LITMIR.BIZ

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seem to want me to fire you or put you on probation or anything.” She shook her head in mild confusion. “His friend, though. Wow. That guy was hot for me to chew you out. He was practically foaming at the mouth, insisting that his brother-in-law was a lawyer, and he could sue you so hard your children’s children would still be paying him. Matt had to calm him down and talk him out of it, but they didn’t stick around long after your grand gesture.” She smiled at the memory.

      I gave her a shaky smile of my own, one that probably resembled something closer to a grimace.

      “Well. Thanks for understanding, Mags, and for letting me keep my job. I’m just glad it’s over now, and I never have to see him again. It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s aaaall fine,” I said flatly, drawing out the word longer than necessary.

      “Uh huh.”

      I sighed and buried my head in one of the throw pillows.

      “How did my life turn out like this?” I wailed into the cushion.

      It might have been a little hard to understand, what with the stuffing and all, but Maggie seemed to translate just fine.

      “Honey, when men are involved, nothing is ever simple,” she soothed, gently rubbing my back. “Once you realize that, things become so much clearer.”

      I removed my face from the pillow and looked at her.

      “I should have known better than to ask a thrice divorced woman for advice on men,” I said soberly.

      “Oh, stop it, you,” she shot back, laughing. “I may actually be somewhat of an expert by now. After all, what better way to learn things than through mistakes? Now I just know better what to do for the next time.”

      “Next time?” I asked incredulously. “You mean there’s going to be a next time?” I paused and peered at her suspiciously. “Is there something you’re not telling me? I know you’ve been seeing some mysterious man, but have things gotten serious between you two? Or have you got a man holed up in here that I didn’t know about?”

      I made a show of looking around the room for signs of another person. “Oh, Lover! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

      We both started to laugh, the tension in the room lessening noticeably. I was well aware that Maggie wouldn’t be able to give me the answers I still wanted, even after all these years, but talking to her seemed to lessen the load my mind was trying to shift into some sort of order. The only one that would be able to clear all of this up was Matt, and I knew that I would never get those answers from him.

      But did I truly want to stir all of that up again? I’d worked so hard to move on and rebuild my life after Matt’s disappearance, and now I was thinking about dredging all of it up again, opening up old wounds. Allowing him access to the parts of myself that I had so tightly closed off from most people.

      Would he take that power and abuse it?

      Would I end up with closure, or simply left with even deeper wounds?

       Chapter Eight

      I added the last tightly-rolled bundle of linen-wrapped silverware to the pile and let out a sigh.

      I could tell it was going to be a long day. I’d just gotten to work, and I was already ready to go home.

      As much as I enjoyed my job, the previous day’s events had completely upended me.

      As naïve as it might have sounded, I hadn’t considered the possibility of encountering Matt again. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that so much time had passed – maybe I’d become complacent.

      He had become part of another lifetime.

      The idea of ever looking up to see Matt sitting at one of my tables had never even occurred to me, so it was a sucker punch to the gut. I’d tried to explain it to Maggie, but I wasn’t sure she quite understood. She seemed used to running across her exes, as though it was a regular experience for her.

      And maybe it was – she had quite the growing list to pick from, a seemingly endless catalogue of men she’d cast aside.

      Maggie, quite amazingly, had never been dumped. Somehow, she had managed to avoid having her head on the chopping block in all of her relationships.

      I suspected it might have been a simple case of timing in several cases, but I also knew Maggie well enough to know that she seemed to avoid getting too close to people.

      Mostly men.

      Which would translate itself into a need to jump ship from even the most promising relationships for fear that they might demand too much of her emotionally and leave her vulnerable.

      Maggie didn’t do vulnerable.

      Maggie did fierce.

      Which was exactly what I had tried to be the night before; and I’d done a pretty good job of it, I thought proudly. Still, though, I felt strangely unsettled.

      “I’ve always wondered where all those magically wrapped knives and forks came from. I thought maybe there were little elves that did it,” a voice said behind me, ripping me out of my reverie.

      I whipped around to face Matt, who was smiling widely at me.

      Smiling.

       Why was he smiling like that, when I’d dumped a drink in his face the last time I’d seen him? And why hadn’t he insisted on having me fired?

      He looked like a little boy, so mischievous and bright was his grin. He was obviously completely oblivious to how unnerved I was by his presence, not to mention his proximity. There was hardly space between us to allow any semblance of propriety, so I took a step back. I felt like I could barely breathe.

      “The elves are on vacation this week,” I said, trying to squelch my urge to run.

      I had no idea where the words came from, since I was feeling in no way witty. Quite the opposite, actually. I was trembling inside, a roiling mix of anger, confusion, and… love?

      Was that what that was?

      Did part of me still love him?

      I hadn’t really taken the time to examine whether or not I still had feelings for Matt, since I’d not really considered the possibility of ever seeing him again.

      Yes, in the beginning, I had gone through all of the scenarios in my head – what I would do, what I would say, what I would be wearing. How he would react.

      Sometimes, in those imagined scenarios, he would watch in quiet awe as I confronted him, stunning and strong and completely over him.

      Sometimes he would tearfully plead and beg forgiveness from his knees as I towered above him, stunning and strong and completely over him.

      Sometimes we saw one another from across a crowded room and ran breathlessly to each other’s arms, and our fairy tale love would erase all the past hurts.

      Whatever direction my imagination took me, though, it had never resembled anything like this. Matt acted as though we had never met before last night, and I had no explanation for that. I had no idea how to respond to that. Now, after I had finally stopped exploring the feelings and the possibilities, I was being catapulted into what felt like an alternate universe.

      “Well, you seem to be taking up the slack quite nicely,” Matt replied, indicating the carefully rolled pile of silverware resting on the bar beside me.

      His eyes sparkled and danced under the warm lighting of the restaurant. The room, which generally seemed to have an air of cozy intimacy and warmth, now seemed overheated and claustrophobic.

      Had I not been determined to be brave, I would have made some excuse about needing to use the ladies’ room and gone in there to hide. Instead, I decided to make an excuse about needing to get into the kitchen to get ready for my shift.

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