He was just looking at her. And it still felt like a knife blade into my belly. Because I knew what it meant, what it reminded me of.

One day, regardless of what he said about relationships and marriage, he was going to have another girlfriend. It could be a month from now, it could be a year from now, but it was going to happen.

And there was nothing I could do about it.

He wasn’t my boyfriend or my lover, and I needed to be grateful I even had that much, I told myself as I squeezed my hands into fists beneath the table. He was my friend who cared about me. He was a man who didn’t want to get married. He was a man who only wanted to share part of himself with me. I had no business looking or caring. None.

And yet….

“Des is the one who’s known him his whole life. Max moved to Shreveport when they were in high school,” Brittany explained, her words helping me focus on her and not anyone or anything else.

I nodded, swallowing down a ball of what I wasn’t going to consider being agony. “That’s cool.”

Brittany nodded, her own eyes flicking in the direction where mine really, really wanted to go to again. But I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. The cute, high-chiming laugh belonging to the waitress seemed to carry across the freaking restaurant one more time, and it was so cute and sweet it made me feel like mine sounded like a donkey, loud and abrasive, uncultured and just… me. Awkward. This was why I didn’t compare myself to other people.

My traitorous eyes slid toward the bar even though I knew better. And I saw that the waitress had her hand really close to Aaron’s on the bar counter. I glanced back as fast as I could, luckily beating out Brittany’s gaze. I was too strung out to notice the frown on her mouth.

“She’s a real fucking flirt, isn’t she?” she stated under her breath, her eyes narrowing.

Pressing my lips together, I tried to act stupid. “Who?”

“The waitress,” she said, still looking in that direction. “Every time we came in here last time we visited, she was just a little too friendly even to Des, seeing me sitting next to him. I don’t like it.”

I couldn’t tell her I didn’t like it either, but I smiled like I could understand where she was coming from. “Des is really cute.”

That had Brittany instantly grinning over at me. “He is, huh?”

I nodded.

“Aaron’s not too hard on the eyes either if you like that kind of Captain America thing,” she joked.

Yeah, me playing it cool ended there. I didn’t trust myself not to say something stupid and instead giggled. Giggled. How much more fake could I get? I hadn’t giggled since I was seventeen and around Hunter.

It must have been obvious I was full of crap because she laughed. “I’ve tried asking Des what’s going on between you two and he says he doesn’t know.”

“Oh, there’s nothing—”

She rolled her eyes.

“Really, there’s nothing. He called me his little sister one day,” I explained, reaching up to scratch at my neck.

Brittany’s mouth twisted to the side for a second, like she thought I was full of crap, but she didn’t say anything else, settling for just taking a sip of her iced tea.

There was another laugh from the bar that had my throat knotting up, and I knew what I needed to do. Pushing my plate forward, I took another sip of my water and shoved my chair back. “I was thinking about taking a walk around and see if I can find Mindy.”

She nodded, her expression focused on the bar again until her eyes flicked to mine briefly. “Want me to go with you since Prince Charming over there is busy?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I’ll be fine, unless you want to come.”

“I’m saving to buy a house. I shouldn’t be doing any shopping right now. I don’t have any self-control,” she explained.

“Okay,” I told her a little too quickly, my smile a little too brittle as another cute laugh made its way to our mostly empty table.

My hands were not shaking as I pulled out the approximate amount of money my bill was going to be plus tip and left it in the center of the table. I was not about to cry. No. No. No. When I forced my eyes not to blink, I reasoned that they needed some ventilation, not because I was worried one bad blink would lead me to burst out crying.

“I’ll see you in a minute then.”

On my feet, with my purse going over my head, I told myself not to look at the bar again.

And I failed. Like usual. Like I did at most things.

This time, the three men were all sitting at the counter, listening to the waitress talk openly about who knows what. And they were all smiling. Who was I to get mad about someone making Aaron happy when all I’d heard was how unusual it was for him to have those kind of reactions?

I wanted to be jealous and petty, but I couldn’t be.

That was a lie. I could. But I wouldn’t let myself.

And so, even though my hands shook and sweated, I shot Brittany another smile and wormed my way through the crowd of tourists, heading toward the door. The cool air was more than welcome on my nostrils even if it did nothing for the ugly, bitter feeling bubbling around in the pit of my stomach at the stupid image in my head of Aaron smiling and laughing at another woman. God, I was acting worse than a crazy girlfriend.

Of all the men in the world I could be nuts about, I had to be in love with the one who saw me as something I didn’t want to be. What was wrong with me? It was like I was asking for the heartbreak since I knew darn well what I was getting myself into. I did this to myself every freaking time, didn’t I? Always. Always falling for the one guy who couldn’t and didn’t see me as more than a friend.