Crossroad to Love (Fab Five Series)

chapter 6

Angie watched smugly as Katy and Lizzie looked at each other in amazement.

After the initial shock, Lizzie was the first to find her voice. “Are you telling us that you are working with a guy who just happens to be named Michael Gray?”

“Or are you trying to tell us that you are now working with our Michael Gray?” added Katy, still trying to wrap her head around what her friend had just said.

“Believe me, girls, no one was as shocked as I was yesterday when our Michael Gray walked into my office as the architect who will be handling my remodeling project at work. Unbeknownst to me, he recently moved to the Quad City area from Des Moines and joined the architectural firm that I hired to do the work on the expansion.” She stopped to savor the looks of surprise on the two women’s faces and added for good measure, “And we had dinner together last night.”

“Girl, you’ve got some heavy explaining to do over lunch, which by the way, we need to get to if we are going to catch our flight to Dallas. Marianne will kill us all if we are late after all the work she has done to get ready for our descent on the Big D.” Lizzie hurried them along to a restaurant near their gate.

“And she’ll hate it that we get to hear the ‘Michael and Angie’ saga before she does,” added Katy with a good-natured giggle.

After they were comfortably seated in a corner booth at the airport restaurant, Lizzie asked in anticipation, “Now spill it, girlfriend, what is up with you and Michael Gray, after all these years?”

“Actually, nothing is going on, Liz. Quite simply, I scheduled a meeting yesterday with my architect for the new expansion project at the hotel. I was anxious to get through it since it was my last appointment of the day. Imagine my surprise when the architect walked in and it was Michael, after all these years. I had no idea he had recently taken a job with the firm I hired.” Angie watched her friends’ faces to see if she could read their reactions.

“I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting,” laughed Katy, as she thought her friend had just a bit of a dreamy look on her face at the mere mention of Michael’s name. Could it be… after all this time… that she still had feelings for her ex-husband?

“After I picked my jaw up off the floor, we had our meeting. That was all there was to it,” Angie answered with the dreamy look on her face again. Katy was sure of it now.

“All there was to it, huh?” Lizzie joined the conversation, seriously doubting Angie’s last statement, given the look on her face.

The waitress came to take their order, so the conversation had to be tabled for a few minutes. Katy, the petite one of the group, ordered a blackened chicken salad and iced tea with lemon, Angie, a club sandwich and a cup of coffee, and Lizzie, ever the junk food junkie, ordered a burger and fries with a Coke.

“Well, I see some things never change, our eating habits are still the same,” Angie giggled like a school girl, shifting the subject to something other than her meeting with Michael. It was good to be with her old friends again. They had so many wonderful memories together. Memories that included her life with Michael, she gently reminded herself.

“Don’t change the subject, you’re not off the hook, yet, my friend. What was the part about you two having dinner together last night? You can’t tell me it was just a business dinner,” nudged Lizzie, eager to hear more.

Angie took a sip of the coffee the waitress had delivered, added creamer, and as she slowly stirred the mixture, she continued, “Well, there is not much to tell, really. He called after I had just finished packing and suggested we have dinner together. I drove my own car and met him at a little restaurant down the street from the condo. We had dinner, I found out he is still single and I went home. End of story.”

“End of story, my ass,” Lizzie commented wryly.

“More like beginning of story, if you ask me,” Katy remarked smugly.

“Oh, come on, I had no choice, I have to work with the guy.” Angie was on the defensive now.

“Did you invite him back to your place for a drink after dinner?” asked Lizzie mischievously as she took a sip of her Coke.

“No, I most certainly did not.” Angie was beginning to wish she had never told them about Michael. But she did value their opinions, especially Katy’s.

The waitress brought their food and as they enjoyed their first lunch together in quite some time, each was lost in her own thoughts for a few moments.

Wouldn’t it be great, if after all this time, the Grays got back together? Katy thought to herself. She knew from many conversations with Angie over the years that she had never really gotten over Michael, the love of her life. Apparently that still held true from the way she spoke of him now. Katy also was aware of how hurt Michael had been by the divorce and that he had always kept a place in his heart for his ex-wife. He had shared his feelings with Katy after she had lost Bill, during one of the many heart-to-heart conversations the two of them had shared at that horrible time in her life.

The girls finished their lunch in relative silence, and prepared to board the plane for Dallas. Excited to get to their destination and to see their dear friend, Marianne, they dropped the subject of Michael Gray for time being, much to Angie’s relief.

The flight to Dallas was uneventful and when the plane landed at DFW airport, the girls gathered their luggage, picked up the rental car as planned, and drove to the hotel. Angie drove, Lizzie sat in the front with the directions and Katy sat in the backseat, watching happily as her two friends joked together in the front seat. Soon, they arrived at the Prava, handed the valet the keys to the rental, and made their way to the suite. When they entered, they were greeted by a very cheerful Marianne who held up her glass of wine as she toasted her three best friends.