Chapter OneZoe
My fingers disobey me. They wrap so tightly around the stem of my wine goblet that I risk severing a digit if the glass snaps. I need to relax, but my body flat out refuses.
First dates always fill me with crippling anxiety.
Apparently, a blind first date is even worse.
I feel like I’ve just crept into a haunted house and heard the door creak shut behind me.
And a blind first date in a to-die-for restaurant, seated next to a snapping fire on a chill, romantic, autumn evening is...
well, there’s no word that I can conjure to describe the feeling of dying-while-still-breathing that’s currently swamping me.
Judging by the laughter and conversation of those seated around me, I’m the only one impatient to fall on my butter knife and end my misery.
Everyone else seems to be enjoying being seen.
That’s not me. On a good day, I want nothing more than to hang out at home with a pizza, something great on television, and cuddled into...
Well, I won’t think of him. This is my new beginning. No sense jinxing my night.
After rearranging the cutlery for the umpteenth time, I steal another sip from my glass and stare down at the crisp, white tablecloth.
I ordered the expensive version of the house red on the theory that I don’t get out much and deserve better than the swill I’d usually drink.
However, this particular vintage is more tannin than reassurance.
Or maybe I’m just too nervous to appreciate my potential buzz.
Maybe if I had dressed better, I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable.
My proper blue work suit is at odds with the decorative butterflies surrounding me.
The women are all decked out in low-cut dresses, expensive jewelry, and powerful male arm-candy.
Just looking at some of the men makes my belly cramp with memories that I really wish would fade away.
Breathe. Don’t remember.
At least my date tonight, an actuary, promises to be significantly less impressive than the man I’m desperately trying to forget. Boring, even, or that’s the hope. I’m done giving my heart to attractive men with impressive resumes and a ton of lifegoals. That kind will only leave me brokenhearted.
No, I want someone like the man I briefly dated before Finn.
That man was... beige: beige suit, beige hair, muddy beige-brown eyes, beige-brown shoes, beige shirt, beige tie, and a beige personality.
Sure, I had to dig my nails into my palms to distract me from unmitigated boredom every time we went out, but he didn’t leave me with a briefly worded text after teasing me with hints of a proposal.
I never should have ended it with Beige.
My heart might still be in one piece if I had just stuck with him and never met Finn.
And if I never met Finn, never let him break my heart, I wouldn’t be made to sit through a blind date in a romantic restaurant on a chill, autumn evening in the hopes of finally, finally, getting over...
Finn. What a stupid name. Short for Finneron. I never even met his parents. That should have been my tip-off. Never trust a guy who doesn’t introduce you to his family. But I didn’t listen when my friends told me he was hiding something.
No, I’m not going to think of him. Not doing it. I’m not letting him ruin more of my life than he’s already ground into dust beneath his expensive, Italian-made soles. Stupid shoes.
I fold the napkin again and take another sip. If I continue like this, I’m going to need another glass of wine before my date even deigns to show up. If he shows up. I haven’t dated in a year. Maybe the trend is to ghost blind dates?
I haven’t dated, in fact, since Finn’s text leveled me.
It’s time to start my life again, whatever version I can manage.
Who needs fireworks and passion and instant understanding?
Not me. I’m going to opt for tedium instead.
I don’t want another person who pulls an entire room into his orbit every time he passes through a door.
What’s the name of the guy I’m meeting?
Doesn’t matter. I’ll figure it out at some point while he’s droning on about actuarial stuff.
I’m so in my own head, vested in twirling the dark red wine in my glass, that I startle when I hear my name. “Zoe? What are you doing here?”
Dread pools at the base of my spine and grips my neck with icy fingers at the accusatory tone. It can’t be. The universe just isn’t so pointedly unfair. But when I look up, I find it is, in fact, worse. “Finn?” His name croaks from my lips.
My ex’s deep brown eyes stare past my soul to the part of me that doesn’t even exist except in potential.
The brown of his gaze is so profound and rich, it’s like creamy earth, a warm hug, and enlightenment all rolled into one big ball of chocolate decadence.
His jaw is set, but the hungry way he looks at me hasn’t changed since the last time I saw him.
Despite the break-up text, it’s as if he still believes I set the stars.
Clearly, I’m delusional. My back snaps straight. “You’re the one approaching me. Cat finally given you back your tongue and your manhood?”
He flinches, and for a perfect moment, I imagine I have the upper hand, until I remember that I don’t. I won’t ever have a hand in his game again.
He nods as his gaze shifts to the side. “Sorry. I just saw you sitting here and it seemed rude not to say hello.” He pauses and his jaw moves before he adds, “Enjoy your evening.”
