Chapter Four
ON MY DRIVE HOME, I couldn’t get over the day I’d had.
To think it had started off so hopeful, only to end with my ex-boyfriend and would-be boss staring at me on the dance floor.
I thought he would have just left after he paid for dinner, but he stayed and watched me dance with Jose.
I couldn’t help but watch him too. I swore in his eyes I saw the memory of us slow dancing outside of his apartment in the first snow of the season during the year we were together.
While I generally didn’t care for the frosty white flakes, when I shared it with Ian it took on a new life, a magical one.
Ugh. My brain needed to stop recalling every memory of him, except the one where he left me crying and wondering what I had done wrong.
Or of all the phone calls that went unanswered.
He ghosted me before it was even a term.
Tonight, Ian walked out on me again without saying a word, but this time it felt different.
I didn’t have the punch in the gut feel.
It was more of a prick to my heart. Too many what ifs ran through my mind.
I had no business wondering what if that fateful night thirteen years ago never happened.
Or what if we had stayed together? It didn’t help when Alicia remarked after he left, “He looks like a man who knows regret.”
Don’t we all know regret? Like me. I regretted going to work today, and a little of me regretted my snotty attitude.
Just because Ian was a jerk didn’t mean I had to be one.
I felt so bad about it I called Amanda as soon as I got home.
I needed her to make me feel better. I replayed the whole crazy dinner story for her.
“Was I out of line?” I asked. “And why couldn’t I control my snarkiness? I’m not used to being rattled.”
She laughed. “Oh honey, don’t be so hard on yourself. He’s lucky you didn’t punch him. It’s his own fault for leaving you with so much pent-up anger. He’s the one who chose to walk away without giving you a reason.”
“Manda, he didn’t love me. End of story. What better reason is there than that?”
“Kelli, that’s malarkey. Real men don’t walk away and never speak to you again just because you say you love them. And they don’t just show up out of the blue thirteen years later for no reason either.”
“All right, wise one, what possible reason could there be?”
“Did you find out if he’s married?”
It drove me nuts when she responded with a question not an answer.
She did that more often than I liked. “I didn’t ask, but he didn’t have a ring on.
Hold on, I want to google him. Let me put you on speaker.
” I set my phone down and typed in Ian Greyson on my laptop.
The first listing was for an attractive actor who shared his name.
Too bad I didn’t have time to ogle handsome men online.
I scrolled down the page and found an article about the sale of Ian’s software company, IAG Inc.
It sold for a cool thirty million. Wow! I scrolled a bit farther down as I listened to my sister bark commands at my nieces, who were balking about going to bed.
One of them yelled, “Come save us, Aunt Kelli!”
I laughed.
“Just wait until you have your own,” Amanda retorted.
“I can’t wait.” I tried to keep the longing out of my voice.
“Kelli, you’re going to have your own.”
I hope so.
A very interesting article popped up. Well, well, it looked like Ian married Denver socialite, Marissa Randall, eight years ago.
I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or, dare I say, jealous.
Wait. I was definitely not jealous. Their engagement photo was pretty hoity-toity.
Ian was in a black tuxedo, and she was in some silver evening gown.
She was what I would call a buxom blonde with overdone make-up and hair.
I was just about ready to tell my sister he was married when another article caught my eye from two years ago.
Amanda was now yelling for Zane to come deal with his offspring.
“Hey, sis, it looks like he’s divorced.” I chimed in before she really raised her voice. “Or at least he was a couple of years ago.”
“Does he have kids?”
I scrolled down the article. It was a gossip column from the Denver Post. I couldn’t believe Ian was popular enough to get mentioned in the society pages.
No wonder he looked like a runway model now.
I honestly preferred the Clark Kent version.
Don’t get me wrong, he was easy on the eyes, but there was something sweet and innocent about the man I knew so long ago.
Now he looked like he lived in a boardroom.
