Not Mr. Right

When I got home, Charles Garth was already on the phone with someone else.

"She's back. Yeah, make sure you stay warm. The wool shawl I bought you should get there today.

"Keep it over your legs when you sleep. Don't let yourself get cold."

Listening to him coo over someone else like that, my eyes burned.

I'd told him so many times that the air conditioner blew straight onto my desk at work, that it left me aching all over.

Sometimes, without looking up from his laptop, he'd say, "Bring a jacket. Drink more hot water."

Sometimes he'd just glance at his phone and grunt.

Not once had he ever murmured, soft and warm, that he'd bought me a wool shawl and told me not to catch a chill — not until now, and not for me.

He set his phone down and seemed to notice me for the first time.

"Go make dinner," he said. "Maia's coming over to eat with us in a bit."

Then he ticked the dishes off on his fingers like he was reading off a menu. "She likes home cooking. Make her honey mustard glazed salmon, lemon herb roast chicken, brown sugar bourbon pork chops, sautéed green beans with almonds, and — throw in a butternut squash soup too. She's always going on about losing weight, and that'll help with the bloating."

I didn't move. I didn't say anything. I just stood there looking at him.

It took Charles a while to catch on that something was off. A faint smile crept onto his face.

"What's wrong? Why aren't you saying anything?"

I looked away, toward the wedding photo on the wall.

"Aren't you going to ask me how the ring and the dress turned out?"

"Oh," he said, and then, almost as an afterthought, "so how did they turn out?"

A bottomless exhaustion welled up in my chest. My lips parted, but looking at the photo of the two of us underneath that framed picture, I suddenly didn't know what to say.

Before I could get a word out, his head had already dropped back down, the corner of his mouth curling up like he'd spotted something amusing.

From half a step away, I saw it clearly.

The person messaging him was Maia Cooper — the one who'd saved herself in his phone under the nickname "Luna."

She sat pinned at the top.

I sat below, unpinned.

In that moment, my own best friend looked more like his girlfriend than I did.

Charles looked up then, a faint trace of reproach in his eyes.

"Why are you still standing there? She'll be here any minute."

I'd been home thirty minutes, and in all that time he hadn't asked a single question about the wedding or the ring — not even when I dropped a hint, half hoping he'd bite.

Whatever he said about it was pure lip service. But when it came to Maia, he couldn't have been more attentive.

I tried once more. "Does she have anything she won't eat?"

Charles's head snapped up. The answer came out of him almost before he could stop it. "She doesn't eat ginger, garlic, or cilantro. You already know that, don't you?"

I went quiet. A few seconds passed before I answered.

"I know her tastes.

"What I didn't know was that you'd remember them so well."

I left the words hanging there, ignored the look on his face, and turned toward the kitchen.

This, I thought, was probably going to be the last meal we'd ever eat as a couple.