But as he begins to turn away, all the light he seems to hold around him like a shield going with him, I can’t help it. I stop him. “Wait!”
He rotates back. Fast. His right eyebrow rises. It punches me in the gut.
I remember spreading butterfly kisses along its edge as we rolled and giggled like two puppies on a picnic blanket in the park.
It was one of those early March days pretending to be a balmy summer evening.
A dapple of sunlight danced across his forehead as he lay with his arms spread, waiting for my kiss.
He had just won at badminton, even though he had done everything he could to throw the game.
But instead of kissing his lips, I blinked my lashes over the sunny spot on his brow.
With a pretend growl, he captured me in his arms and turned until I lay under him—and then he returned those lash kisses all over my face until I was giggling so hard, I feared I would pee.
The crack in my heart stalls me again. I open my mouth, but can’t seem to push a single word from it.
“Right.” He turns away once more, an abrupt gesture, but this time he rotates back of his own accord.
For a moment, he appears conflicted, but then he sighs and says, “Look, for what it’s worth, I just want to say that I’m sorry.
You’ve got every reason to despise me. I just want you to know that I never meant to hurt you.
I didn’t... well, I don’t expect you to understand.
” He runs his hand through his dark hair as his eyes pull down before resolving.
He takes a deep breath. “You look amazing, just like... harumph.”
Whatever he was about to say, he covers it with a gruff throat-clearing.
And he seems... nervous? His strong hands flutter up, lifting his tailored suit so that I spot the starched white cuffs of his shirt beneath.
And something more. He’s wearing the cufflinks that I bought him for our six-month anniversary, the last anniversary we shared before he left me.
He said we shouldn’t wait to make merry, that life favored the bold, and so we celebrated as if we’d already made it to the marking point of forever.
More signs that I ignored. I was so stupid, I want to cry.
The cufflinks are gold, eighteen karats, and faced with pearl.
They reminded me of him the moment I saw them in an antique store window: elegant, understated, brilliant, and somehow pure.
He seemed like something out of time to me, something too good for the modern world.
Of course, once he broke my heart, I realized I should have chosen cufflinks embossed with black onyx instead, something to match his charred soul and desiccated heart.
Better yet, I should have handed him coal and saved myself a thousand bucks.
My fingers tighten around the stem of my wine glass once more as I glance away. He sighs again. A whisper of movement tells me he’s planning on walking. My leg acts of its own accord and pushes out the chair opposite mine.
When I look up, his expression is as stunned as I imagine my own is.
Then again, I’ve always been a fool where he’s concerned.
Everything I am, everything I intended to be, I laid at the altar of his feet.
And he stomped on me. What is wrong with me that I need to hear more of his apologies and compliments, even though I know he can’t possibly mean them?
His hands grip the back of the chair. His knuckles go white. Maybe he’s not as unperturbable as he always seemed?
It takes me a minute to find my voice. “I don’t know why you’re here, Finn, but since you are, I think you should do more than apologize. I think you should explain.” There. My words hardly wobble, though there’s a fullness to them of which I don’t approve.
He glances around the restaurant. “I’m, er, expected elsewhere, but, um, yeah. I can give...”
“Give me five minutes? Big of you.” I gesture at the chair and he sinks down, reluctance showing in every inch of his stiff frame. “I’m expecting someone, too. So, talk. Fast. Why did you send me that text? After all your promises, didn’t you think I at least deserved a conversation?”
There’s a whine in my voice. I hate it.
His long fingers stroke the white tablecloth. He watches the movement until he lifts his chocolate gaze to mine. “I’ve thought of you every day, Zoe. I’ve regretted every word of that text, and the reasons why I had to send it. I can’t give you the details.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
His jaw tightens before he sighs once more. With a soft smile, he rises, elegant as always, like an upward fall of silk. “I have to go.”
Beyond his shoulder, I see my date approaching. I know it’s him because he’s carrying a peach rose. It matches the flower in my red hair, the signal we had decided upon so we would recognize each other.
I lock eyes with Finn once more. He nods as Kevin—that’s his name, Kevin—slides beside him, a questioning look on his round face as he examines my ex.
Without another word, Finn stalks off. As Kevin hands me the rose and sinks into the chair, I see Finn approach a ravishing woman with hair as dark as his own.
He bends to kiss her cheek and clutches her hand before the ma?tre d’ guides them to a table out of view.
Kevin says something. I return my attention to him and give him a smile, but my nails are already firmly cutting into my palms.
For just a moment, I’d held the wild hope that Finn was to be my mystery date. Odd how a broken heart can shatter further given the right circumstances.