Was Joel's brother doing the same thing? Or was he walking to work? Did he even have a job? Maybe he couldn’tgeta job with no vehicle.
How awful was that?
In front of me, Joel was waiting for my answer. Was I taking his brother's side?
I couldn’t help it. When it came to this, I guess I was. But I hated the thought of saying so. I tried to smile. "Well, as you said, I don't even know him."
Joel was frowning now. "Yeah. And you're not gonna."
I drew back. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing. Forget it."
"No." My eyes narrowed. "I'd really like to know."
"Yeah?" Joel said. "Wanna know whatI'dlike?"
"What?"
"To talk about something else."
I didn'twantto talk about something else. I wanted to know what he meant. Was he sending me some sort of message, like, "I hope you don't expect to meet my family."
Talk about arrogant.
It was time to end this conversation before I said something regrettable. "Alright." I gave him a stiff smile. "Thanks for stopping by."
He looked at me for a long, silent moment before saying, "If you want me to go, just say so."
At this point, I wasn't sure what I wanted. So I said nothing, wondering if he'd tell me what I was missing.
But he didn't.
Instead, he turned away and began stalking toward his car. As I watched, he opened the driver's side door, got in, and fired up the engine. Almost before I knew it, he was pulling away.
And then, he was gone.
Staring at the empty driveway, I had to ask myself,"What just happened?"
The sad truth was, I had no idea.
Chapter 27
April said, "Hey, you're still listening, right?"
I gave a little shake of my head. "Uh, yeah. Sorry. What were you saying?"
It was still Sunday, an hour before sunset, and I'd called April to thank her for being such a great sport about that whole stripper thing.
My intentions were good, but my performance was pathetic. We'd been talking for less than ten minutes, and already, I was beyond distracted.
Ever since Joel's abrupt departure a couple of hours earlier, I'd been waffling between anger and guilt, hatred and longing, and satisfaction and regret.
It didn't help that April had spent the last ten minutes telling me how totally hot and amazing Joel was. I couldn't disagree with the first part. Hot? Definitely. But amazing? Well, the jury was still out on that.
As she rambled on, I didn't have the heart to tell her that I probably wouldn't be seeing him again.
Hoping to change the subject, I said, "Hey, I meant to ask you something. You called the cowboy hilarious. What'd you mean by that?"
