or your new boyfriend will think I’m coming on to you. He looks like the jealous type.”
He wasn’t. Not in the traditional “no one touches my woman” way. Zep didn’t get nasty if she talked to another guy. He trusted her.
Was she ready to let that go?
But the job was everything she’d worked her whole life for.
She stood and got ready to go back to the party. She needed to talk to Zep. He would help her figure this out.
chapter fourteen
Three hours later, Roxie was frustrated beyond all belief.
The party had gone off without another hitch and everyone had gotten along. She’d even received a nice gift from her parents, a watch she’d been wanting for a long time. One of the high-tech ones.
Despite the fact that she wasn’t fond of lamb, the meal had been delicious and the cake perfect.
Zep had been charming and sweet, but there was a distance between them she didn’t understand, one that hadn’t existed before she’d walked away with Joel. Despite the fact that she’d held his hand or wrapped her arm around his waist much of the time, she’d felt very alone.
She’d spent the entire drive back in confusion. He’d turned on the radio and hadn’t spoken beyond making small talk.
She closed the door behind him and couldn’t hold it in another second. “What’s wrong?”
He moved toward the back of the duplex, where Daisy was already whining and crying about staying in the crate one second longer than she had to. “Nothing as far as I can tell. Everything seemed to go well. I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything. I should have. I didn’t know about the party and things have been busy, but I did know it was your birthday. That’s on me.”
He’d spent all of his time this week driving her to and from work, around town to get the things they needed for the pets. He hadn’t had a spare moment to grab something he could call a present, but then hadn’t the whole week been one long gift of his time and care and talent? “I don’t need a present. You’ve done so much for me this week. But I think we should talk.”
He’d avoided a long talk with her at the party. When she’d tried to pull him away from the others, he would drag her into the conversation he was having. When she’d told him about the job offer, he’d smiled brightly and told her he was happy for her.
But it was a mask. She’d seen that smile on his face a thousand times.
Or did she simply think she knew him better than she really did? After all, hadn’t she thought she’d known Joel when she’d married him? Hadn’t she gone into the marriage thinking it would be forever? Now she was in another relationship and she had to question everything.
Zep opened the crate and Daisy nearly tackled him. He picked the puppy up, though she was wriggling like mad. “Talk about what? I think it went much better than I expected after the way it started. Even your ex was pretty pleasant. I actually like your brother. He’s cool. I can’t get a read on the fiancée, though. She spent most of her time checking her nails.”
“She’s not as shallow as she seems. She’s pretty shy, actually. She’s better when she’s one-on-one.” She’d come to accept that sometimes relationships looked different to an outsider. People had thought she and Joel were the perfect couple. They’d been excellent in public. Bad in private. Shawna and Brian seemed to be the exact opposite.
“Well, I don’t expect I’ll see her much after this. I’m going to take this one out in the back. I suspect she needs to stretch her legs a little.” He opened the back door and let himself out.
Why was he running away? She’d thought he would be disappointed about the whole idea of her leaving, but he seemed rather nonchalant about it all.
Sunny jumped down from her perch on the sofa and stretched, yawning.
Yeah. That was kind of how Zep was treating the whole thing. It was disconcerting. She had no idea how to deal with a Zep who wouldn’t talk to her.
She followed him outside, unwilling to let it go. “I get offered a job that will take me a couple thousand miles away and you think it’s great?”
Daisy was doing zoomies around the yard, and Roxie wondered how much the puppy had slept while they were gone and how hard it would