Page 85 of The Plus One Professional
“Yeah.”
“Does he think that you two are back together?”
“What? No. I mean, I don’t know.” I replied at the exact moment it dawned on me that I hadn’t driven to the gym. I was turning onto Cole’s street. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like I was going to show up at his house before six in the morning like a crazy person. I hadn’t even consciously driven here. I took a deep breath. “Yesterday, when Cole was dropping me off, he said he had something he wanted to tell me.”
“What was it? What did he say?”
“I don’t know, nothing. Right before he was going to tell me, he saw Simon.”
“Of course he did. That asshole always had the worst timing.”
“You can’t blame Simon for that. He didn’t know that Cole had something he wanted to tell me.”
“You’re still doing it,” Billie argued.
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Defending that prick. Stop. He doesn’t deserve it.”
Billie was right. I knew she was right. She was almost always right. It was sort of her thing.
“Do you have any idea what he wanted to say to you?” my sister asked.
“No.” But I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was important.
“Are you going to find out?”
“He wouldn’t let me pay him.” I wasn’t sure why I’d shared that information with my sister instead of answering her question.
“What do you mean?”
“For the wedding, you know, coming as my plus one, he wouldn’t let me pay him.”
“Yeah.” Billie didn’t seem at all surprised by that information.
“Yeah? What do you mean, yeah?”
“I mean, it makes sense that he didn’t. He obviously likes you; if I had to guess, he likes you a lot. He probably only agreed to go because he thought it would be his in to spending time with you.”
“He’s too young.”
“No. He’s not.”
“You don’t even know how old he is.”
“I know he’s old enough to handle going as a plus one to your ex’s wedding. I know he’s old enough to come to my room to get your meal because you’re tired, and he doesn’t want you walking around at night by yourself. I know he’s old enough to have his ex show up at the wedding and not make the entire night about himself.”
He had done all those things. That last one hit home in a very different way after spending time with Simon yesterday. After Cole saw Lindsay, he’d addressed it without making it a big deal. If that were Simon, the entire night would have been spent with him talking about how strange it was to see her and how he felt about seeing her again.
Yesterday, he’d gone on and on about how betrayed he was by Devin. Which was rich coming from a man who’d slept with another woman the night before his wedding. Maybe it was because he’d been born wealthy, or maybe it was because he was an only child, or maybe it was because he was a narcissist; whatever the reason, Simon always made everything about himself.
“Age and maturity are two different things,” Billie reasoned. “Cole is a man. A real man.”
Billie was right. Again. Cole was a real man. And I missed him. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The question was, what was I going to do about it?
“Thanks for listening. I’ll call you later.”
The phone disconnected, and I stared at the door to his building. I wasn’t going to just show up out of the blue and demand we finish our conversation. Not that I could even get into the building if I wanted to do that. I couldn’t. I considered leaving him a note on the door, but if I did that, anyone could find it. The chances of someone actually giving it to him were slim to none.
