Chapter 9 #3
“Made no difference to me.” She did look up at him then. He was grinning. “Natalie Rogers was in town. She’d graduated the year before, and I texted her and went to her place, and she took care of me.”
Something hot and sharp sliced through her midsection, which was ridiculous.
She had ghosted him. He had every right to go and get laid, even if it seemed like there was a problematic age gap between him and the girl that he was doing it with.
She’d graduated. That meant that she was at least eighteen. He had been –
“Glad for you,” she said. “Really. Not about the corsage, though, and I am sorry about it. Really.”
“Awfully kind. And apologies are always appreciated, even if it is a number of years too late.”
“It is too late. I get that.” There was an undercurrent humming between them, getting louder and louder, and she was having a harder time than ever ignoring it.
“If you want the honest truth, Alan thought that I liked you, and I said that I didn’t. He told me to prove it. So I did.”
“Is that how it went,” he said.
“It’s how it went. And I am sorry. Because I really didn’t think about how it would affect you. I didn’t think that it would. Being totally honest, I believed that you didn’t care about anything. But of course anybody would care about being left like that when they were supposed to have a date.”
“I really didn’t care,” he said.
There was something behind his blue eyes that told her that he was lying, but he seemed intent on keeping up that lie.
That made her feel worse than if he had said outright that she’d hurt his feelings.
Because it meant he couldn’t even get into it. Even now.
She understood the weight of unsaid things.
Because there was a whole mountain of them between her and her mother. It was different, she knew. But still, she recognized it because she carried so many of her own unsaid burdens.
They were the ones that hurt the worst.
These things that you didn’t want to drag out and dissect because they might be able to hurt you again.
He was doing it now.
The waiter set their dinner down in front of them, and all she could do was stare at her ravioli. Then she looked back up at Walker. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was your traumatic high school experience.”
“So, tell me more about your campaign plans,” he said.
He began to cut into his steak, and it was clear that he was done having this conversation.
She had whiplash from the changing conversation, but she decided to let it happen, because the alternative was to continue to marinate in this strange guilt that she wasn’t accustomed to feeling, guilt that she didn’t think she could add onto the existing shame that she was currently carrying around.
She started to recite her various campaign plans and promises, which she could do without thinking deeply, and it allowed her to disassociate from the moment for a bit, which she really, desperately needed.
But then she saw the crease between Walker’s eyebrows deepen, watched his eyes follow something behind her, and she turned.
Her heart jumped forward, hitting her sternum. Jill. Alan’s sister had just walked in.
Walker must’ve recognized her, because he had reacted the minute she appeared.
Jill’s eyes connected with Addison’s and then her former future sister-in-law looked away as quickly as possible, grabbing her husband’s arm and moving quickly to her table.
Walker very intentionally put his hand across the table again, and covered hers with his.
Making it unambiguous to Jill that this was absolutely a date.
Worry, fear, dammit, anxiety, all rolled through her brain.
Was Jill going to think that she had been cheating on Alan? Was she going to think that this had been something that was going on even before the wedding?
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.
Except it felt like it did. It really felt like it did, and she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin.
She jumped when Walker’s thumb slid over her knuckles. “Relax,” he said.
“I don’t think I can,” she said. “I don’t think I can breathe.”
“You can breathe,” he said. “I promise.”
And then it was like a rush of oxygen moved through her body. Like he had called for the breath from her lungs and helped it move smoothly.
That was a terrifying thought.
That he could have so much power over her body.
And not something she wanted to think about right then.
She could barely finish eating, but it would be a disservice to the ravioli to leave too many, so she did her best, but when the waiter came back and asked if they wanted dessert, she declined.
Walker quickly paid the check, which she was sure everybody in the room observed, and then he took her hand and led her out of the restaurant, back onto the crowded street, and only then did she realize how strangely everyone had behaved during that dinner.
Normally people would’ve come over and talked to her. If she had been with Alan, she would’ve had any number of conversations during that dinner.
But she hadn’t spoken to anybody and nobody had spoken to her.
It was also unaccountably awkward. And just plain... humiliating.
But as they stood up to go, Walker slipped his hand in hers, like that was the expected thing, like it was a normal, everyday occurrence that they should touch each other.
It was what everybody in the restaurant was supposed to think, but her own body responded to it exactly as though it were a shock. And it was.
Her system still couldn’t get over the fact that he touched her now.
But only for this. Only for show, but it didn’t stop her from feeling like everything was hot. And a little bit too bright. Like the lights in the restaurant suddenly weren’t dim and moody, but were turned up to their full wattage, and like they had lit up her body along with them.
It made her stomach feel jittery. Like it was full of Jell-O. And that was a ridiculous image, but one that she clung to, because something ridiculous might make her feel a bit more relaxed in the end. Relaxed was a silly goal, a silly word. Nothing about this was relaxing. Nothing.
They walked out of the restaurant together, and he opened up the door to the truck for her, like he was a gentleman. Or maybe even more alarming, like he thought she was a lady, which was certainly not the way that he had treated her before. Not ever.
This isn’t real.
They got into the truck, and he started the engine, moving away from the curb.
And she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding as they moved away from the restaurant.
Well, wasn’t that funny. She had read that phrase in many books, many times, and she had always thought it was silly.
How could you be unaware that you were holding your breath?
She knew now. It could absolutely happen, but you had to be in a situation that was uncomfortable enough that you had lost touch with every part of your body.
Every part except the one that Walker had touched.
Her hand still burned.