the truth about how she felt about Star. She said, and I quote, ‘I can’t bear to be away from her for that long. It hurts physically to think of being apart from her.’ Turns out, Star felt the same way.” He paused to rub his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to love someone who quite simply cannot love you the same way?”

  “Yes, I do.” She wiped under her eyes and glanced down at her fingers, now blackened from the runaway mascara. “I really do.”

  “Do you understand why I can’t go there with you? I see all the signs this time and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. You know that guy with the glasses you were talking to at the bar earlier?”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s the type you should spend time with. And later, like ten years from now when you’re finally ready to get married, you’ll find a guy like that to grow old with. But Sophie, that guy is not me.”

  “You’re wrong. You’re wrong about me, about us, and about all these signs you think you see. You’re blind to the possibility of us because you can’t let go of the past. This has nothing to do with my age.” As she spoke, she understood how right she was. He was too afraid to love again. “You’ve put me in a box that has no relevance to reality. So, yes, you’re right. That guy isn’t you, even though it should be.” She stood, wiping her face with her hands. “If you care about me at all, don’t come in here again. Seeing you take home one sorority girl after another is too painful.”

  “I’m sorry. For everything.” He reached for her but pulled back at the last second.

  “Me too, Nico. For me and for you.” She strode across the patio and down the stairs to the grass, then around the building to the door of the stairway that led up to her apartment. She punched in the code and entered. With vision blurred by tears, she held on to the railing up the skinny flight of stairs until she reached the door to her living room. Once inside, she closed and locked the door behind her. A bubble bath, more wine, and a good cry were coming her way. Again.

  This would be the last time she would cry over Nico Bentley.

  5

  Nico

  * * *

  After Sophie left, Nico remained at the table, unable to move other than to bring the glass to his idiot mouth. The lights from her apartment came on, creating a pattern in the patch of grass between the patio and the parking lot. He’d hurt her, made her cry. His beautiful Sophie. No, he reminded himself. She was not his to have. His heart seemed incapable of remembering what his brain knew with unequivocal certainty. Becoming romantically involved with Sophie would destroy him. He’d already been ripped into a million shreds once. As he’d said quite truthfully to Sophie, he wasn’t sure he could recover a second time.

  Still, he longed to be with her upstairs in her cozy living room. Her place was all blond floors and light-filled rooms decorated in tones of pale blues, greens, and tans that mirrored the terrain outside the windows. Like her, every inch of the space reminded him of his two favorite things in life: sunshine and sea. The evenings he’d spent with her were some of his happiest since he’d moved to Cliffside Bay. Come on, now. Tell the truth. Spending time with Sophie were some of the best times of his life. He adored the woman. Everything about her was perfect for him. Except her age and her innocence. Which were two huge things. Too much to overlook, even though he wanted to.

  He tried not to think of her upstairs, probably undressing to take a bubble bath. She loved baths. They soothed her tired feet and shoulders. He could imagine only too well the way the suds would slide down her long legs and curvy hips as she got up and out of the bath and into his arms.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Trey and David come out to the patio. When Trey had called with the suggestion that he move to Cliffside Bay and take a job as the landscape architect for Wolf Enterprises, Nico hadn’t hesitated. He’d come to lick his wounds and find some kind of way forward from the awful blow of his canceled wedding. Jilted. Thrown over for a woman. He’d known that the only way through was to focus on his work. Trees and flowers never let him down.

  “Thought you might need another,” Trey said as he placed a second glass of wine in front of Nico.

  “Thanks, man,” Nico said.

  David and Trey, both with fresh beers, sat across from him.

  “Stone and Rafael had to go,” Trey said. “They are going up to look at the property up north in the morning and want to get an early start.”

  Nico nodded, trying to care about the possible renovation, but couldn’t muster it.

  “You all right?” David asked. “We noticed Sophie didn’t come back inside.”

  “We came out to investigate,” Trey said. “We were hoping you two were still out here.”

  “Together,” David said.

  “She went upstairs.” Nico gestured upward as if they didn’t know where she lived.

  “Man, we need to talk about this,” Trey said.

  “We think you’re insane not to jump on this thing with Sophie.” The corners of David’s mouth twitched. He rarely smiled, and when he did it was like the muscles of his mouth had atrophied.

  “Me? Crazy? Haven’t we already established that?” Nico asked in an attempt at a joke.

  “I’ve known you a long time,” Trey said. “You’re in love with her.”

  He thought about lying for the second time that night but didn’t have the energy to hold all his feelings inside. “I’m madly in love with her. It’s true. Which is why I’m keeping my distance. Because pursuing this now will bring the worst fall of my life when she leaves me.”

  “Okay, then,” David said. “Mind if I give it a try instead?”

  Nico examined his friend. Was he joking? David’s crystal-clear blue eyes stared back at him without a smidge of humor. In fact, he’d never seen David look quite so serious.

  “You want to ask her out?” Nico asked. The nerve of this guy. He had no business dating Sophie.

  Why does he have no
business dating Sophie? Some voice out of nowhere was now talking to him. Great.

  Because I don’t want him to.

  Very selfish of you.

  Whoever you are, please shut it.

  Now he was fighting with someone in his head. This was crazy even for him. Usually he just talked to a dog.

  “So, you’re okay with David taking her out on a date?” Trey asked.

  “Sure. It’s a free country.” Nico managed to pinch out the appropriate answer even though he thought his throat might be closing up like the time he ate a mango and had to be rushed to the emergency room.

  “Dude, you’re so full of it.” David actually broke out into a legitimate grin. “You’d rather eat that glass than see me taking her out.”

  Nico glared at him before downing the rest of his wine and picking up the other glass.

  Trey regarded him from across the table with narrowed eyes. “What’s the matter with you? This amazing woman wants you, and you’re pushing her away.”

  “I already told you,” Nico said.

  “You don’t really think she’s too young, do you?” David asked. “I mean, she runs two businesses and is more mature than most forty-year-old women out there.”

  “I do think she’s too young.” Nico sighed. He didn’t want to go into all this again tonight. The talk with Sophie had exhausted him.

  David tapped the table with his fingers stained from drafting ink. “Not that I’m the one who should be giving you advice in anything related to women, but I’m going to anyway. One day very soon she’s going to meet someone else and you’re going to kick yourself for being so stupid.”

  Nico watched as David’s cheeks colored. Had he loved someone once and let her get away?

  “That happen to you?” Trey asked.

  David nodded. “There was a girl I loved in college. I let her slip away because I’d already promised Marigold I’d come back for her. It was my code of ethics or whatever. Or maybe I was just really afraid to step out of my comfort zone and risk getting hurt. Marigold and I’d been together since high school. She was my sure bet. Solid as a rock. We all know how my marriage turned out.” His gaze drifted up and to the left. “I wonder what my life would be like now if I’d been braver then?”