Reliving The Past

When Jordan and I first started dating, I was worried about how he would react to me being friends with other men. Sure, he’s been my best friend my entire life and has been around throughout all my relationships so he knew what it was like to be the guy that everyone was nice too but always weary about. One of the things he told me after we decided to see where our chemistry took us was that he will not treat any male friend I have like he had been treated over the years.

“I know you have a life outside of our relationship,” he told me. “You can have the male friends you want Babe, I don’t care about who they are because I know I’m your only ‘boyfriend’.”

So you would think that it would be wrong of him to be all pouty and whatnot as he sat in the driver’s seat tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in time to the song that was playing lowly on his stereo.

As I held my cell phone to my ear and watched Jordan, I started to get a little ticked off. I was thinking, how dare he call me and ask where I was? I didn’t have to answer to him anymore. He didn’t have the right to make me feel like I was doing something wrong by spending time with my boyfriend or enjoying the weekend away.

“Would you like to try that again?” I asked him.

There was an auditable pause on his end. “What do you mean?” He asked hesitantly.

“Would you like to change your demanding, accusing ‘where are you’ to a friendly ‘hello, how are you’ or something that won’t make me want to kick your butt?” Beside me Jordan chuckled and shook his head.

I know it sounds bitchy but I was seriously joking – I couldn’t kick his butt if I tried, he would overpower me in a second and he knew it.

Josh laughed. “Sorry,” he apologized and then told me he was in over his head with the show. “None of the parent volunteers showed and there are about a hundred kids here all wanting to do something with the show. I wasn’t expecting this but I should’ve known - Cassie and her friends were a little too convincing when they went out to see who would like to be a part of this show.”

I nodded; Cassie was like her mom in that sense. Mary could get anyone to do anything she asked, even if they didn’t initially want to get involved. “Cassie was supposed to tell you, I had made plans for this weekend long before she asked me to help out.”

“Plans with Jordan?” If you could hear the sound of eye rolling, it would’ve sounded like Josh did when he spoke just now.

“Yes.” I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t think I needed to remind him that Jordan was my boyfriend or that we would be doing stuff together.

“Plans that mean you can’t swing by? Even just for a few minutes?”

I shook my head. “No Josh, I couldn’t just ‘swing by’. Even if I was in town, I wouldn’t. Sorry.”

“Out of town?” He sounded a little hurt as he told me that he had planned a romantic weekend away for us when we were still together. “Didn’t happen though, we broke up the weekend before.”

I didn’t say anything; there wasn’t anything I could say to that. I wasn’t about to feel bad that Josh and I didn’t get a weekend away or anything else. I was very happy with Jordan and there wasn’t time or place for regrets or ‘what if’.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally after realizing that I wasn’t going to reply. “I shouldn’t live in the past, I know, mom tells me that all the time. She says, ‘Joshua, I know you have deep feelings for Anna and you wanted things to work but they didn’t and you need to accept it and move on; she wasn’t the woman for you’.”

I nodded. “Your mom is right Josh.”

“Is she?” He asked but didn’t give me a chance to respond before jumping in with a quick ‘gotta run’ before hanging up abruptly.

Shaking my head, I snapped my phone closed and tossed it into the back seat. Turning towards Jordan, I smiled. “So what’s next?”

Jordan looked me over and shrugged. “Did you have something else planned for this weekend Anna? Did you make plans to spend it with Josh?”

I raised a brow.

“Yeah, when I answered the phone he said, ‘I should’ve known you are the reason Anna isn’t with me this weekend’.”

I snorted. “Yeah, him and a hundred kids apparently.” When he shot me a questioning look, I shrugged. “Jordan I told you about Cassie’s show and how she asked me to volunteer…” he nodded slowly. “Well Josh is the teacher who’s overlooking the whole thing which she didn’t tell me about until after I volunteered.”

“Oh.”

