I didn’t have to be psychic to see the wheels turning in his head. Damn Anna and her stupid pheromones. It would serve her right if Robbie professed his undying devotion right there in front of Anna’s latest Mr. Right Now.
The front door of Cheeky’s opened again and I turned, expecting to see another wad of ridiculous balloons or some other nonsense walk through the entrance. Anna had come up with some seriously strange ideas over the years, but the duo that walked through the door wasn’t Anna’s creation and wasn’t meant for me.
Still a bear of a man at over six feet with a slightly more pronounced balding spot on the top of his head, Ollie eased into Cheeky’s with a woman on his arm. To be specific, a woman that was not Carissa. She looked to be in her late twenties. Pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, she was chattering happily, and he was hanging on her every word.
Beside me, Robbie snorted. Surprised, I turned to look at him. His stubble covered jaw was tense, a look of disgust turning his normally lighthearted expression sour.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
“Not them, but he’s in here at least once a month with a different girl every time.”
“Is that right?”
It was at that precise moment that I knew beyond all doubt that I was done working through my baggage. It was still there, I could feel the anger recoiling inside me but there was a big difference between lugging it around constantly and unpacking that baggage and putting it all away. I’d put mine away. I didn’t need it anymore. I had Jared.
As if he’d heard my thoughts, Jared pushed open the front door and held it open for Anna.
“Seriously, Anna,” he was saying. “They have support groups and twelve step programs for people with your kind of Type-A issues. Would you seek help, please?”
“I’m not the one with the problem, Jared. If people would just do what they said they’d do, I wouldn’t have any problems!”
Robbie chuckled. “She’s a charmer.”
Feeling just a little bit wicked, I slanted Robbie a sly look beneath my eyelids. “You know, I think you should ask Anna out.”
“You just said she was seeing someone new.”
“You know Anna. It’ll take a certain kind of guy to make her settle down.”
His snort was much louder this time. “You’re not lying, Megan. That woman would make a priest forget his vows.”
I laughed, he was so right. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t look forward to the moment when it was finally my turn to say I told you so.
“Speaking of forgetting,” Robbie muttered, disappearing back behind the bar.
I frowned, but quickly shrugged off his odd behavior as Jared approached. My heart leapt as he walked right up to the bar stool and slid his arms around me. I smiled up at him and inhaled deeply just to get that zing.
“Happy birthday, Megan,” he murmured before leaning down to press a long, lingering kiss to my lips.
“God, would the two of you get a room?” Anna griped. “Sometimes I really hate being right.”
Jared broke off kissing me, giving me a conspiratorial grin. “It’s called getting what you deserve.”
“Speaking of,” Anna said with mock sweetness. “Robbie?”
“Free cake!” Robbie bellowed from behind the bar.
My eyes popped open in horror as he produced a four-tiered birthday cake of mythic proportions covered in pink raspberry marzipan and emblazoned with purple writing. I could smell the sugar from where I was sitting. If Robbie’s words hadn’t been enough to attract the starving college students watching the hockey game, the scent was.
Just as they began to descend upon the tempting tower of sweet cake, Robbie pulled it from their reach. “Ah, ah, ah, you gotta sing to Megan first.”
They looked at each other and shrugged. Every inch of my skin flamed bright red as I watched them suck all of the air from the room into their lungs. Jared and Anna could hardly breathe, let alone sing as they laughed the entire way through the students’ fraternity version of Happy Birthday.
I’d already forgotten about Ollie and his date sitting in the opposite corner of the bar. I probably never would have remembered them at all except that Ollie caught Jared’s eye when he looked wildly around the bar as twenty or more college students belted out my name.
“Son of a bitch,” Jared said beneath his breath.
There was no malice in his words, just shock. It wouldn’t have been like him to go into a rage or act like a lunatic simply because a piece of the past drifted back through our lives. It was one of the things I loved about him the most.
He cupped the side of my face and looked deep into my eyes. “Are you all right?”
The love shining in his blue eyes was enough to make me light-headed. In all of my most fantastic daydreams, I’d never anticipated how much the right man would change my life in so many ways. But it had and I was thankful every day.
“I’m always all right when I’m with you.”
A shot of emotion crossed his handsome features. “I love you, Megan.”
“I love you, too.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Anna demanded, looking around. “Where the hell is Avery? I told him to meet me here at seven. Doesn’t anyone use a watch anymore?”
Jared and I exchanged glances. Anna had never seen Ollie. The way I figured it, there was no need for that to change.
“So.” Robbie appeared once more, having left the college students to devour my birthday cake. “Where’s this date I’ve heard so much about, Anna?”
It happened while Anna was starting a verbal sparring match with Robbie, and Jared was trying unsuccessfully to referee. The skin at the back of my neck prickled and I turned in time to catch Ollie staring right at me.
A lot of things can pass through a look. Jared tells me with one look that he loves me. But that wasn’t anything close to what I was telling Ollie. I had wondered once, what I would say if I ever got another chance to speak my mind. But in the end I was glad there were no words. I think he got my point anyway.
In those few seconds he knew I was immeasurably happy with Jared, that I pitied him for his ignorant choices and that I was thankful our lives had brushed. That last bit might have been surprising. But the truth was that Ollie’s betrayal had been the push I’d needed to take that final step toward Jared. Without the lies, I never would’ve realized my Mr. Wonderful was right there all along.
~End~
~ About the Author ~
Kaitlin Maitland is a slightly neurotic writer who spends far too much time dreaming up plots and characters and not enough time on icky real life things like cleaning toilets. When she's not pounding away on her keyboard she can be found hiding out in the barn with her horse Mercy.
Visit her website here:
http://www.KaitlinMaitland.com
Mr. Wonderful Lies Page 16
