Lost Without You/A Jordan Knight FanFic✔️

06

NOW

Seeing Alice again shook me. The memories. Her moving announcement. It's taken me a few days to find that breath again and resume the monotony that is now my life.

"We really must stop meeting like this," New Neighbor Nina the Nurse says to me as we reach our mailboxes at the same time.

I chuckle. "I'm not sure why I even check it. Maybe just to empty the junk from it. I pay all of my bills online now. I can't remember the last time I received an invitation to a wedding. And even Christmas cards seem to show up in my inbox instead of my mailbox." I hold up my pile of advertisements and credit card offers as if to say, "See what I mean?"

"Not me." Nina pulls an envelope out of her mailbox and opens it. "I've been expecting my swatches." She shows me the pieces of material. "I'm getting new furniture, but I'm ordering it online. What do you think?"

They're all too flowery for my taste, but instead of saying that, I smile and shrug. "I think you shouldn't care what I think because I'm a guy with no sense of style."

"Fine. I guess I'll make the decision on my own. It's my retirement gift to myself."

I failed to tell Lucy that my new neighbor is sixty-eight and has had a knee and hip replacement. It's not that I'm against older women (even if she's only a few years younger than my mom) or joint replacements. After all, Alice is older than me. It's just that I'm not interested in anyone who isn't my wife.

Yes, I realize I don't technically have a wife anymore.

"I'm envious of you. I hope I can retire before I'm seventy. Anyway ... I'll see ya around."

"I'm going out for pasta," she says before I have a chance to take more than two steps.

I glance back at her.

"If you like pasta, I wouldn't mind the company. Not a date, of course. I'm clearly out of your league. I just think life's too short to eat alone all the time."

"I'm a big fan of pasta. Give me twenty minutes to shower?"

""I'll drive. I don't think I could get into that truck of yours."

"Fair enough. See you in a bit."

Nina proves to have excellent taste in restaurants. And expensive taste. I've only been here once before, on my tenth wedding anniversary with Alice. We made it to twelve.

I thought we would make it to eternity.

"So how's that daughter of yours?" Nina asks as I pretend to like the wine she insisted on ordering for us.

"Lucy is good. She has a boyfriend. I'm not sure how I feel about that."

"You said she's seventeen?"

I nod, shoving bread down to erase the bitter taste of the wine.

"Then you can't be surprised. She's a young woman."

"She's my baby girl." I shake my head.

Nina chuckles. "And have you met this young man?"

"I have not." A familiar figure snags my attention over Nina's shoulder.

A couple is seated at the table behind her. It's Alice and who I assume must be Josh. As he pushes in her chair, her gaze lifts and meets mine. The unexpectedness pauses her motions, forcing Josh to look in my direction as well before taking his seat behind Nina.

Nina twists around to follow my gaze. "Do you know them?" She returns her attention to me. Now it's just awkward.

"Hi," I say to Alice, giving her date a stiff smile. Another man with my wife (yes, I know, I know ... she's not my wife), pushing her chair in and getting ready to eat at a fancy restaurant with her, is a unique kind of torture—so is the red blouse she's wearing with her tight gray skirt and red heels. Hair down. Makeup accenting her eyes, but not overdone. And I can smell lavender. I can smell her, and the familiarity stings. For twelve years I nestled my nose into her hair as I held her in our bed. I know how she sighs and slides her foot down my calf to run her toe along my instep. The ghost of her touch still molded to me.