“Everything going well at the library?” he asked.
“Yes. Thanks. How’s the garage?”
“Doing well. It keeps me busy,” he said. Why were we standing in the doorway of a bar talking to each other? I was fine with an uncomfortable nod of recognition and moving on. This was awkward and borderline painful. I used to know him better than anyone. Now we were strangers and I asked him how work was going. We had nothing to say to each other. So why were we even trying?
“Good,” I said. “Glad to hear it. I’m going to go catch up with my friends. You have a good night,” I said with effort. I was trying to sound cheerful, but it came out louder than I meant it to, so it sounded more like a threat. I kept a smile pasted on my face.
When he went out the door, I rubbed my chest. How could I have heartburn already? I hadn’t even eaten yet.
I joined my friends, who were very casually gaping at me with their mouths hanging open wide. Not at all being obvious or acting like they’d just witnessed a ten car pileup on the freeway. I treated them to an eye roll to let them know what I thought of their crap.
“Why are you two looking like an alien just popped out of the ceiling?” I demanded as I sat down and poured myself a drink from the pitcher.
“Um, the OBVIOUS,” Nicole said.
“I have no idea what she’s talking about. I mean I can’t see anything for all the steam fogging up the entire bar from you talking to Drew!” Trixie laughed.
“Trix, you’re being ridiculous. This is not Romeo and Juliet. For one thing, we’re in our thirties. For another thing, neither of us is dead. And there’s the fact that he is not my star-crossed soul mate. He’s some guy who dumped me in high school.”
“After high school,” Trix corrected.
“Night before graduation if you want to split hairs on my checkered past, okay?” I said.
“You two are fire. Period. I saw the collision in the doorway and I’m sitting here chewing my lip like I just stumbled into the naughty side of TikTok by accident, sister,” Nicole said.
“You’re getting pretty worked up over nothing. Does your husband know you’re checking out dudes on an app?”
“Shut up,” she laughed. “Noah is more than enough man for me. I’m just pointing out the obvious here. You had a three-minute interaction with your loathed and lamented ex in the doorway and the windows of the bar are fogged up.”
“Nothing is fogged up. You’re delusional. Cut her off. No more tequila for you, Mrs. Jeffries. You can’t hold your booze since you became a mama.”
“It hasn’t slowed me down at all,” Trix said, guzzling her drink. “In fact, Ashton just started potty training and there’s nothing makes you want a drink like trying to get toddler to go in the potty.”
“Did you get the little plastic urinal one with the wheel that spins when they pee on it?” Nicole asked. “Rachel said that’s what they’re going to get for Liam because her cousin said it works wonders.”
“I haven’t seen that one. We got a regular plastic potty, and he wants to pee on the floor beside it. So I have earned my drinks tonight.”
“You know who’s earned her drink? The chick who just sat here and listened to you two breeders talk about training urinals with spinning features. That’s who.”
“You know you love our kids,” Nicole said.
“Yes, I do. But I don’t have to face the horrors of teaching a small human to go in the potty,” I said. “I think that ship has sailed.”
“Um, I’m sorry, but you’re thirty-six, not fifty. Halle Berry had a kid at forty-seven.”
“Yeah, she’s also freakin’ Halle Berry!” I said. “It is not like I’m in that kind of shape. Hell, I wasn’t in that shape at twenty-two.”
“Trixie, don’t invoke Halle Berry. She exists to make us all feel inadequate,” Nicole said. “When I see her Insta and think that she is in her fifties and has two kids and that body… I kinda want to poke my eyes out a little bit.”
We laughed and then I stole a little bit of salsa that was left.
“So you’re saying that bumping into Drew didn’t do anything for you?” Trixie asked.
“Of course, not,” I lied.
I could still feel the simmering heat between us, the way that his skin still smelled the same and his hand on my arm felt like it belonged there. Like he should be more than a diffident stranger to me. Like something went wrong in the fabric of time and the universe and that’s why we weren’t together. Not the simple reason that he didn’t want me anymore. It felt wrong. It felt wrong at the time, and it felt worse now. The more time and distance that accumulated between us, the more unnatural things felt when I saw him. Like I should be able to go up and give him a hug and say I missed him, get a toe-curling kiss in return. I couldn’t explain it, how I felt a strange, timeless connection to him like I was still eighteen years old and like we hadn’t spent half our lives apart since then. It felt like yesterday, like every day I could wake up and find out it wasn’t real.