Free Escape (Part Three) by Zelda Reed

time to make a change. Do something exciting.”
    “There’s nothing more exciting than moving overseas without a plan.”
    Evie laughed. “You’re trying to be my voice of reason. You ?”
    Evie was the only one who could joke about the Jennifer event without making me clam up.
    “I know. No one should take any advice from me.”
    “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she said, plucking a sandwich from the silver tray. “Chace is back in town too.”
    “Oh, yeah?” I tried to look uninterested.
    “Yes. Have you been keeping tabs on him?”
    “No.”
    Part of forgetting Chace was letting him go completely. That meant deleting his name from my Google alerts, ignoring all e-mails that pertained to him, and avoiding the magazine stands on my way to work, hand shielding the left side so I wasn’t tempted to look for news about him and Jennifer.
    “Huh,” she said. “Well I’m not going to press the issue.”
    As much as I tried to keep the thoughts of Chace at bay, there were moments where an image of Jennifer popped into my head - her belly swollen over her hips, her manicured hands massaging her stomach as she laid in bed. My stomach twisted with an obscene jealousy but I swallowed it and tucked it away.
    I thought dating might do the trick but it only seemed to make things worse. Most of the men reminded me of the worst facets of Chace. The ones who didn’t remind me of him were uncomfortable in their skin and spoke with a fledging confidence, always checking my eyes to make sure I was paying attention, watching every tick of my face. Should I change the conversation, is she laughing loud enough, is she going to call me again?
    “Sis,” one of the hostess’, Julie said, swatting me on my shoulder. I was standing in the small hallway between the floor and the kitchen with three other girls, waiting to be called for a table. “You’ve got booth number three.” She grinned and winked.
    Julie liked me because she liked my sister. She was always giving me tables full of good-looking men. I was still in that awkward stage of serving where I didn’t know what to do with them. The other girls worked guys like a pro, flirting enough that they left a tip but not a string of phone numbers they felt obligated to call. I was nice, but didn’t lather it on thick. I flirted but never to the point of touching their arm or running my hand through their hair (some of the girls did and they were always the ones grinning at the end of the night).
    I straightened my shoulders and stuck out my chest, balancing my tray between two fingers as I wandered over to booth number three. Five heads of hair stood over the brown leather booth, laughter pouring from the circular space.
    “You guys seem to be having a good time,” I said, plastering on my customer service voice, pitchy and bright. “But I think a pitcher of beer might make it better.”
    The man in the middle looked up from his phone and my breath caught in my chest. I should’ve recognized him from the familiar top of his head. Chace was wearing a plaid shirt, opened at the top to reveal a t-shirt underneath, like something he stole out of Tyler’s closet. Gone were his pressed suits and slicked back hair, his hair was shorter and combed neatly to the side. He let his stubble grow in, cool, casual, and attractive amongst a group of four men who were mirror images. He caught my eye and the light in his eyes flickered off.
    “How about two pitchers of Sam Adams?” the man closest to me said, wrapping his hand around my arm.
    I plastered on a smile. Handsy customers were always good tippers. “Two pitchers,” I said, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth. My eyes glazed over Chace as I looked around the group. “Celebrating anything tonight?”
    The man on Chace’s left whistled. “We sure are,” he said, throwing his arm around Chace’s shoulder. He was staring at me, his eyes burning holes into the bridge of my nose and the space between my eyes