Chapter 23 #3
And yet this was somehow the exact moment I realized I wanted to be someone Evan trusted. I wanted to be the one that sat shotgun and typed in addresses for dive bars. I wanted to be the one that laughed about the mere concept of molecular gastronomy with him. I wanted to exist with him.
I’d been lying to myself by claiming I wanted something cinematic. I wanted something easy, soft, and familiar. I wanted what we had during those six days in June, and what existed between us tonight.
It was a paralyzing feeling, akin to that dumbfounded starstruck sensation I’d had that first day at camp.
My fingers and toes were going numb despite the heated seats and warmth of his body next to mine.
I had an opportunity months ago to let him love me and I’d rejected it out of fear.
I’d been more or less fine with it, until we kept finding each other again and again.
Evan was all I’d ever wanted, and I had him and lost him, twice now. Maybe it was my prophecy to get everything I dreamt of and lose it thanks to my own folly.
I shook off the stupid pulsating thought before tapping the address into his maps, the directions flashed up on the screen in his car. A text came through from the name Shelby Dawes.
Shelby:
I’m seeing you next weekend, right?
Anxiety coursed through my veins. Shelby Dawes was an indie singer songwriter whose debut album had been a surprise hit.
Andrea and Caroline had tickets to her show here next weekend, they planned on using one of her songs for their first dance.
I’d heard about her and Evan being pictured together, mostly by way of Andrea.
Something sunk inside me. What if they were dating?
“Are you sure?” I asked before pressing the green go button. “It’s pretty divey, like even more than the last place I took you.”
“Even better. Divey usually means fewer people caring to talk to me,” he pulled onto the road and looked at me with a softness in his eyes, “I’m glad we’re doing this.”
I recalled the text from maybe-Evan’s-girlfriend, her name so casually flashing on the screen. Did mine look that natural when it came through?
“Uh yeah, me too,” my voice trailed off and I trained my eyes to the passing cityscape.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, I don’t know, maybe you should take me home.”
“Do you want me to?” Evan turned to me with a slight frown and drove a nail into my brain with his blue gaze and the earnestness of the question.
I was failing to form an answer that made sense, but this situation didn’t make sense. My own thoughts didn’t make sense. He was so soft and gentle with me and my complicated brain, and would have gone directly to my front doorstep without a question if I asked him to.
“Truthfully? No.” I wasn’t clawing at the walls to end the interaction quickly, but I knew the position I was in, and wanted to navigate these treacherous waters carefully, “but can we establish that this is just us hanging out, and not some…I don’t know, crazy twist of fate scenario?”
Fate would never be so kind to offer me a true third chance, this meeting was gently guarded by his supposed relationship status, the moat I wouldn’t dare cross.
He seemed to understand the implication and solemnly nodded, his mouth twitched with a frown backlit by the passing streetlights, “All we’re doing hanging out, and you’re immersing me in the city more.”
“Exactly. Okay,” I inhaled deeply. “I don’t want this to be confusing. For either of us.” I’d need to be guarded, because cozying up close to someone in the middle of a dive bar, drunk off cheap beers and whispering inside jokes to the other, was the easiest way to fall in love with them.
SIlence hovered between us as he drove. My big question loomed. Was I the other woman? Was I about to be raked over the coals as a homewrecker between the intelligent and emotionally deep musician and the handsome actor? I needed clarification, and fast.
“Shelby Dawes…is she your—”
“Girlfriend? Not even a little,” Evan cut me off with a boisterous laugh.
My relief could’ve made me float out of the car.
“We’re good friends, great friends. And I’m great friends with her fiancé, Ash, too.
Wait, were you keeping tabs on me through gossip pages?
Is Miss ‘I don’t want anything to do with Sword of Thorndown’ actually a fan again? ”
“N-no! No. Definitely not.” I sputtered as I tried to defend myself. I only broke my self-imposed public figure Evan McLeod ban twice. The first time was when he texted me ‘happy christmas’ and I checked his public account to see if he was in the same time zone as me.
The second time was after he told me he was in Boston again.
I was looking for proof that he wasn’t actually here in the same city as me and I’d manifested a new figment of my imagination, despite him inviting me to dinner.
Unfortunately I’d been swiftly proven wrong when I saw a post from the Bruins that showed Evan attending a recent game.
The imaginary girlfriend moat had been drained. I could storm into this hypothetical relationship castle.