“There were no children from the union.” I read out loud to Amanda. “So, no kids, at least not from Ms. I-May-Tip-Over-Because-My-Hair-And-Boobs-Are-So-Big.”
“Send me a picture of her,” Amanda requested.
I snapped a picture like a thirteen-year-old girl and texted it to her.
“My, my . . .” Amanda responded.
“I know, right?”
“You’re way prettier.”
“Thanks, sis, but I don’t care.”
“Sure, you don’t.”
“Really, I don’t. Why would I?”
“Every woman cares about who their ex-boyfriends end up with, even if there are no longer any feelings there.”
“Well, I don’t. It was a long time ago.”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Missy.”
I set my laptop down and lay down on my couch. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. I thought I would never see him again. It was something I had come to terms with. And now here he is, and not only that, I could be working for him. What do I do?”
“Honey, I think you need to be honest with yourself about why you don’t want to work with him, and if you can come to terms with that, then I think you should go back and show him what Kelli Bryant’s made of.”
“What do you mean, be honest with myself?”
“I think you know. Good night, Kelli Jelly.”
I think I knew too, but I didn’t want to admit it. “If you say so. Good night, Manda Panda.”
I set my phone down and sighed. Charlie took that as his invitation to come and pounce on me.
For some reason, he loved lying on my abdomen.
As I lazily stroked Charlie, I tried to process the day, especially what my sister had just said.
At first, I lied to myself and told myself I had such a strong reaction to working with him because obviously, I wanted that job and felt I deserved it.
But the truth wouldn’t be ignored. My heart asked me what if someone besides Ian had gotten the job?
The answer was I would be drowning myself in a hot fudge sundae now, but I wouldn’t be unemployed.
I would have put on my game face and kept doing my job the best I could.
I would have done my best to welcome the new blood.
Speaking of hot fudge sundaes, I got up and traded my clothes for a night shirt before I made my way to my kitchen and pulled out my dad’s old recipe for hot fudge.
I needed my dad’s lawyer mind, or just his arms. I missed him so much.
His life had been cut too short by a brain aneurysm.
We were told he died in a matter of minutes.
Our only consolation was that he died doing what he loved, defending the weak and the innocent.
My dad was my hero. He could have been a wealthy man if he had wanted to be.
He was a brilliant attorney, but he only took paying cases so that he could take more pro bono ones.
Don’t get me wrong, we lived a good life, but we weren’t spoiled, except in the ways that mattered most.
I stirred the hot fudge on the stove to the perfect consistency, all while trying to self-diagnose.
I had come to terms a long time ago with the fact that Ian didn’t love me.
I knew when I told him, so many years ago, he probably wouldn’t reciprocate.
His favorite line was, “I’m crazy for you, Kelli,” or sometimes, “You drive me crazy, Kelli.” Sometimes he meant that endearingly, but I knew I did drive him crazy.
We were very different people, but that was what I loved about our relationship.
He helped me enjoy quiet, simple pleasures, like nature hikes and art museums. He even took me fishing once.
And I managed to get him to be loud and crazy occasionally—like when I dragged him to the Festival of Colors, and we threw colored chalk at each other.
Another time I pulled him up on one of the campus benches and made him slow dance with me for everyone to see, just because I liked the song playing on my iPod.
He used to give me a look that said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” and then he would kiss me as if to say, “I’d do anything for you.
” Maybe that’s why I thought he might return the sentiment.
We were happy together. I mean, truly happy together.
As different as we were, we never fought, and there was never any drama.
That’s why it took me so long to get over him.
When he walked away, I felt like someone had removed all the oxygen from the air.
Foolishly, I thought he only needed to come to terms with it and he would realize it didn’t change anything.
I expected him to come back that night, or at least the next day, because surely he missed me like I missed him.
But he didn’t. He wouldn’t even answer my phone calls or his door when I went to talk to him.
He had removed me from his life permanently, with no thought at all.