Waiting for Always (Beautiful Surrender #5)(4)
Author: Ava Claire

“So you’re going to make me pry it out of you?”

“Pry what out of me?” I said innocently.

“Put the menu down. I know you, Melissa. You’re a creature of habit—you’re not trying anything new.”

“Sure I will.” I picked a menu item I hadn’t tried. “I’ll do the smoked salmon benedict.”

“Or maybe I don’t know you,” she said darkly, completely disregarding my attempt to prove her wrong. “The Melissa I know doesn’t dash off to San Francisco, saying to hell with her job and friends. The Melissa I know doesn’t freeze me out for days.”

I lowered the menu and let my eyes follow suit. “Stacia—”

“The Melissa I know would be able to look me in the eye and tell me what’s going on, without me having to pull teeth. Because we’re friends. Best friends, I thought.”

“Best friends?” I snorted, raising an eyebrow. “Are we in the third grade?” I meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. I winced, backpedaling as fast as I could. “I didn’t mean that.”

“I was under the impression that we were both adults, but sneaking off is something children do,” she fired back.

“Touché,” I muttered, shoulders slumping. Our waitress took our order. I got the same thing I always ordered. Stacia ordered the salmon.

“I’ll let you have a bite of it,” she offered.

I met her eyes and saw the spark of warmth I had no right to. I fanned it nonetheless. “Thanks, Stacia.”

She took an angry swig of her mimosa. “Don’t mistake my generosity for forgiveness.”

I chewed my bottom lip, then took a slow and sobering gulp of espresso before finally facing the firing squad. I’d been so caught up and eager for escape that I didn’t even look at Stacia. But face-to-face, eyes wide open, I saw her. She wore a crisp black blazer with a charcoal gray blouse beneath. Her dark hair was pulled into its usual bun at the nape of her neck. Her makeup was flawless, brown eyes fierce and lips blood red, ready for battle. None of it should have been jarring; she was a lawyer, suited up, and no frills was her uniform. The only time she let her hair down was the rare occasion when she wasn’t entrenched in a case. But the last time I saw her, she was miles away from the woman in front of me. The bright colors she’d worn seemed painfully so in the face of the monochrome ones she was currently in. The light in her eyes had darkened, the happiness I’d seen back in Sacramento so distant that I wondered if I’d imagined it.

Something had happened to my friend…and I wasn’t there for her.

“Is it your ex?” I hung my head, ready for her judgment. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry.” She sat up taller, her face so closed off that I could almost make out the snarled barbed wire and the sign that read ‘KEEP OUT’. “And I didn’t come all this way to talk about me. I came here to talk about Logan Mason.”

I polished off my espresso, the bitterness of it coating my tongue. “Where do you want me to start?’

“The beginning is just fine.”

I drummed out a nervous beat on the table, memories piling on top of each other. The weight of it made me want to the change the subject like a coward. Talk about the view. About her work. Hell, my work. Or maybe talk about the subject she was clearing avoiding herself—but that just reminded me that I’d been a bad friend, and that’s why I was in this predicament in the first place.

One of those calls and texts she sent may have been at a pivotal moment when she felt like her whole world was crashing down. I’d declined every one, focusing on Logan. Love (and the other L word) were no excuse, and she deserved to hear that.

“Remember the trip to Santa Cruz? The rental at Pleasure Point?” I leaned back against the cushion of the booth, wishing it would swallow me whole because she was about to rip me a new one. “Logan owns the property. That’s how we met.”

“WHAT?!” she bellowed. An elderly woman beside us cleared her throat pointedly, but she cowered when Stacia whipped her head in her direction. She reserved the brunt of her anger for me. “You met him in Santa Cruz.” Her emphasis on ‘met’ wasn’t so much shook hands and said hello. More like, our na**d bits got acquainted. “But that can’t be true, because you told me nothing happened besides a gnarly sunburn.”

I squeezed my thighs together, but it was too late. My core was throbbing at the memory of Logan’s hands gliding over my skin; the bite of the sunburn and the cool of the cream. I relived the aching need when he kissed me, and all I wanted, all I needed was Logan.

“I wasn’t being completely honest.” I peered around us and when I was relatively sure no one was listening, I continued. “We were together, Stacia. And it was-” I gulped, knowing full well whatever word I came up with wouldn’t do it justice. “Amazing.”

Her face softened, the faintest smile fluttering across her lips. “I knew some vacation dick was just what you needed.”

“Stacia!” I gasped. Her voice wasn’t remotely lowered or discreet.

“Let’s call a spade a spade.” She crossed her arms, tracing her bottom lip thoughtfully. “But it was more than sex. That’s why you didn’t tell me.”

“I wasn’t ready to face what it was,” I answered truthfully. “And by the time there was no running from it, when I was in so deep that I…” I meandered as our waitress slid up to the table. Even though I doubted this was another situation where the waiter was really a reporter, I still waited for her to walk away before I picked up where I left off. “He sees me, Stacia. With Jason, I felt like it was so much work trying to be perfect. Trying to be everything he needed. But with Logan, it’s effortless. I’m not losing pieces or hiding parts of myself. He sees it all. And he loves it all.”

Stacia’s eyebrows nearly lurched to the ceiling. “Love?”

I nodded slowly, holding my breath. Waiting for her to tell me that there was no way I could be in love with a man I’d barely known a month. Or that he could love me. But she didn’t say a word. She wielded her knife, the blade gliding through the egg and spilling the creamy yolk over the salmon. I watched her, my appetite forgotten. I just wanted to get the lecture over with.

I waited for her to eat half of it before I broke the silence. “You’re not going to tell me how ridiculous this all is?”