I've Loved You Ever Since

Part 5

"Good evening, ladies."

"Not interested." Stevie replied without even turning to look at who was trying to join her and her friend.

"Stevie!" Gabrielle stared at her, mouth agape. She then shifted her gaze over to the man and gave him an apologetic look before he walked away. "That was rude. Maybe I was interested?"

"It's girls night out, you're not allowed." Stevie shook her head, guiding the straw in her cocktail to her mouth. "We're here to complain about men, not go home with them."

Gabrielle sighed, looking quite disappointed. "Okay, okay. You go then. What's going on in your love life?"

"Nothing." Stevie shrugged. "Oh, except that Lindsey and I went out, I invited him to my place and tried kissing him, but he pushed me away."

"Shut up!" Gabrielle slapped the bar top with the palm of her hand loudly. "What? How? How did that happen? How did you get to a point, where you thought about kissing him?"

"It's not like I planned to." Stevie breathed out heavily, showing her empty glass to the bartender. "We just... I don't know, we talked a lot and about so much that night. We got cozy on the couch by the end of the night and I-" She shrugged. "I looked at him and I thought we were on the same page, but I guess not."

"That's weird." Gabrielle frowned. "I could have sworn he's had a thing for you for years."

"It sounds stupid now, but there have been moments, when I thought so as well. Then again, we've known each other for so long if it were true, don't you think he would have acted upon it already?" It was more of a rhetorical question. "So, I'm completely embarrassed by what happened and we haven't had a normal conversation for the past two weeks, we only talk about work. He tried explaining, but he just went completely silent, apologized and left."

Gabrielle gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry, honey. It's his loss." She added, making Stevie smile a little. "I'm sure you'll get through this. It might be awkward for a while, but you'll get back to how things were before."

"I hope so. I don't want to lose him over something so stupid, but you're right, it's super awkward at the moment." Stevie nodded, leaning in to take another sip as soon as she was presented with a refill. 

Gabrielle was about to say something, when she lifted her eyes up and Stevie immediately noticed a change in her friend. "Uh... speaking of awkward..."

"What?" Stevie raised an eyebrow. "What is it?" She asked, turning to look, but Gabrielle stopped her.

"No, don't!" She shook her head. "It's... Tom's just walked in."

"Shit." Stevie cursed. "Is he alone?"

Gabrielle shook her head again. "A male friend."

"Oh God, this night was not supposed to go this way." Stevie sighed. 

"Maybe he'll just walk right past us, maybe he won't even notice." Gabrielle said, thought considering that they were sitting at the bar that was highly unlikely. 

"Couldn't he have picked another place out of all possible options in LA?" Again, Stevie didn't expect an answer to that. "We haven't even seen each other after the breakup, this is not how I wanted to run into him."

"Well-" Gabrielle began and went quiet after that, she gulped.

"Hey."

Just the sound of his voice sent a shiver down her spine. There was no way Stevie could ignore him, pretend that she didn't hear him.