Worth the Fall (2 page)

How had I ever dated such an ass? Really? I should probably see a therapist just to figure out if I was over whatever stupidity I’d been living under for the last few years.

Of course, to see a therapist I was going to need health benefits.
 

“Let go of me.” I tried to tug my arm away, but he just gripped me tighter, his fingers biting into my skin through the thick wool of my fall jacket. “Seriously. Let me go.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to let her go.”

Now the cop who had raised an eyebrow at my newspaper was coming toward us.

“Ma’am, did you see anyone flatten this guy’s tires?”

“Well, I haven’t been out here very long.”

“About how long?” he asked.

“Well, my boyfriend—I mean, ex-boyfriend—drove me all the way out here to the middle of nowhere—”

“The middle of nowhere?” Jason couldn’t even let me finish a sentence. “We’re five blocks from The Village.”

“Anywhere without a train is the middle of nowhere.” I’d learned that lesson the hard way looking for my first apartment here.

“I was
trying
to give you one last nice meal.”

“You were—”

“Ma’am. How long?” Now he was giving me the flat tone and unreadable look.

 
“My
ex-
boyfriend dumped me because I lost my job. He said I’d just be dead weight. After that, I came out here to wait for a cab. So, about as long as it takes a cab to get here.”

The cop was smirking. Not so much that you’d notice. Just a little bit. Maybe I was imagining it, but I didn’t think so. I really was going to like him. I wondered if they’d fingerprint me. Did that stuff come off with soap? I hoped it wouldn’t affect my unemployment claim.

“So, not very long then?” Officer Inscrutable asked.
 

“I don’t think so.”

“You aren’t buying this, are you?” Jason shook me, rattling my teeth a little.

“Sir, let her go before I toss you in the back of my car.”

“But she assaulted my car.”

“You can’t assault a car. But you can assault a woman. If you don’t let her go, I’m bringing you downtown and having your car towed. On its rims.”

I may actually be in love. This whole situation was my rebound boyfriend.

Which was great because I was staying far,
far
away from guys for quite a while.

Jason’s hand fell away. I doubted it had anything to do with not assaulting me and more to do with wanting the attention back on his car.

Once he let go, the officer called the valet and host over.
 

“Did either of you see anything happen to this car?”

Both of them shook their heads.
 

“Nothing? No one came and let all the air out of the tires?”

Again with the head-shaking.

“Oh, come on.” Jason paced between me and the car, probably afraid I was going to make a dive at his baby again. “It’s obvious these two idiots are lying.”

The valet looked our way and then back at the cop. “I’ve been running cars since six. Someone
might
have been able to do this while I was around back.” He glanced at Jason. “It really is a shame you didn’t want to pay the five bucks to have your car parked.”

Yeah, we could all hear the sorrow in his voice.

By this point, people were standing in the window watching. The officer had taken his little hat off and was rubbing the dark, close cut hair at the back of his head.

“So, we have no damage and no witnesses. I suspect you’re just going to have to contact AAA and call it a night.”

“You’re not going to arrest her?” Jason sounded so shocked I almost felt bad for him.
 

It was kind of nice something wasn’t going his way tonight. I mean, besides those four magically flattened tires.

“On what? Having dated an idiot? Sorry, but there’s no law against that.” The officer put his hat back on and headed toward the car. “If I get called out here again, I’m going to have you arrested for filing a false complaint. No matter what the reason is. You better hope the restaurant isn’t robbed.”

Jason stared after him, his jaw a bit slack at the whole lack of getting-his-own-way’ness in the situation.

I was trying not to gloat over my tiny victory. And then—in my first stroke of luck all night—as the officer walked toward his car, my ride pulled up.

“Hey.” The officer called, pointing at me before ducking into his vehicle. I could see his dimple peek out from where I stood. “You. Behave.”
 

Right. Because my plan had been mass chaos when I’d headed out this evening. I jumped in the cab before Jason could grab me again.
 

“Where to, miss?”

Collapsing back in the seat, I locked the door and said, “Home.”

Or what was going to pass for home for two more days.

THREE

I gave the cab driver my address before I realized I hadn’t been to an ATM in days. I had a bad feeling about what I was going to find in my purse. I mean, no matter how long you’d been dating someone, when he asks you out to a fancy restaurant the day before you’re supposed to move in with him, you think
Am I getting jewelry
, not
Will I need cab fare
.

$1.78

How had I managed to get one of the few remaining independent cabs with no card swipe? Not good. But, luckily I’m paranoid. There’s always a twenty tucked in one of the little inside pockets of my bag.

“How close to that address can I get for twenty dollars?”

The cabbie gave a deep, long-suffering sigh as if he wouldn’t just be driving someone else around for the same twenty-dollar-amount-of-time if I wasn’t there.
 

“Fine.”

Fine
wasn’t exactly a location.

“I’m having a tough night.” I gave him a big smile in the rearview mirror. But not too big. Like I’m-putting-on-a-brave-face big. Which I kind of was. Hopefully, he’d take pity on me and maybe let that twenty get me a tad further than the meter dictated.

When Jason had first let me know he was dumping me, I’d assumed there was someone else. That he’d gotten tired of me. I had already been justifying how it might have been my own fault.

