Table for Two. Jennifer McKenzie
amused rather than upset. “How is this the first time I’m hearing of it?”
“Because I was mad at you when I signed up.” She leaned over to give her husband a peck, which turned into a kiss, which Travis put a stop to, asking his next question before Mal reached them.
“So she’s on a date?” He glanced over, noting that Mal wore a dress and kick-ass heels. Definite date wear. The water he’d been enjoying earlier now tasted sour.
“I’m not sure.” But the sympathy on Grace’s face looked sure.
“It’s a date.” Julia nodded when she said it. Travis appreciated that she didn’t dance around the obvious. “But you could always ask if you want to be certain.”
“Right,” Travis said while Owen snickered. “I’m sure that’ll help convince her to talk to me.”
He’d have said more but finally Mal was at the table, giving them all a tight smile. “Everyone. This is Josh. My date.”
And then there was no reason to ask at all.
Travis thought he put on a pretty good face, maintaining a polite glare instead of the vicious one that he wanted to emit. “Josh.” He held out his hand. If he happened to squeeze the other man’s hand a little harder than necessary, it wasn’t because he was trying to indicate superiority of mate. Okay, it totally was. And if he got a small curl of pleasure when Josh attempted to out-squeeze him and failed, well, he was only human.
He caught Mal’s look and pasted on an innocent face. Nothing to see here but a bit of chest-thumping. “Mallory.”
“Hello, Travis.” Her voice was clipped, indicating her lack of interest.
Travis hurriedly shifted to his left to make room in the booth, effectively shifting everyone else to their left so that the only place to take a seat was next to him. He patted the seat when she didn’t immediately drop down beside him. “Join us?”
Mal’s lips pressed together. “There isn’t room,” she pointed out.
“We can fit.” He patted the space again. “I’m sure Josh doesn’t mind grabbing a chair to join us, do you?” Travis certainly didn’t mind, so long as it was Josh on the outskirts instead of him.
“We’ll find our own table,” Mal said. “We just wanted to say hello.”
Travis didn’t want her to go. He drank in the sight of her. The sexy dress and heels, the flip of her long hair. He longed to reach out and run a hand up her neck to cup the back of her head and claim a kiss from her soft lips. He swallowed. Hard.
She’d been out of his life for a year. A year during which he’d thrown himself into his business in an attempt to move past their breakup. An attempt that had failed, which had become shockingly clear when Owen had come down to Aruba for a visit and dropped the little bomb that he didn’t think Mal was as over their relationship as she claimed. And a seed of hope had been planted.
No, that wasn’t true. It had been planted all along, just waiting for that ray of sunshiny hope to urge it free, to reach for the light and bloom. He swallowed again.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Mal said, and Travis noticed she was careful to meet everyone’s eyes except his. He watched her take Josh’s hand and tug him in the opposite direction. A stone dropped into the pit of his stomach.
What if he’d made a mistake? After Owen’s visit, Travis had taken some time for self-reflection, to consider what he really wanted out of life, and when he’d looked around the beachfront bistro that he’d worked so hard to make a success, he’d been faced with the reality that it didn’t mean a whole lot without someone to share it with. Without Mal.
But what if she didn’t feel the same? What if Owen was wrong? Maybe she really was over him, over them. The squeeze of his lungs put his hand-shaking to shame.
“Okay, they’re gone,” Owen said. “You can stop glaring.”
“I wasn’t glaring.”
But the rest of the table just looked back at him.
“I wasn’t.” Travis ran his thumb back and forth along the edge of the table.
“You keep telling yourself that.” Owen reached over to punch him in the shoulder. “But I’m really hoping that’s not your A game.”
Sadly, it was. “Of course not.” Travis punched Owen back and was rewarded by seeing him wince, which he deserved. “But if you want to throw a guy a bone,” he included everyone at the table, “I’d certainly be willing to listen to ideas.”
But the table remained silent. He’d have been upset if they hadn’t all looked so sympathetic. The realization was almost enough to make him laugh. As a teen, he’d accepted sympathy with a pair of flying fists. But he was older now and wiser.
Okay, older.
“Buddy.” Owen clapped him on the shoulder. “I think this is something you need to figure out on your own.”
Travis looked at him. “In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been too successful on my own.”
“Oh, we’ve noticed.” Owen snickered, which was a damn sight better than the earlier pity. But only just. “And I, for one, am going to enjoy watching you figure it out.”
“You’re assuming I will.”
Owen shrugged. “Misplaced though it may be, I have faith.”
“That makes one of us.” Travis said it quietly, more to himself than any of his table companions, and though no one should have been able to hear him over the ambient noise of the bar, it was Grace, Owen’s new wife with her soft smile and calm manner, who reached across the table to give Travis a supportive pat.
“Don’t give up. You know Mal. She plays her cards pretty close to the vest.”
She did. Travis had had firsthand experience of that when she’d walked into his restaurant to tell him that she wasn’t coming back. Ever. No conversation, no discussion. Just that her family needed her and she was out of there.
It still hurt. Though he better understood her perspective now, having experienced the fear of nearly losing a loved one himself and being too far away to do anything about it. When his gram had fallen ill and been confined to the hospital where doctors could closely monitor her vitals, he’d been stuck in Oranjestad, Aruba, waiting to catch the next flight out. By the time he’d actually gotten to his small hometown, more than a day had passed.
It had scared him, badly. Knowing that if bad had turned to worse, he might never have seen his gram again. Might never have gotten a chance to make her laugh, tell her he loved her and say goodbye. Mal would have felt the same when her dad had been sick.
Maybe if she’d explained, had let him know her own fears, what she was feeling. But she hadn’t. And he’d responded by explaining that he couldn’t leave the bistro. Not when it had only been starting to flourish, becoming a popular destination with profits rising.
Travis sawed his thumb along the table edge again and looked in the direction that Mal and her date had headed. Her date. That guy was not her type at all. Too slick. Too polished. Too pretty.
“Did you see that guy’s nails? I think they looked better than Mal’s.”
Owen let out a supportive chuckle and Donovan smiled, but neither Grace nor Julia looked amused.
“Why are you two laughing?” Julia gave her husband a quick poke with her finger. “You’ve both been known to attend the spa to maintain your pretty-boy appeal.”
Grace nodded. “You don’t get hands that soft without professional help.”
Donovan frowned. “I only went because you told me the massage would relax me.”
But Owen wrapped an arm around his wife and whispered