Chapter Four
Justin blinked, his thoughts rushing too fast for him to comprehend. Allie had a boyfriend? So his previous predictions had been right.
And just as he realized she was completely serious, his heard plummeted, not stopping at his feet. For a few minutes he thought it was gone. Then he realized it was…
Allie Cat had stolen it.
It reminded him of the phrase his grandmother used to say to him when he got tongue-tied. "Cat got your tongue?" But this time, it would be, "Cat got your heart."
"You've got a boyfriend," Justin stated again. It was now the only thought in his mind, unable to escape, swimming around and around within his brain like a goldfish in a bowl. He couldn't get it out of his head.
Allie smiled and nodded, looking over at him. Now he wished he'd taken the seat across from her. She was taken, and he had no right to sit by her, to even think that he could ever get her back.
"If you don't remember, you have a girlfriend, too, Justin," Allie teased, a glint in her eye. He didn't know whether to take it completely seriously or not.
Justin shrugged. "How did you know I've been dating?"
"Well, for one you're probably the church's 'most eligible bachelor'," laughed Allie. "Two, I saw you guys sitting together at church."
He'd given her a bad impression. He scrambled to fix it with the right words, recalling how he'd put his arm around her for the first time that Sunday. He'd never done anything with her, hardly touched her, and had actually been afraid to, until then. "Laurie… she came to church a while after you left again last year. I don't know, I decided to give her a shot. I'm still waiting to see if there's anything. I'm starting to think not."
Allie felt her grin fall. She tried to keep her eyes from growing wide. "You mean you dated her without even liking her?" Swishing the ice and cola around in her cup and sipping on the straw, she looked up at him to see his reaction to her question.
Justin simply shrugged. "There aren't many single women in the church, and you know I'm twenty-three. I decided, like I said, to give her a chance. Maybe be her friend, you know? Besides, she'd already turned down every other guy in the church, and the only one left was me. Steve insisted that there had to be some reason she was staying, and that it was probably me."
"You strung her along, let her think that you liked her," Allie said dryly, not believing what he said. She didn't know whether to be happy that he didn't have feelings for Laurie or to have pity for the poor girl.
He shook his head. "No, I didn't. I made it clear to her that I didn't have great feelings for her but just wanted to have a good time, maybe even grow to like her as time went on. But the only thing I was looking for in dating her was having her as a friend."
"And what about putting your arm around her during church this morning?" Allie asked with a frown. She felt as if she was interrogating him, but with Justin you had to ask him direct questions or he wasn't going to give you direct answers.
"I don't know, really," Justin said. "I guess I just decided to do it. I don't really feel anything for her." It was as if he was trying to tell her he was available.
And during that moment, after he'd said what he did, Allie realized she was going to have to tell him that she really didn't even have a boyfriend to have feelings for.
