Page 11 of Living La Vida Mocha
I shook my head and avoided eye contact. “Nope, I’m as single as they come but it’s just not the right time. Sorry.”
“Then it wasn’t meant to be. Take care.”
He closed the door and scaled the steps back into his shop.
Was I the world’s biggest idiot, or just in this neck of the woods? Was I being given a second chance, and rather than accept it, I had to have been certifiable to drive away, yet that’s exactly what I did. However, I kept glancing in the rearview mirror because life was funny that way.
Chapter Three
“Okay, what?” Amanda stretched out on her foam mat for our morning Pilates class. “Run that all by me again.”
“The short and sweet version is I got canned and dumped within a five-minute span and ran into an old boyfriend a couple of hours later in a place I shouldn’t have been in to begin with.”
In the open area of my living room, where we worked through a Pilates app off her phone, she pressed her shoulders and feet flat into the ground and lifted her abs into the sky, holding them tightly. I followed but dropped my butt back onto the mat before she did.
“And who was this guy again?” She lifted once more.
“From college.”
“And you… broke up… when…”
“Start of our third year. He accepted an offer overseas while I went to the U of C. Although we agreed to separate, it had been his suggestion. After a while, I stopped thinking about him.” I tried to mirror Amanda’s form and struggled to hold myself up for any length of time. Getting back into shape was brutal.
Amanda seemed to have hit her zone as she appeared peaceful and wasn’t struggling to stay lifted or even catch her breath. She repeated the exercise, doing twice as many as I did. At least when we did our evening walks, I could dominate her in speed, but the Pilates part was killing me.
I stayed firmly at my back, arms touching my hips, and stared up at my non-descript ceiling. I didn’t want to talk about Carter, who had been an uninvited yet most welcomed guest to my dreams last night. “Oh, yeah, and the jerks cancelled my cards—”
“As they should’ve.”
“Right but maybe they should’ve given me a heads up.”
“Or maybe you should’ve had your personal cards added to your Apple Pay to have prevented such a scene.”
“I didn’t cause a scene.” Because that wasn’t me anymore.
“Except you said the manager came out.” She lowered down and rolled onto her hip, challenging me to debate my point.
“The old flamewasthe manager.”
“Ooh, you missed that part because I thought you said he went to college.”
“He did.”
“Coffee store managers go to college?”
“Why wouldn’t they?” My eyes narrowed, and my brow furrowed.
“You’ll have wrinkles before your forties if you keep making that face.”
“That is my face. Nothing I can do to change that.”
Effortlessly, she rolled onto her back and performed a few sets of scissors.
“The point being is I was highly embarrassed, and I’d already had a terrible day.”
“And the manager came to your rescue. How sweet.”
I wanted to toss a throw pillow at her, but there were none available within easy reach, so I did the next best thing and tossed a stretchy band. I should’ve stretched it out like an elastic band first, it would’ve had a greater impact.