Page 32 of Forever Mine
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to spend some time with her alone.”
“I understand. See you tonight?”
Grabbing the can opener from the utensil drawer, I open the can of sliced black olives.
“Tonight?”
“Date night.”
Fuck me. I totally forgot our standing Saturday date nights. We had planned to grab dinner and go see a movie.
“Do you mind if we skip tonight and do it tomorrow?” I cringe when I ask it.
“Sure.”
His reply is stilted, and it makes me feel like shit. I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place between my boyfriend, who I promised I’d always put first, and my best friend, who I haven’t seen in over a year, and… oh yeah, doesn’t remember who the hell I am.
I want to bridge the awkward gap that now exists between us and her, caused by what happened to her and too much time apart. It’s not going to be easy. We aren’t going to have the carefree existence and easy friendship we used to share. Liz has changed. She’s more wary. Mistrusting. Not sure of me and the guys. But we’ll get there with patience and love.
“I was thinking of taking Liz to Belly’s later. Karaoke night. I think she’d get a kick out of it.”
Liz was so musically talented. Guitar, voice, drums, piano. I hate karaoke, but I’ll do it for her.
“Want to come to Belly’s with us? I can text you when we get there.”
Silence, like a room full of crickets silence. “That’s okay. You two have fun. Say hi to Liz for me.”
“I will. I love?—”
The line goes dead.
Goddammit.
With my mind a whirl of jumbled thoughts, I go back to finishing lunch. Just as I twist the top off the jar of pesto, the doorbell sounds. A million butterflies emerge from their chrysalises inside my chest. I don’t know why I’m nervous. It’s just Liz.
I open the front door—and there she fucking is.
Liz has braided her long, pink-tinted hair into two pigtails that hang down past her shoulders. Her face glows a rosy hue from the sun she got yesterday. All my worries dissipate when she smiles at me.
“Hi.” That one word bursts out of me like a piñata full of enthusiastic confetti.
She holds up a pink box that smells like vanilla.
“Hope you don’t mind that I brought dessert. I found this local bakery near my apartment. Their mini cakes looked good.”
Her smile grows when I grin like an idiot. I can’t help it.
“It may taste like shit,” she says, biting her lip.
I can’t hear anything she’s saying over the loud pounding of my heart.
“Um, Julien?”
Stop being a weirdo, dumbass.
Moving out of the way, I hold the door open for her to come inside.
“Shit, sorry. Please come in. I was just finishing up making lunch.”