I’d moved here for grad school and met him right away. He’d been one of my advisor’s former TAs my final semester and was still teaching one of the segments one evening a week. He’d taken me under his wing immediately, shaping my education and career path. My time was filled with studying and him. My
friends
category was still filled by my girls back home and from undergrad.
 

Then my internship turned into an assistant project manager position. When my boss managed to get us almost blacklisted with a client, I was pushed into a management position. I’d had to work my butt off to prove the chance they’d taken on me was worth it. That
I
was worth it.

And I loved it. I loved the drive and the hours and the push to make the best marketing campaign out there. I’d been surprised to discover most of my peers liked to do the pitching and design, but not the technical part of the creating. Or they’d like the directed creation, but not the customer work.

I adored every aspect—soup to nuts. And, so, as I worked my way past bored associates who liked to keep things status quo, I let everything else fall to the side.

I had my girls at home. I had Jason. I had a job I adored.

What else could I have needed?

I almost wish Jason
had
been cheating. At least then I could have said someone else pulled his attention away. That love had won out…or something. He’d still be a huge jerk, but at least I’d know there was a reason. Not just that I mattered so little that a potential few months’ rent was a valid reason to jump ship.
 

I leaned my head back and watched the lights go by the window, slipping past me with a quick, silent pattern of darkness and light…darkness and light…It seemed to say,
You’re an idiot…You’re an idiot.

It was sinking in. The whole he-dumped-me thing. Okay, not the dumped part. I’d caught on to that pretty quickly. More the part about how easy it was for him to drop me. How I’d been building this little dream in my head and he had just been looking for a roommate who conveniently paid half the mortgage and shared his bed.

Good luck with that on Craigslist, pal.

I had never felt so expendable in my life. My boss had even used the word. “Kasey, we’re having to cut some corners and while you do great work, unfortunately, you’re expendable.”

I’d asked what that meant. What did it mean to have three projects under your leadership, six people reporting to you, several deadlines coming up in the next two months, and still be expendable? Apparently, when you hire and train great minds right out of their undergrad program who can finish the work—even if they couldn’t have gotten the contract in the first place or manage it once they had it—you’re expendable. Especially if each of them only made eighty-percent of the salary you did.

Good thing I didn’t have a dog. It probably would have peed
expendable
into my rug, then taken off with some hot poodle down the street while I was out.

The cab pulled to the side of the road under one of the beautiful, old oak trees lining a wide cobblestone sidewalk. My block? Regular streetlights and uneven pavement walkways. No trees.

Obviously this was not my block.

 
“Okay.” The cabbie turned around and put his hand out.
 

I glanced from the flashing red meter to him. “Eighteen dollars?” Not only was he not going to drive me the extra mile home, he wasn’t even going to drive me all the way to my twenty dollars.

I guess I was not one of those women who relied on the kindness of strangers.

“That’s including tip.”

For real? This guy was a prince. He was making Jason look decent. I was seriously considering more car assault.

I handed him the twenty and waited.

He waited.

I waited.

“Are you going to get out?”
 

We could have been the last mile by now.

I stuck my hand out. “Who said anything about tipping you?”

We continued our stare down until he slapped two dollars in my hand. I’d planned on giving him the one-seventy-eight in my wallet as a tip, but he’d just ticked me off.

On the upside, I now had three-seventy-eight. Yeah, that was going to save the day.

I shoved the door open and slid my legs out as gracefully as I could in a tiny skirt and ridiculously high Special Occasion heels. I straightened and found myself deserted in front of a coffee shop in a quaint neighborhood I could never afford. It had those little lamps that looked like gaslights from back in the Jack the Ripper days and charming green shutters around black-framed windows. The door was a heavy, oak thing that made me think I was on the edge of a little Irish village. Look at me, I know charming when I see it.

A gold-on-maroon sign over the door announced I’d arrived at the Brew Ha Ha.

Well, that pretty much summed up my night in a sad, punny kind of way. Plus, caffeine seemed like a good idea before my stiletto’d walk home.

Glancing at my shoes, I couldn’t help but wonder what I’d been thinking when I’d bought them. I mean, they were expensive, not my style, and amazingly uncomfortable. But the woman had said my boyfriend would love them. I, being the idiot I just discovered I was, bought them.

And now, I was paying the price. Figuratively and literally.

I pushed the door open and sucked in a cleansing breath of coffee scented air. The comfort and warmth eased up my skin, gentling every nerve that had been on high alert since the night had turned down that unexpected lane of singleness. There were collections of overstuffed chairs with coffee tables and straight back seats around scruffy wooden tables. A “Gently Read” sign rested against a bookshelf in the corner with a collection of used books. It even had a fireplace against the far wall with the sooty evidence of use.

How had such an oasis have been a mile from my place all this time and I didn’t even know about it?

“Can I help you?” Behind the counter, a teenage girl looked at me suspiciously—as if I’d just walked into her home instead of a coffee shop and was willing to pay.

“What time are you open ‘til?”

“Why?”

Seriously? I don’t want to sound old, but this next generation was a little odd.

“Because I want to order a mocha and chill out for awhile.”

Barista Girl eyed me, obviously trying to figure out if I was lying or not. Who lies about getting a drink in a coffee shop?

“Nine on a Tuesday.” She continued the stare. “Are you going somewhere?”

And nosy.

“No.” Now I was the one who was feeling a little suspicious.

“Don’t you think you’re a little dressed up for coffee?”

Well, it was true. “Yes.”