Now or Never: A Last Chance Romance (Part 1) Read Online Free Page B

prettiest one.
    “Ssshhhh.  Quiet down.  You don’t see me broadcasting your pathetic sexual habits to the entire restaurant.”
    “We’re moving to the bar,” he says.

Chapter 5
    We find two seats in the corner of the bar, away from the die-hard Flyers fans yelling at the TV screen.
    “I know a guy isn’t supposed to ask a woman her age.  But you look kind of young to have been married, divorced, and gone a dozen years without dating.”
    I smile.  I feel like beaming, actually.  But I keep it to a mere smile.  He thinks I look young.  How young, I wonder?
    Not as young as those girls he’s been eyeing — even still, from the bar.
      “I got pregnant in college.”
    “Ouch.  That sucks,” he says.
    “Well, I have my son,” I say, slightly indignant.
    “Yeah, but…”  He lets the but linger, heavy in the air.  Weighty.  Painful.  As it has been for the past dozen years.
    Yes, I have my son.  But I am alone.  And now, thanks to the intimate details of my fellow salon-goers sexual exploits, I realize despite what I’ve been telling myself all these years, I have missed out.
    This hits me as hard as the cancer diagnosis, maybe harder.  Because while getting sick was out of my control, putting my life on hold was my decision.
    One of the college girls passes us on the way to the bathroom.  She throws a look at Justin.  An invitation.
    I feel old.  Extraneous.
    “I should get going,” I say, pulling my bag over my shoulder.
    “Aw, don’t be like that.  I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”
    Bad?  I’m suddenly on the verge of tears.
    “It’s okay.  It’s not you.”  And then it happens — the full-on waterworks.  Sobbing, tears, the whole bit.  It’s not pretty.  I’m mortified.
    Justin, to his credit, seems unfazed.  As if it’s every night a woman breaks down over her coffee and Bailey’s during a simple conversation.  He hands me a cocktail napkin.  I blow my nose.  “You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
    Why pretend?  Justin will find new fertile ground for his sexual exploits, stop showing up at the Y, and I’ll never see him again.
    “I don’t go to the Y for the Erotic Reading Salon.  At least, I didn’t at first.”
    “You’re in AA?” he says, eyeing my drink.
    I shake my head.  “No.  I was going for the breast cancer support group.”
    He swivels his bar stool to face me straight on.  “Shit, Claire.  I’m sorry.”
    “No, no, it’s fine.  It’s early, it’s treatable.  It’s just…I have to have surgery and I feel like the surgery will diminish my…um, sexuality I guess you can say.”
    He nods.  “When’s your surgery?”
    “In two months.”
    “Okay, so you have some time.  Better have some fun, right?”
    “I guess.”
    “What do you mean, you guess?”
    “I think I’ve missed the boat on fun,” I say, draining my drink.  “Hearing those stories at the reading salon.  Good lord.  I’ve missed out on so much.  And now it’s too late.”
    “Are you…dying?”
    “No.  I’m not dying!”
    “Then it’s not too late.”
    “It is.  I just took for granted that my body would be there for me if I ever decided I wanted that part of my life again, and now I’ve waited too long.”
    “Too long for what?”
    “Everything?”
    Justin grabs a cocktail napkin and asks the bartender for a pen.  “Let’s get specific.”  He writes the number “1” on the napkin.  “What haven’t you done?  Start with the first thing that comes to mind.”
    “Those girls over there keep looking at you,” I say, desperately trying to change the subject.
    “This conversation is much more interesting than those girls.”
    “I don’t want to talk about this.”
    “Come on, we’re in a bar, having drinks.  Why the hell not, Claire?  It’s that kind of thinking that got you into this mess in the first place.”
    He has a point there.  I take a deep breath.
     
    *** ***
     
    Justin looks at me expectantly.  My