Nichole
Belfast is one of those bars you walk into and immediately start to grin. It’s not just the warmth of the place with the high polish, honeyed wood bar and tables, the strung white lights around the exposed brick walls, and pressed plate ceilings. There’s always a crowd, always a familiar face—and even if there isn’t, the owner Brody has a way about him that makes everyone feel like family. So when Laine wanted to come, I thought, perfect. There’s been some friction with one of the guys from a venue she uses pretty regularly, and I was kind of hoping to distract myself with a little talk about her problems instead of mine. Maybe throw some darts or play some pool or just grab a drink at one of the high tops in the back.
Clearly, I was wrong. Because Laine is like a dog with a bone over this Matt business. We haven’t even made it in the door and she’s asked me thirteen times in ten minutes if I’m okay. Really okay? Or just pretending to be okay?
I might have been pretending pretty successfully, right up until she made me admit it.
Now as I’m entering the bar that always makes me smile, my stomach is in knots and all I can think about is how Matt rocketed out of the house this afternoon. And how the sound of the closing door behind him physically hurt.
I want to believe that everything is going to be okay.
That all he needs is time. And the same with me. But I have no idea, and all I really want is my best friend, Matt, to reassure me, when he can’t.
Laine’s hand meets my arm. “Hey, I thought you said Matt wasn’t coming.”
My heart skips a beat as I scan the crowd for the one face I want to see. Only when I find him, he isn’t holding up a couple of longnecks, nodding us over like he’s been waiting for us to show. He’s standing at the bar talking to…Peg.
My stomach lurches into my throat and I think I’m going to be sick. There’s no way. He wouldn’t do this. He would not bring a date to the bar I told him we’d be at tonight. The very same woman he brought back to our place two months ago when he wanted to show me there was nothing between us at all.
“Oh, my God.” It’s a repeat of the most devastating letdown of my life. And not even the names have changed.
Rage boils past my incredible shock. I can’t believe it. Matt isn’t a coward. He isn’t a bastard. He can’t be rubbing another woman in my face right now because he’s too much of a pussy to deal with what had happened between us. But there he is, standing next to that same leggy blond, pretending he has no idea I’m standing here watching him.
“We’ve got to go.”
Head nodding in vigorous agreement, Laine starts pulling her coat back on. “Okay. Just let me—”
“I can’t wait.” I dodge past, desperate to escape. To get away. To block out the betrayal from the one man I trusted never to intentionally hurt me.
Clutching my stomach, I rush out the door.
Matt
This night isn’t going the way I planned, but for as awkward as this is, it’s the right thing. “Thanks, Peg. When I saw you here, I wanted to come over to apologize for the way I treated you at the end. You were right about there being more to my relationship with Nichole, but I just wasn’t ready to admit it. I was an ass, and I’m sorry.”
Peg folds her hands into her lap and offers a tight nod. “I appreciate it, Matt. Take care of yourself.”
I drop a chaste kiss onto her cheek and head back over to the table my brother Jack is holding for us. “Hey, man. Thanks for meeting me out.”
Like me, he’s a big guy. Tall, with an athletic build. But while my hair is on the lighter side, his is almost as dark as Nikki’s. In high school they looked like a perfect match… and it drove me fucking nuts. I should have known then.
“Glad for the company. Where’s Nichole tonight?”
I shake my head, feeling like shit.
“Out with Laine somewhere.” I’d know if I’d been acting like any kind of a friend at all when she’d been talking. “She’s the reason I called.”
“That so?” Jack rocks back in his chair and shoots me an amused look. “So you’re finally coming to your big bro for advice, huh?”
Nichole
Two hours later, I set my pen aside. Pushing back from my desk, I walk out to the slim secretary at the top of the entry stairs and tent the note next to a bowl of candy Conversation Hearts.
Laine warned me, but like a fool, I refused to listen. Unable to think past the ache between my legs and the void in my heart, I ignored all logic. I pushed Matt into bed with the promise that it was just sex—so certain I knew what I was doing. That I could handle it. Keep my heart out of the one place it had always wanted to go.
I was wrong.
And Matt must have seen it. It’s why he needed to put some distance between us. Why he did what he did. After all, nothing says ‘just sex’, like screwing another woman less than eight hours after your last one.
Damn him.
Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I shake my head.
He didn’t have to do that. He didn’t have to be so cruel.
Or maybe he did. Maybe it was the only way he could think to make me believe there would never be anything more between us. Telling me sure as hell hadn’t worked.
I’ve been in denial for far too long. But now, with the blinders coming off, I’m seeing my self-destructive actions for the subconscious maneuvering they truly are. I moved in with the man I love, but pretended not to, because I’d have done anything to be close to him. I talked him into a night of no-strings sex, when I should have known it could never be so little to me. And to Matt, it could never be more.
I’ve been living the lie for years. Betraying the honesty and friendship between us I claim to prize. Betraying myself.
Stomach in knots, I fight against the emotions burning up my throat and pushing at my eyes. I reach for the bowl of candy and, closing my eyes, select a single pastel heart.
“Friends 4-ever.”
Of course.
The dam breaks and hot tears slip down my cheeks, faster than I can swipe them away.
I’m doing the right thing.
If I want an honest friendship with Matt, one that isn’t built around false hope and buried desire, I need to stop lying. To him. To myself. I can’t live with him, playing girlfriend in my dreams and best bud throughout the day. I need to leave.
Crouching down, I grab the cardboard box I started filling, then scan the living room behind me, hating the look of the stripped shelves and the unbalanced spaces where my things had so comfortably fit.
The furniture in my room I’ll need to get help with. But the rest I can have out of here tonight. Matt said he wouldn’t be back—he didn’t need to bring Peg here to make his point. I got it within the first fifteen seconds at the bar.
This will give Matt some time when he gets home tomorrow.
He’ll be angry at first. But then he’ll see that I’m right.
This won’t be the end for us. We just needed to start over from a different place.