break-up with the man I thought I would marry? I was so screwed up. “Thank you, Jeremy. For everything.”
“Let me take you to dinner,” he said, cocking his head to the side in that way of his. That way I found irresistible.
I pressed a hand against my belly. “I don’t know. I’m feeling kinda sick at the moment. I’m not sure I could eat right now.”
He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Wanna drink instead?”
A slow smile spread across my face. “Now you’re talkin’.”
We left the hotel grounds and wandered into town, where we bought a twelve-pack of beer and a big bag of Walker’s potato crisps from a small grocer’s shop nearby. When we returned to the hotel, we snuck the booze up to our room via the back staircase so Patsy wouldn’t see. Not because she wouldn’t approve, but because she’d probably want us to share.
Back in the room, I drank two bottles of beer while sitting cross-legged in the center of my little couch bed, while Jeremy lounged on the edge of his bed, facing me. We both had our shoes off. I was wearing my yoga pants and a black T-shirt. Jeremy had on his jeans and a gray T-shirt. I hid my feet by pulling on my Duchess of Sassytown socks that I’d found at my favorite indie bookstore in Milwaukee.
“Sorry I ruined your dinner,” I said as I sucked down my beer like it was mother’s milk.
“You didn’t ruin it,” he replied, tossing a handful of the potato crisps in his mouth and crunching them with gusto. “I love potato chips, I mean crisps.”
I took another swig of beer and sighed. “Ugh. I’m such a cliché.”
Jeremy tossed some more crisps into his mouth. “What? Why?”
“Because I just got dumped, and now I’m getting drunk. Cli-ché!” I moaned, opening my third bottle of beer.
He drank some of his beer too. “Harrison didn’t sound as if he wanted to dump you. He sounded like he wanted to explain himself.”
“What’s to explain? I know what I saw. I’ve put up with a lot, but I’m not going to put up with that. I’ve reached my pathetic quota.” I sighed. “It’s just like in high school.”
Jeremy’s chip-filled hand stopped, arrested halfway to his mouth. “What’s like in high school?”
“You obviously spent a lot more time in high school remembering the details of things. I spent my high school years getting straight As and being traumatized by my break-up with John March.”
“March? I thought you two were friends.”
“We are...now, or are supposed to be. But he was the first in a long line of guys to dump me. Left me for a cheerleader the start of junior year, a week before my dog died. Man, that was a craptastic year.”
Jeremy searched my face. “I was at college by then. I didn’t know.”
I snorted and drank more beer. “How would you know? It’s not like you’d give a care about the social life of your friend’s little sister.”
He was staring at the floor. “I remember Luke telling me that you and John broke up at some point.”
I shook my head. Jeremy’s memory was ridiculous. “Yeah, well, I’ve never broken up with a guy. Never. I’m always the dumpee. This time with Harrison, I kept telling myself that it was different, that I was being ridiculous, but when I came around that corner and saw them together...” My stomach did a sickening flip as if it was happening all over again. “Why am I so bad at picking men? Wait. Don’t answer that. That was a completely rhetorical question.”
Jeremy smiled at me and took another swig of beer. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t blame you. Cheating’s a deal-breaker for me, too.”
I sat up straight, nearly dumping my beer on my lap. “Wait. You’ve been cheated on?”
“Yeah. Twice. That I know of. It sucks.”
“That’s...” I tried to let the knowledge sink into my brain for a moment, but it still wasn’t computing. “Surprising.”
He frowned. “Why?”
“Because you’re, uh, super hot, and...”
He laughed. “First of all, I don’t believe you think I’m that hot, and secondly, even good-looking people get cheated on. Take you and Harrison or John for that matter. It doesn’t have anything to do with looks.”
I heaved a sigh and took another swig of beer. “Maybe not always, but in my case I’m pretty sure it does. Lacey looks like Megan Fox and I look like Ellen Page.”
“Ellen Page is really cute.”
“That’s what Luke said.” I wiggled