“You give us both too much credit.”
“Simone must be excited for tomorrow,” Joey said quietly. “We haven’t talked in a while, which I guess is the reason I’m not invited to the wedding.”
“If it makes you feel better, Simone isn’t invited, either. Apparently it’s poor form to invite your ex-girlfriend to watch you get married.”
Joey’s mouth dropped open. He actually heard it, the sound of her lips parting, the small gasp. He hadn’t meant to be so dramatic, but there was just no good way to tell her. He’d been avoiding this conversation for months.
“Simone and I haven’t spoken in almost a year,” he said. “We broke up not long after we got to Vancouver.”
Joey twisted her entire body sideways to face him, not an easy maneuver considering the parka she was wearing probably weighed ten pounds. “Are. You. Serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She met another chef at the restaurant,” Drew said, and even now, saying it out loud sounds weird. “She was seeing him for about a month before I figured it out.”
“Simone cheated on you?”
“People change.” He glanced at her. “Right?”
Joey turned to face straight ahead again, and Drew allowed her a moment to process. He understood it was a lot, and her reaction reminded him of the night he and Simone made the decision to move. She’d been offered a job at a five-star restaurant in Vancouver, and he’d been accepted at the University of British Columbia for graduate school. It was a good plan, the right decision, and a smart move toward their future. The only challenge—for him, anyway—was how to tell Joey. It was no secret she’d grown attached to them, and while Simone thought she’d be okay, Drew wasn’t so sure.
They thought a good meal might soften the blow. Simone, who’d graduated with honors from culinary school, cooked a huge feast for the three of them, no small feat considering how crappy the kitchen was in their basement apartment. Roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, sautéed vegetables, sourdough bread baked from scratch. She even made apple tarts for dessert, Joey’s favorite.
They had filled her up before they broke her heart.
“How’d you find out that she met someone else?” Joey asked.
“She started hanging out with the people from work after her shifts, and was coming home later and later. She was picking fights and never wanted to have sex—” Drew stopped, cleared his throat. “I felt it. I waited in the parking lot outside the restaurant one night. Watched from the car when she came out with some guy. I followed them back to his apartment. She didn’t come out for three hours.”
“You sat in the guy’s parking lot the whole time?”
“We were in a four-year relationship. I had to be sure.” He made a left turn onto Acorn Street. They were nearly home. “She saw me and froze. And that’s when I realized I had nothing to say, because her face said it all. She turned around and went back into the building. When I got home, there was a message on the phone. All she said was, ‘I’m sorry.’”
“Oh, Drew.” Joey sounded genuinely distraught. “You know I loved Simone, but that was a shit move. Is that … is that why you both stopped calling me?”
“I can’t speak for her,” Drew said. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I needed some time to grieve it, I guess. A couple months later, I met Kirsten. It was supposed to be a rebound, but…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. They were home. And had he known how the night was going to end, he would have said and done everything differently.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Cherry is back, her red blazer unbuttoned. The lacey white camisole underneath is cut low. To think, somewhere in there is her phone. Drew tries not to stare, and she laughs.
“Oh honey, look,” Cherry says. “I didn’t buy ’em to hide ’em. Men looking at me was how I made my living for twenty years.”
“You were a dancer?”
“I’m the OG here, as the kids would say. Married my best customer.” She winks. “He then bought the club and renamed it after me. When he died, I took over. We had a good run until about ten years ago. I took on a partner, and we decided to change it into a nightclub.”
“I was only here once,” Drew says. “When my friend danced here.”
“Ruby was a sweet girl,” Cherry says. “Always on time, no whining or bitching. She was popular with the customers. She made a lot of money, more than most.”