“Yeah, but he always seemed to make time to linger by the bar like a love-sick puppy. You two are usually joined at the hip.” Alison waggled her perfectly sculpted eyebrows, which resembled two delicate strips of black tar. “Maybe even literally. Watch out, I might start some rumors about you two.”
Kimber rolled her eyes as she balled up her apron and stuffed it beneath the counter. “See you in thirty. Try to stay out of trouble.”
“I could say the same for you.”
After clocking out for her break, Kimber rode the escalator to the second floor, where the restaurants and shops awaited. She took a long, deep breath of the oxygen pumping through the casino to keep the risk-takers awake and her stomach twisted. So she wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Jay’s absence during the past few days. It wasn’t just her imagination. She tried to convince herself that his job kept him occupied, and he did have finals this week, but Alison was right-he’d made the effort before. The timing of his absence-hot on the heels of her rejection-also suggested this went beyond him being busy. Her shoulders slumped. She didn’t entirely blame him, but the avoidance still stung.
Then she caught sight of Jay’s broad-shouldered frame clad in his dealer’s uniform ambling toward her, rolling with the tide of gamblers and shoppers. She smiled; he always walked with a slight hop to his step, a happy-go-lucky gait, no matter what. He looked around at his surroundings, his expression neutral, betraying nothing unusual. He looked just like the boy she’d always known, with his dark, unbrushed hair curling around his ears, and she realized how happy she was to see him. He was so familiar to her, her one true constant.
Then his gaze came to rest upon her, and she noticed the startled flicker of recognition in his dark blue eyes, which subsequently clouded. Her heart plummeted. If she hadn’t thought something was wrong before, this was certainly confirmation.
But she refused to perpetuate the weirdness. Crushes came and went; it was inevitable. He’d get over this, he had to. Their friendship was too special and had endured too much to let something so fleeting ruin it.
“Hey you.” She gave a bright smile, stepping in his path and forcing him to shuffle to a halt. “How’s it going?”
“It’s going.” He shrugged, looking everywhere but at her.
Kimber noticed him trying to edge around her and swallowed hard, staying resolute in her mission and stance as she moved in front of him again. She wouldn’t let him shut her out. They could get past this. “Are you on lunch, too?”
“Yeah. I got about ten minutes left.”
“Oh. So what’d you have? An excitement sandwich?”
“Totally.” His voice was flat. “Look, I can’t talk right now.”
“Okay.” She inhaled a deep breath through her nose. “Then want to meet up after work? We can grab dinner. There’s a pizza place in the shopping plaza about fifteen seconds from my apartment. We should check it out. My treat, of course, for you helping me move.”
“Kimber.” Jay fixed his gaze on her at last and obliterated any façade of normalcy with his steely expression. “No.”
“No?” A small swell of panic rose in her chest. “Why?”
“You know why. It’s insulting that you’re pretending you don’t.”
This time, Kimber let him pass, too stunned to stop him, but Moquest did the work for her, appearing out of nowhere and charging Jay. “There you are-just the two people I was looking for.” He wrapped an arm around Jay’s neck and looked from his friend to Kimber, seemingly oblivious to the grave tension crackling in the air. “Jay, you tell her about my party yet?”
Kimber squared her shoulders and forced another grin she didn’t quite feel; Jay had every opportunity but obviously no intention of telling her about any party. “What’s the occasion?”
Moquest hooted. “Oh, you’ll see. And you better see-I don’t want either of you to miss it. You will be ever so sorry you did.” He released Jay and backed away, firing his fingers like guns at them. He blew on the tips of his index fingers and tucked them in an imaginary holster as he sauntered off.
Kimber risked a fleeting look at Jay. He chewed on the inside of his mouth and stared wide-eyed at the rug’s jellyfish-and-flowers pattern in a clash of teal, brown, coral, and moss green. He glanced at her, shrugged again by way of farewell, and turned to leave.
“Are you going to Moquest’s thing?” Kimber had to ask, hating that she grasped at straws to have a conversation with him.
“Yeah. Nicole and I are heading there around ten.”
“Cool.” She tried not to crack. This was a whole new Jay, one she didn’t know at all, one who kissed her one day then dated the leggy twenty-one-year-old who worked the cashier’s station without telling her. “Maybe I’ll see you guys there.”
“Yep.” He tossed his hand up-hardly a wave at all-and loped off like he couldn’t escape fast enough, stinging Kimber’s heart in the process.
“I should just not go.” Kimber tucked her feet under herself on Ferney’s couch later that evening. She’d gotten off work only to go to her sister’s apartment and pout, seeking comfort. However, that Ferney was the only one she now sought comfort from was hardly comforting at all; her sister’s advice was abrasive at best. “Seeing Jay there will be so painful, a thousand times worse than earlier today. He obviously hates me.”
“Who, Jay? Pff.” Ferney waved a hand, causing the wine to slosh over the rim of her glass. “He could never. He’s too, too in love with you.”
“Ferney.” Kimber shot her sister one of her famous don’t-go-there looks.
“Fine, no more talk of Jay. Besides, so what if he’s going with someone to the party? You two are allowed to pair off and go your separate ways, Journey-Perry style. You should even be happy for him. There’s something about that guy that just screams he hasn’t gotten laid in, like, a year.”
Kimber grunted a response, assaulted with images of Nicole and Jay having the kind of sweaty, innovative sex that only trained acrobats could master. To say the thoughts churned her stomach would be an understatement. It wasn’t that Jay didn’t deserve to be happy, but with Nicole? She wasn’t the type of girl she saw someone like Jay with. Then again, she’d never really given the matter much thought before; she’d never had to. If she were honest, she didn’t like having to, either.
“You need to start focusing on who you’ll be with at the party,” continued Ferney. “Isn’t Moquest one of those people who knows everybody? The guy’s a Kevin Bacon hub. Think of all the real men you’ll meet tonight, the ones who’ll put Dane to shame.”
Dane. Damn, she’d barely spared him a thought this past week, which she found slightly disturbing, considering how much she thought she’d loved him. Then again, she’d had plenty of time to get over him while they were still together.
And what better way to celebrate that than to enter an era of someone new?
“You’re right.” Kimber got to her feet. “It’s time I learn how to do a little day-seizing.”
“Ooh.” Ferney’s eyes glittered along with whatever was sparkling in her glass and on her ears as she scampered into her bedroom. “I know just the outfit to seize it in.” She returned with a topped-off drink and a short red dress with an empire waist and cap sleeves. “What do you think?”
“It’s hot,” Kimber admitted. “But we’re not the same size. You’re a stick. I’m a stick’s antithesis.”
“Don’t fret.” Ferney tossed her the dress. “It’s a few years old, left over from my fat days.”
Kimber shook her head. “How do you make being helpful sound so mean?”
“She’s good at it, isn’t she?” Paul stated in a monotone, startling Kimber. She’d almost forgotten he was there. He’d been moping beneath an afghan in the corner’s armchair for a half hour, trying to read a compilation of Iron Man comics for the duration of Kimber’s visit. However, she’d never seen him turn a page. Maybe it was Ferney’s shrill voice that wouldn’t let him.