I sip my beer while he flips through the options and keys in his selection. He returns a few minutes later, eyes bright.
“What’d you pick?”
“Let’s just say, if they’re not two-stepping by the end of the first chorus, they’re all dead inside.” He takes a pull from his glass. “Like Alan.”
“You’re not gonna tell me what it is?”
“Guess you’ll have to wait and find out.”
I lift my glass to my lips, holding his gaze over the rim. “Tease.”
He shrugs and the silence stretches. Curiosity is tangible, right there on the surface of his tan face. I can’t hide from what happened much longer.
“Okay, Rowan.” I plop my beer down on the bar with athunk. “Ask your questions.”
The song from the jukebox ends. Rowan and I freeze in the few-seconds pause before the next track starts. George Strait’s “Check Yes or No.” I arch a brow. He shakes his head.
He spins on his stool to face me fully, props an elbow on the bar. “You know you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t wanna tell me, right?”
“Understood and I appreciate it.” My smile is soft as I turn toward him until our legs are slotted together—a perfect little Tetris stack of his, mine, then his again. He bounces his gaze to where our knees bump together. “Ask.”
“Why’d you run away?”
I scoff. “Going for the jugular off the bat, I see.” Rowan’s cobalt eyes soften, a reminder that I don’t have to say a word if I don’t want to. My chest tightens. “He was cheating on me.”
Rowan releases a restrained breath through his nose. “And you found this out today?”
It only happened a couple of hours ago, the betrayal is still fresh.Hateful tears prick beneath my lashes. Tears that have no business being there. “I found them kissing in the elevator.”
“You knew her?”
Nodding, I tip back my beer.
“Who was she?”
I huff a mirthless laugh. “His childhood best friend. The woman he assured me for years was ‘only a friend.’” I shake my head and stare daggers into the sticky bar top. “I even made her a bridesmaid.”God, I am such an idiot.
“The blonde pixie?” My head snaps up and Rowan clarifies, “Short blonde hair, black dress.”
I clear my throat, voice barely a whisper when I say, “Yeah.”
He bobs his head. “I saw her. Hated her instantly.”
That makes me laugh. “You wanna know the craziest part? Obviously it hurts, right? And it’s humiliating and I hate both of them, but…” I drag my teeth over my bottom lip.
“But what?”
“I’m kind of relieved.”
My words hang there. The truth of them liberating and shameful all at once.
“I fell out of love with him a long time ago, and I never should have accepted his proposal, but my mom is?—”
The song changes and I shift my attention to the jukebox until Leann Rimes’ soulful “Blue” fills the bar. Rowan pays it no mind, his attention wholly focused on me.
“Your mom is…” he prods.
I chug the last of my beer, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth when I finish it. “She’s got cancer.”