“They are meeting today and tomorrow to see who can do what and go from there. I told Cassie I couldn’t go when she told me because we had talked about getting away. When Nick told me that you were doing the guy’s night with your brothers, I figured that I might as well go there and see what’s going on. That’s all, I swear.”

“So why didn’t you tell me about Josh being involved with the project as well?”

“I was waiting for the right time?” I said slowly as I shrugged. “I didn’t know how you would react because he’s an ex and I would have to work with him to some sense.”

“I can understand that,” he told me simply. “But Anna we had this talk before, I’m not worried about other men, I trust you to be true to me and our relationship.”

I grinned. “You’re right, I was being silly.”

Leaning over, he kissed me. “Yes, you were.” Sitting back in his seat, he slipped the truck into reverse. “So I was thinking, we should grab some food at the hotel and then relax in our room before meeting up with Scott in the lounge. How does that sound to you?”

It sounded like a great plan, I was so ready to go back to the hotel after spending most of the day out at the over crowded mall.

After making a stop at our room to drop off our purchases and have quick showers, Jordan and I walked into the hotel restaurant. We were waiting for a waitress to be free to come seat us when Scott appeared in front of us. “Could be a while,” he told us. “Unless you would like to join me?”

Jordan and I looked at each other. “Sure.” He smiled at Scott. “That would be great. Thanks man.”

“No problem,” Scott threw over his shoulder as he led us through the restaurant to a booth in the back where a pretty little redhead was sitting by herself. As we greeted her, Scott introduced her as his girlfriend, Kim.

“Wow,” I reached across the table again to shake her hand. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she smiled shyly as she tucked hair behind her ear. “Scott has been telling me about you guys meeting us for drinks later and there you were. It’s crazy!”

From what I could tell from just spending the first few minutes listening to her and watching her with Scott, they seemed really happy together. But it got a little weird when it came time to order.

After Jordan and I told the waitress what we would like, she turned to Scott and he ordered for both of them. Not really a big deal right? Men order for women all the time, or they just tell the waitress what their female companion wants. But that’s not what he did, he said ‘I would like…’ and listed off what he decided on and what Kim decided on.

When the waitress turned to Kim, Kim told her that she wasn’t having anything.

Once the waitress left, Kim must’ve seen my expression because she told me she wasn’t crazy. “I just refuse to order food for myself here, not after what I heard.”

I glanced at Scott. “What did you hear?”

“There’s nothing wrong with the food,” Scott told us before turning to Kim. “There’s no proof the rumours are true Kim.”

“Maybe not,” she replied. “But I’m not taking chances.” With that said, she turned back to Jordan and me. She told me that she knew Scott through her best friend who worked in the hotel. “When we started to see each other Karen told me to be careful whenever I come here with him to eat.”
I frowned. “Why?”

“Because of Tessa –“

“There’s no proof Kim,” Scott repeated.

“Scott I know but I’m not taking that chance. She’s been nothing but rude to me when you aren’t around and I don’t trust her at all. She would be the type to do something mean and spiteful like that.”

“Like what?” I was curious.

“Well,” Kim leaned over the table. “Rumour has it that Tessa is crazy. Scott doesn’t think it’s a big deal, but she’s obsessed with him and apparently isn’t afraid to do something if some other female takes his attention away from her.”

While she was telling us this, Scott was sitting back, shaking his head. You could tell that he didn’t believe it and wasn’t about to either.

“Karen told me that a couple months ago Scott met a chick here and Tessa flipped out. The morning she was checking out, she had breakfast and Tessa tampered with it, crushing prescription sleeping pills up into the food.”

“When was this?” I asked as my heart started to pound as I started to think about my last trip to the hotel. It can’t be, I thought.

“I’m not sure,” Kim replied. “I just know that she was staying in the hotel this summer with her nieces and –­”

I felt the blood run from my face. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Jordan, who knew about the whole not waking up after coming back from staying at the hotel with the girls, jumped up. “Which one is she?” He asked as he looked around the restaurant.

Scott asked him what his problem was.

Kim clued in right away. “Oh my God! It was you!”