Just Like That

Part 14

"You've been everywhere tonight..." came the familiar voice from beside you.

Pulled from the darkness of your thoughts as you picked at your salad, a quick flash of a smile was all you would give your ex-boyfriend, David. "I've been sitting right here with you." You played coy, but knew exactly what he meant.

"Hm," was all he gave you at first, a little nod to go along with the one word answer. He sat beside you in the booth, as he always did when the two of you went out to dinner together. The irony was that he never sat beside you when you were together all that time ago. Now, it was routine. He allowed you to choose the side and he would slide in beside you.

"How's Christie?" you asked with an overt cheerfulness. Mentioning David's current girlfriend was never your favorite topic of conversation. You always managed to bring her up though, mostly out of painful curiosity.

"She's good. She's out with a friend of her own right now. Told me to tell you hi," he replied, picking at his own plate.

"Oh," your shoulders tensing slightly. His dynamic with his girlfriend was his business. They had been together far larger than you had ever been with David—and maybe this was their key to success? To see other people? It was your impenetrable jealousy that had been one of the many reasons your relationship with the man to your side failed.

"Y/N," punctuated by his fork being set down at the plate's side. His now free hand found home on your thigh. The warmth, the familiarity of the gesture, of his touch—both calmed you and made you sick at your stomach as you tried with all of your might to not think about a certain actor. "It's been months without even a text. Something's going on." The gentle back and forth motions of his hand bring you to actually look him in the eye.

Gray eyes gazed back at you. They were blue first thing in the morning, but over the course of the work day, they always managed to lose some of their vibrance. His neatly trimmed beard had smatterings of gray, more so than when you had last seen him. When was that again? At least half a year ago now. Your gaze lingered on his beard, far less intimidating than eyes that could always see right through you.

Your silence was his cue to offer your answer choices. "Is the summer getting to you? Without your students?" There was a gentleness to his words, searching, studying—you had always been so tight-lipped with how you felt around him. Another reason the relationship didn't work out—he had to guess at where you stood, when you thought you had always made it quite clear that you adored him.

You assumed he wasn't going to be able to guess about your current predicament. Wouldn't it be something if he guessed that you had been speaking with a famous actor, who seemed to fancy you quite a bit, yet you were too afraid to let him in, and now at the very slightest first sign of him not being interested–you pushed him away with such an intense force and ran right back to your ex?

Yeah. Not likely that he was going to guess that.

"Did you need me to take your mind off of things?" giving your thigh a little squeeze with the promise of more to come. You let out a nervous giggle, reaching for your ridiculously large margarita (the only reason you preferred this restaurant time and time again).

Upon not getting any response from you, David added onto his previous offer. "Nothing else has to happen, Y/N. It can be dinner. That's it." And he was being honest. There had been times when the two of them shared a meal and simply caught up on life. One or both of them would agree they weren't feeling up to anything else and would leave it at that. Judging by the way David kept his hand on your leg and the way his eyes always managed to find their way to your cleavage, he likely wouldn't be the one to turn down more this evening.