Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
My brow furrowed. Is he joking?
Reaching into his pocket, he walked to the folding table and slapped a lone piece of paper down at the center of it. Turning to exit, he stopped directly in front of me and winked.
“You have a good night. I’m going to go get my car fixed now.”
Stunned, I was still standing just inside the closet when the door slammed behind him. The whoosh of air from its closing caused the paper he’d left to fly into the air. It floated for a few seconds, then settled at my feet.
I stared at it blankly at first.
Squinting as it came into focus, I realized something was written on it.
He left me a note? I bent and picked it up for a closer look.
What the hell?
The paper Bennett had left wasn’t a note at all—it was a parking ticket.
And not any parking ticket.
My parking ticket.
The same damn one I’d left on someone’s windshield this morning.
Chapter 3
* * *
Annalise
“I need a drink like you wouldn’t believe.” I pulled out a chair and looked around for a waiter before I’d even sat down.
“And here I thought you wanted to hang out with me because of my winning personality, not the free meal you get every week.”
My best friend, Madison, had the best job in the world—a food critic for the San Francisco Observer. Four nights a week, she went to a different restaurant for a meal that would eventually turn into a review. On Thursdays, I joined her. Basically she was my free meal ticket. More often than not, it was the only day I left the office before nine and the only decent meal I ate all week because of the sixty-hour workweeks I tended to put in.
A lot of good that’s done me.
The waiter walked over and extended the wine menu. Madison waved him off. “We’ll have two merlots…whatever you recommend is fine.”
The order was her standard answer, and I knew it was the first step in reviewing the restaurant’s service. She liked to evaluate what the waiter brought. Would he ask her questions about her taste so he could make a good choice? Or go for the most expensive glass on the menu for the sole purpose of maximizing his tip?
“No problem. I’ll pick something out.”
“Actually.” I held up a finger. “Can I change that order, please? Make that one merlot and one Tito’s and seltzer with lime.”
“Of course.”
Madison barely waited until the waiter was out of earshot. “Uh-oh. Vodka seltzer. What happened? Is Andrew seeing someone?”
I shook my head. “No. Worse.”
Her eyes widened. “Worse than Andrew seeing someone? You had a car accident again?”
Well, maybe I exaggerated a little. Finding out my boyfriend of eight years was dating another woman would definitely devastate me. Three months ago, he’d told me he needed a break. Not exactly the three little words I had expected him to say at the end of our night out for Valentine’s Day dinner. But I’d tried to be understanding. He’d had a lot of change over the last year—his second novel had tanked, his sixty-year-old father was diagnosed with liver cancer and died three weeks to the day after the diagnosis, and his mother decided to remarry only nine months after becoming a widow.
So I agreed to the temporary separation, even though his idea of a break was more Ross than Rachel—we were both free to see other people, if we wanted to. He’d sworn there was no one else, and it wasn’t his intention to go out and sleep around. But he also felt an agreement not to see other people would keep us tethered and not allow him the freedom he felt he needed.
And when it came to driving… I’d hated it ever since the first month I got my license because of a pretty bad accident that had turned me into a nervous driver. I’d never gotten over it. Just last year I’d had a small fender bender in a parking lot, and any of my fear that had been quelled reared its ugly head. Another accident so soon might push me over the edge.
“Maybe not as bad as that,” I said. “But it’s up there.”
“What happened? Bad first day at the new office? And here I was thinking I’d get to hear about all the hot guys at the new place of employment.”
Madison didn’t understand Andrew’s need for a break, and she’d been encouraging me to get back out in the dating world and move on.
The waiter arrived with our drinks, and Madison told him we weren’t ready to order. She asked him to give us ten minutes to decide.
I sipped my vodka. It burned going down. “Actually, there was one hot guy.”
She put her elbows on the table and rested her head atop her hands. “Details. Give me details about him. The story about your bad day can wait.”