The Heart Wants What It Wants: The Sequel

11

The next day she decided to keep her phone off, since James would be off today and Monday and would likely be trying to reach her.  

In no mood for lunch, she ordered a pint and powered on her phone to look at some rentals.  Unable to think clearly, she realized she was too upset to make any rational decisions and switched off her phone again, finishing her beer slowly as she people-watched.

By the time she'd made it back to the hotel early that afternoon, her feet were getting sore and her mood was starting to dip.

She pulled the door open and glanced at the little clock on the wall behind the front desk.  Seeing that it was only 4 pm didn't help her mood any, as she'd hoped she would have burned more time today than she had.  

She hadn't even noticed her guest in the lobby, waiting silently in one of the comfy chairs for her to reappear.

"Hermione," he called, twisting in his seat as she'd already breezed past him.

She stopped and bit the inside of her cheek, not wanting to do this here in front of everyone.

"They rang your room but you didn't answer so I was just going to sit down here until you came through."

"How long have you been here?" she asked quietly, staring straight ahead instead of looking his way.

"Since before noon."

She sighed heavily, knowing he had to be both hungry and determined if he'd been waiting there that long.

"Have you eaten?  Let me take you to dinner," he stood, shoving his hands in his pockets.  

Her eyes could only make it as far as chest level before stopping there.  She didn't know how she could look at him right now without crying in front of the whole damn lobby.

It didn't help that he looked really good in his favourite black shirt and ripped jeans.  Enticing images flashed through her mind of him laying her down in bed and making love to her mangled with imaginary images of him laying some girl back in his bed.

"At the risk of sounding trite, isn't there someone else expecting to hear from you today?  Isn't there an 'it's complicated' status under your name on Facebook right now or something?"

"My status still says 'engaged' on Facebook actually.  That's about as much of a priority as social media is to me."

It was a subtle salvo but he'd fired a shot over the bow none-the-less, and dinner would likely involve the both of them exchanging more where that came from.  She would blame him, he would blame her...it seemed like a lost cause and the thought struck a nerve deep down, a melancholy nerve of both fear and sadness.

"Thank you for the offer but I think you should go get something to eat.  I had a late lunch around 1 so I'm not hungry."

"Would you please come with me?  Let's have a beer summit or something."

"I just want to know, has anything changed from what you said last night?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, prompting her to start walking again.

He caught up to her and quietly repeated his question as she headed for the lift.

"Hold on, will you please tell me what you mean?"

"If you don't know what that even means then there's nothing to talk about."

"I'm not as sharp as you are okay?  I'm running on like a couple hours' sleep last night and a rough past few weeks on top of that.  I lost you the first time, then lost Dad, I might have lost you again...so if I'm not the sharpest bloke out there right now-"