I look over at her ready to deny it when we see Presley arriving. "At least I'm on time," I mumble, looking over at Presley getting out of her car with her own coffee in her hand. "Morning." She waves at us, and I turn to walk up the stairs putting in the door code.
I walk into the office space and go straight for my office. I put my purse in the white chair facing my desk and sit down in the chair, turning on the computer. "You look like shit." I look up to see Presley walking in with her hair high in a ponytail.
"Why, thank you," I say, turning back to the screen and avoiding her. It's been two days since Ace left my house, two days of me pulling up his number on my phone and then closing it off. Two days of sitting on the couch replaying the past week in my head. Two days of replaying every single time I should have told him how I felt about him. Two days of wishing that I could erase the last two days.
"What are we talking about?" Clarabella asks, coming into my office with her coffee in one hand and her notepad in the other.
"I'm telling her how she looks like shit." Presley fills her in on what we were talking about.
"I was going to say that you were looking rough." Clarabella moves my purse to the couch and then comes back and sits down. "But I figured you knew."
"How the fuck would I know?" I lean back in my chair, and my head feels like it's about to get a headache, and it's only nine o’clock.
"I'm assuming you are looking at yourself in the mirror." Clarabella chuckles. "If you aren't, you should be. You have like dark circles under your eyes."
"You looked great when you got home," Presley informs me. "But then where did it go wrong?"
I can tell you where it went wrong, it went wrong when I turned around and told him that I didn't know if I was okay going out on a date. "Anyway, I don't think there is enough time to discuss why you look like shit."
"Great," I say, ignoring them as they start the meeting about the wedding on Saturday. I grab my notes, and I'm half listening to what they are talking about before my mouth starts talking. "Should I be dating?" I ask, and they both stop talking and look at me, each with surprise on their face.
"I'm sorry, what?" Clarabella says, closing her leather binder that she keeps her notes in. "I don't think I heard you."
"Are you shitting me right now?" Presley asks, shocked. "Like, are we actually having this conversation?"
"What?" I shrug my shoulders. "I'm just asking. I mean, Joseph was dating while we were about to get married. So, it's not strange if I'm thinking about dating now that I'm single."
"Who would you even date?" Presley asks and then looks at Clarabella, then they look back at me, waiting for me to give them a name.
"I don't know," I reply, avoiding their eyes because truth be told, I do know who I would date. I would date him in a heartbeat if I wasn't so fucking scared of the gossip that I let it take control of me. I was also scared of my image and how it would look if I started dating right away. With the guy whose girlfriend was fucking my fiancé. Would they think he took pity on me? Would they think I was taking pity on him? The questions are endless, but one thing is for sure. I miss him. I miss him so much. Not just his touch but also his smile. His voice. His laughter. "I haven't thought about that part yet. I'm just asking should I be dating."
"Well, I'm all for fall off the horse, get on the bull," Presley says, and we all look at her. "What?"
"You've been riding that same horse since you were eighteen," Clarabella says, and her mouth just opens wide in shock. I mean, it's no secret that she has a thing for Bennett, but we've never said it out loud. It’s been rough the last couple of years since he works about two hours away and only comes to town a couple of times.
"I've ridden a dozen horses." She crosses her arms over her chest, and we both know she's lying. "And don't look in my barn while you think no one knows about you trying to ride that horse that left town." She mentions Luke. He and Clarabella were working side by side as our main food vendor, who left town out of the blue a couple of months ago. Clarabella says it doesn't bother her, but I'm not sure about that one. The two of them were friends in college and drifted, but their paths crossed again when the kitchen caught on fire, and he saved the day.