Hate to Date You (Dating #4) - Monica Murphy Page 0,82
really blew it.” I send Caroline a quick glance. “I’m sure you’re mad at me now too.”
Caroline rolls her eyes. “I was kidding about that. Plus, I only said all that stuff about Carter being back to his old self because I was trying to get a reaction out of you. Honestly? He seems miserable. Just as miserable as he was when he was in Los Angeles. Only now I swear he’s become even more closed off.”
“That’s all my fault,” I say morosely. “I panicked. I said stupid stuff I didn’t mean.”
“You can fix it,” Eleanor suggests. “Go to him. Tell him you miss him.”
“He won’t listen to me.”
“Sure he will,” Caroline says. “If he cares about you as much as you care about him, he’ll listen to whatever you have to say.”
“What if he doesn’t? He’s just as scared of relationships as I am. I pushed him away, and maybe this distance between us has helped him see he doesn’t want to be with me.”
That’s what keeps me up at night. A flicker of hope will fill me, and I convince myself I should see him. Tell him how I really feel. I imagine what I would say, what I would wear, how it would all play out…
And then he tells me no. He’s not interested. He never wants to see me again.
That scares me.
“How will you know if you don’t talk to him?” Eleanor asks. “I’d rather take a chance and have my heart broken all over again than go through life with regret. And you will regret not talking to him, Stella. I know you. You want that opportunity.”
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should talk to him. But…
“How do I make it happen? And when?” I can’t just show up at his office out of the blue while he’s at work. Can’t just knock on his door either. Is he living at the new condo already? I doubt it. I have no idea where he is, though I’m sure if I ask Caroline, she’d tell me.
“We can help you,” Eleanor says, Caroline nodding. “Will you let us?”
I look at my friends, so grateful for them both. They’ll never know how much this means to me. “Yes. Please. I need as much help as I can get.”
And with that, we put our heads together and got to work.
Twenty-Eight
Carter
I’m at the restaurant in the Wilder Hotel, having dinner with my sister on a Sunday night. She came out to Pebble Beach to see me, despite my telling her I didn’t have the time. Knocking on my suite door repeatedly while I lay under the covers with a pillow over my head until I finally crawled out of bed and answered the door, bleary-eyed and pissed off.
Caroline is a real pain in my ass when she wants to be.
She waited for me in the living area while I took a shower and got dressed. Chatted continuously as we made our way to the restaurant about everything and nothing. The restaurant was mostly empty and we were seated promptly. We ordered dinner, I ordered a Jack and Coke, Caroline didn’t want any alcohol, I told her that was her loss, and now…
We wait.
The silence between us is awkward. It’s like she’s waiting for me to say something, to confess why I’m so damn miserable, but what do I say? Oh, I found myself in a relationship with my roommate and your best friend, but somehow I scared the shit out of her and now I’m here, alone and sad? I sound fucking pathetic.
I feel fucking pathetic.
Who knew caring for someone so deeply could bring you so much pain. My heart, my entire body fucking aches with the need to see Stella. I want to call her. Text her. Go to her and actually see her beautiful face, but I’m worried.
What if she tells me to fuck off? She has every right. I called her out on her shit and she got mad. I got mad too.
I confessed every single emotion I was feeling that night, knowing she could tell me she didn’t feel the same, yet I did it anyway. And she did the exact thing I expected her to.
She told me she didn’t feel the same way.
I know the truth, though. She’s scared like me. She’s even more scared than me. For once, I felt strong with someone. I felt…right. Together we were perfect. Like I knew she could be the woman for me.