Page 28 of Ghosted By Texas
“When I was about to leave, Victoria and Jordan showed up and when Vic asked where I was headed looking so nice, since I dressed in a suit to go beg your forgiveness, I told them where I was headed.”
“Let me guess, they talked you out of it.”
“Not in so many words. They said they’d just come back from dinner, and you were there kissing another man. Apparently, it looked romantic and there were roses on the table.”
I laughed so hard it was a wonder I didn’t pee my pants. “Newsflash, asshole, I didn’t date anyone for almost two years after you ghosted me. When I did finally start seeing people, I wouldn’t call it dating because I never took them seriously. Once again though, you took Jordan’s word and ran with it.”
“No, I took Victoria’s.”
“Then there’s something wrong with a sister who would rather her brother be with a manipulative, crazy woman than with someone who he thought was the one.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to have words with Vic, now that I know. She was the one who was supposedly at the Valentine’s Party and overheard you talking about the plan to humiliate me.”
“Your sister told you that?”
He stared at me blankly for a minute before he shook his head. “Maybe your whole family has a Jordan problem then.”
“What can I do to convince you to give us another try?”
“Can you rewrite history?” I asked in all seriousness because I didn’t think there was a possibility of anything between us otherwise.
He took the time to look me over from head to toe then. “Were you about to go somewhere?”
“No, I just finally grabbed a shower and was about to figure out what to make for dinner.”
“How about I call for delivery? Whatever you want, we’ll eat here and talk. I won’t even suggest that we call it a date, just two friends catching up on the six years they’ve missed.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I told him as my stomach growled.
“Sounds like it is,” he teased.
“Fine, but I’m going to grab something warmer to wear. I’ll be right back.”
“Why is it so damn chilly inside your apartment, anyway? Is your heat broken?”
“Something like that,” I murmured before trotting off to go put on my sweats. There was no point in tempting fate by trying to look appealing. Besides, it might turn him off to see me in some manly castoff clothing. It wasn’t from a past boyfriend or anything, but my old roommate, Gavin stayed here for six months, which was just long enough to skip out on two months’ worth of rent. I locked him out and kept his shit, which wasn’t much, to be honest. I think the only reason he had a room with me was because he needed a beard since he hadn’t come out of the closet yet.
Clearly, no man in my life had ever been worth trusting, not even the gay ones. Once I was finished getting dressed, I reluctantly went back to my living room where Austin was staring at the wall. No, that wasn’t right. He was staring at the thermostat on the wall.
“Why in the hell do you have this thing set so low? I know you get cold easily.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Did you order something?”
“Chinese from the place a couple blocks over. I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that, and ordered a little bit of everything.”
“Okay, let me know how much it is and I’ll pay when it gets here.” My stomach sank at the prospect, especially since I had no clue what a ‘little bit of everything’ would come to. The place he ordered from wasn’t exactly the cheapest delivery in town.
“No. I already pre-paid, so you don’t have to worry about that. Now, what’s up with your heating situation? It seems to work just fine.”
“I’m only usually here at night to sleep anyway, so I keep it set low. It saves on energy and makes for good snuggly, under-the-covers sleeping.”
“So, I discovered last night,” he teased.
“Well, you’ll have to adjust your own thermostat because there won’t be a repeat of that.”
Austin moved to go sit on my couch and I followed. His eyes narrowed as he tracked my movements and took in the clothing I wore.
“What in the hell are you wearing?”