act?”
He makes a derisive noise. “Sure I am. Also, I need to get my stuff from your apartment.”
I’ve already packed up his various sweatshirts, toiletries and other small items he left around my apartment. I debated whether to drop them in the mail for him in D.C., but that seemed harsh without discussing it first, kind of like a final fuck you to add insult to injury.
“I’ve got it all in a box for you. I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming back to the city anytime soon, but I’d be happy to drop it in the mail?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.”
I stifle a huge sigh of relief. I’m not up for another face-to-face with Bruce just yet, so this is ideal. As for him, I can’t decide whether he sounds relieved or disappointed.
I plow ahead, determined to overcome some of this awkwardness.
“How are you doing? How’s work been going? And I’ve been wondering about your mom’s—”
“I just don’t get it,” he says, sounding pissed now. I tense and send Kelly an oh, shit! look, which she returns with interest. Then I give myself a quick mental kick in the ass. I don’t know why I didn’t hang up after we agreed on the shipping arrangements, ending this conversation before things went south on me. But no. I had to push it one step too far. “I’m trying to be a decent guy about this whole thing, but I was in love with you. I wanted to marry you. I would’ve proposed at Christmas if I’d moved to the city.”
I head back to the sofa and collapse, looking up and searching for divine intervention as though it’s hidden in the crown molding. But there’s nothing.
“I’m really sorry.” I clear my throat. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Does any of that matter to you?”
I open my mouth, but there’s no answer. None that I want to give, anyway. It matters because it’s immensely flattering and humbling to know that he cared about me that much, but there’s just no comparison between the way I felt about him and the way I feel about Michael. It’s like comparing sequins and flawless diamonds.
“Bruce—”
“You know what? Forget it. I don’t know why I’m mentioning it. There’s no point. Actually, there is a point. I hope you know what you’re doing. I hope you made a good choice. I hope this guy is worth it. Because you and me? As far as I’m concerned, we could’ve gone the distance. I just…wanted you to know that. Maybe I’m stupid, but I wanted you to know.”
This whole speech hits a little too close to home for me. Because only time will tell if I made a good choice with Michael. Not that I’d want to, say, hook up with Bruce again if my relationship with Michael doesn’t work out. That would never happen. Bruce isn’t the right guy for me, and I see that with a clarity I didn’t have before. It’s just that my relationship with Michael is fluid and new. While things are clearly going well, I’m not quite sure where I stand or where this is going. To make matters worse, I’ll have so much more heartache if I lose Michael now, after having been with him, then I ever had back when I could only fantasize about being with him.
“Forget about me, Bruce,” I say quietly. “The sooner you do, the sooner the right woman is going to snap you up. And you’ll be so glad when she does.”
Longest pause of the night. “That’s my plan,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Bye, Ally.”
He hangs up before I can respond.
I toss the phone away and glance over at Kelly, my heart heavy.
She shakes her head and makes a whole production out of giving me a scathing once-over. “You are one heartless bitch, aren’t you?”
I burst into startled laughter. This is one of the best things about Kelly. She always knows the right thing to say at the right time.
“Seriously, don’t beat yourself up on your birthday,” she continues, shrugging. “You can’t help it if you have feelings for someone else. You were honest with Bruce. That’s all you can do.”
“He says he would have married me.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“He says he hopes Michael is worth it,” I add.
She goes all somber on me, which doesn’t exactly help calm my nerves over the status of my brand-new relationship with Michael, the man who doesn’t even know it’s my birthday.
“So do I. I’ve seen what he