Page 33 of Smartasses
Ruby Sue made an mm-hmm noise as she shot Aubrey an I-told-you-so-look that sent her gray eyebrows into the stratosphere. “I can practically see the light bulb turning on above your head.”
That’s pretty much what it felt like, as if someone had flipped a switch. She didn’t want to go back to feeling like she was just going through the motions again. She couldn’t fix things with Carter, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep that cruise perspective when it came to the rest of her life. It wasn’t too late to still be that person she’d been before, the fun one who took chances and just went for it.
Mind whirling, she glanced over at Otis with his crossword. He was gnawing on his pencil just like she did when she was in the middle of research. Her heartbeat sped up.
“I know what I need to do.” She hustled off the chair and toward the door. “I just have to figure out how.”
“I’ve found pie always helps with that,” Ruby Sue said, handing her a full pecan pie already wrapped up. “I’ve had this set aside, figuring you’d be over soon enough.”
She gave the older woman a kiss on her papery-thin cheek. “You are the best.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Ruby Sue said with a chuckle.
Then Aubrey was off, striding down Main Street with a purpose for the first time since she came home from college. She knew exactly what she was going to do next.
Carter couldn’t stop fidgeting with the linen napkin as he sat in front of the indie film world’s favorite director Allyson Hernandez. She wore head-to-toe black, including a non-ironic beret that she somehow managed to pull off. He fiddled with the corner of the cream material as their server took Allyson’s very specific order.
“And for you, sir?” the server asked, turning to Carter.
“The hot fudge sundae, please.”
The server’s eyebrow might have gone up a millimeter or two, but otherwise, he didn’t have any outward reaction. “Very well.”
“Interesting choice for brunch,” Allyson said. “Gotta sweet tooth?”
“It’s become a new favorite.” Okay, so he’d had at least one hot fudge sundae each day since he’d returned because, like a sap, it reminded him of Aubrey, and he couldn’t help but poke that open wound that still hurt like hell. In fact, he’d spent most of the four days since he flew out of Nassau trying to distract himself from thinking about her by deep diving into the movie script. “It reminds me of...” A friend? A lover? The woman who got away because he was a dumbass? “It reminds me of someone.”
The director made a noncommittal huh and took a sip of her water. “You know you weren’t my first choice for this part.”
“Probably not even the tenth,” he said, practically on autopilot after spotting a woman across the restaurant that sent his pulse into overdrive.
He leaned forward in his chair, still facing the director but watching the woman just over Allyson’s shoulder. Blond hair. The right height. She was facing away from him, and it took nearly everything he had not to bound out of his seat and rush over to her.
Allyson chuckled and gave a whatcha-gonna-do shrug. “No, but I have to admit you got me curious with the cruise challenge. It went off nearly without a hitch.”
The woman turned around, and Carter sank back against the plush back of his seat, his pulse returning to normal, and the ache in his chest that had been building since he walked out of the hotel bathroom and found Aubrey gone returned in full force that made him wince.
“You know what got me, though?” Allyson continued, “It was the fact that you were willing to work for it. You didn’t expect it to be handed to you. That’s not always the case in our world. So tell me about the sundae.”
The change in subject came so swiftly that he answered without thinking. “I met someone on the cruise.”
“And she didn’t know who you were?”
“She did.” Hell, by the end she probably knew him better than anyone else but Byron. “She was the one who posted that I was on board, but I didn’t know that until Nassau.”
That gut punch still had him waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with her name on his lips. God, he’d fucked it up. If he’d taken the time to think instead of just react, he would have realized all of the times she’d tried to tell him.
“When did you find out?” Allyson asked.
“Not until it was too late, and I was already neck-deep with her.” So basically, from the moment she’d shoved those pants up his shirt and told him to play along.
“Conflict, I like it.” Allyson clapped, then rolled her eyes at him when he glared at her. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. We’re in the business of telling stories. This is what we do. So what happened?”
He didn’t mean to tell her, but everything spilled out. He explained how they’d met while she was stealing clothes from her best friend and had clicked immediately. Then he filled her in on the shuffleboard and the backstory game, and the way being around Aubrey just seemed to make sense in a way that he hadn’t felt before. The whole thing should have sounded idiotic when he put it out there in words to a stranger—one who had his career in her hands—but it didn’t. It was just the truth.
“So where is she now?” Allyson asked after the server delivered their food.
“She flew home.” Without him. Without saying goodbye.
