Her Midnight Detour

Every time I start believing things might finally turn out okay, life makes me look stupid for hoping that hard. Maybe before I was even born, some cranky old woman cursed my mother after refusing to pay for whatever she ate in her restaurant. At least that would've been a decent explanation. I lifted my gaze from a plate holding what I could only guess was some fancy cut of tuna and wondered what comeback I'd have once he said the words that would finally kill this farce. Besides, I don't even care for tuna. "It's not you, it's me." Seriously? If this were some grand melodrama, I would've pushed back my chair, locked eyes with him, slapped him after tossing out a line about regret, and stormed off to opera music. Or maybe a choir belting I Will Survive. Out of everything he could've thrown at me, that was the line he picked? "It's just that you've been so busy and we barely see each other-" "That's why you slept with my sister?" I asked, fixing my glasses on the bridge of my nose. I couldn't sit through it anymore. The last one at least had enough decency to say flat out that I was dull. That being with me was basically like courting his grandma, and he'd gotten sick of it. Parker Shaw, though, had a way of making me feel special. He made me think I truly stood a chance. Made me feel like I actually had a shot. Naturally, that fantasy of finally having someone disappeared the second I saw his tongue down my sister's throat. Neither of them knew I'd shown up. Parker Shaw is an engineer, and he happened to be at the site when I chose to play the doting girlfriend and surprise him. I stepped into the tent the crew said was Parker Shaw's and voilà!