Otherwise Engaged Read Online Free PDF Page B

fruit
and yogurt.
    “I…don’t know
how to answer that,” she said, swallowing. His eyes went to her long, slender
neck. The only reason he’d never tried to hook up with her back in college was
that his friendship with her was worth more to him than a random night
together. At least it had been. He’d kind of abandoned her since graduation,
and he felt badly about that.
    “Yeah. I guess
it was kind of a crazy question.” Kind of? What was he
thinking? He couldn’t get his mind right today. He hadn’t been able to ever
since Carolina dropped the bomb on him yesterday actually.
    “Um, well, I
know she’s really happy with Manny. I’ve never seen her so happy.” She
concentrated on her phone as she said this.
    “You’ve met
him?”
    “Yeah. I went
up to New York for the dress fitting. Most of the bridesmaids live up there,”
she said. “Besides, whenever I go up there with my cousin or for work, I stop
by. Not that often, but better than nothing.”
    “How is he?”
    “I like him.
And he seems to be all about Carolina.”
    “What does he
do for a living?” Please say he’s a bum.
Or that he has some crap job and makes way less than me.
    “He’s a
mechanical engineer. Works for some huge company based in New Jersey. I can’t
remember the name of it right now.”
    “What does he
look like?” Say Quasimodo. Say he at
least is going bald.
    “I dunno. He
reminds me a little of Jay Hernandez. He’s half Mexican, half Puerto Rican.”
    Damn. Struck out
so far. “How long have they been together?”
    “I don’t know.
Almost two years?”
    Where was his
mind when Carolina talked about this guy? She must have mentioned him if they’d
been together almost two years. Apparently, Rain hadn’t been paying attention when
she had. “And they’re getting married? They haven’t known each other long
enough. It takes years to build up the kind of bond that makes a marriage
work.”
    Daphne raised
an eyebrow. “Oh? You’re the expert in relationships, huh?”
    Rain, who’d
never had a serious girlfriend, laughed. He and Skylar had a running bet on
which one of them would get trapped into a relationship first. “Sorry. I didn’t
mean to interrogate you.”
    She grinned.
“It’s okay.”
    “I’m
just…curious,” he said, leaving out all the other things he felt.
    “Done. Sent.”
She held up her phone. He glanced down at his as he heard the ping meaning he
had a new email.
    “I just want to
make sure he’s good for her.”
    “I guess that’s
another good reason for you to come to the wedding,” Daphne said.
    Did he truly
have any good reasons for going to the wedding, though? Maybe he was being a
sore loser. You had your chance , he
thought. They’d graduated from college five years ago. Wow. Had it really been five?
In any case, if he hadn’t made up his mind in all that time, he deserved to
lose Carolina. Right?
    He opened the
email and scanned the flight information, stalling for time. Fucking Manny.
What kind of name was that anyway? Manny the engineer. Ooh, he thought he was so great because he had a big fancy job with some big
fancy company engineering big fancy things?
    How old are you, Rain? Twelve? he asked himself. Good question.
    He and Daphne
sat at the restaurant and talked a while longer, but he found he was easily
distracted from their conversation. Not that Daphne wasn’t
great company. It was just that his mind and heart weren’t there at that
table. They were with Carolina. Thinking of all the times things could have
been different. All the chances he’d wasted.
    Carolina had
sat him down for more than one talk about what they were to each other. He
remembered the last one—one of the last times he’d seen her. Her
beautiful eyes wet, looking at him sadly from under thick, dark lashes. Dark
hair framed her face.
    She’d said, “I
love you, but this can’t go on forever. I wish I were enough for you.”
    He’d thought he
still had time after that. Especially after