Year 28 - J.L. Mac Page 0,106

distracting myself from my broken heart and dashed dreams. I’ve tried to date here and there hoping one woman could water down the memory of the other. It hasn’t worked. I tried everything I could think of before finally giving in to the hurt I felt. I surrendered to it and allowed myself to grieve the loss of the future I had envisioned for myself. I may be the fool who lost big but at least I sat down at the table and played a hand. It was that knowledge that was some consolation. So I let myself be hurt, and it was working. I was succeeding. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.

I wasn’t waking up every day instantly pissed off that I was reliving the same hurt from over a decade ago. I wasn’t feeling as though I had a sign on my forehead that read, “Dumbass”. I wasn’t feeling as though all the women in town were rolling out their bottom lip to pout and pity me when I went to the grocery store or just about anywhere in town.

Though I knew I’d never be able to forget Rae, I was content with at least not thinking exclusively about Rae.

I was on the road to recovering from Rae.

Then the trip to DC came around. I felt in my gut that there was a slim possibility she’d be there but I had dismissed it. Why would Rae go to a military event where I would be in attendance? She obviously wants zero to do with me and given the manner in which we always seem to part ways, I assumed she’d avoid me.

Miscalculation on my part.

I was speaking to a few people, making some great connections that will undoubtedly benefit BCF down the line when I felt those little hairs on the back of my neck rise. I could feel her sapphire eyes before I had even turned around to confirm it. She’d stood there staring as though she’d seen a ghost and yeah I bet she felt like she had. She assumed she’d left me in her dust in Palmetto Grove, that she’d never be confronted with my face again. Ha! She thought wrong. I’ll admit, while I wasn’t happy to be reminded of the woman that ripped my heart out no fewer than three times, it was worth it to see her face pale and her eyes go wide.

I’d wanted to look her squarely in the eyes to prove to her and maybe more importantly to myself that I was no longer under her spell, that I was moving on. But when I approached her something struck me as being off. Now, I am well aware that more than once I have guessed incorrectly when it came to all things Raegan Potter but in my bones, I knew she was not the woman I had a two week rendezvous with almost a year prior. To her credit, she didn’t show an ounce of jealousy over Christine, which I had expected and even hoped for but when the moment came—nada! What I had not expected was the sight of a slightly thinner, sadder looking Rae, a more reserved Rae. That took me by surprise. Where had the frost queen gone?

My mind began running away with me almost immediately and it only spun more and more out of control as the night went on. Thus, the dumbass move of texting her late that night. She hadn’t answered, but the text said it was delivered and read. She just chose to ignore me.

Well, that was more like it.

Right back to scraping me off like the wad of bubblegum under her stilettos. I tried to convince myself that was the evidence I was looking for that proved Rae was just surprised by seeing me but that she most definitely was the same unapologetic, man-eater I asked to marry me at Cattail Parish Fair. Heartless, that woman.

“So why in fuck am I going to her momma’s house?” I growl under my breath as I take my time driving across town. By the time I pull up to the house and get out of my truck, Rae’s momma has already come outside on the porch with two glasses of what looks like iced tea. I sigh heavily and trudge across the grass and up the steps. I flop heavily down in one of the large wicker chairs, taking the tea Pam holds out toward me.

“Well, it took you long enough,”