©2008 Gwen Hayes
She Said
Kelsey folded her arms across her chest and glared at Ryan over the table strewn with the remnants of a blind double date gone horribly, horribly wrong.
She couldn’t fault the jazz playing at just the perfect volume in the background or the way the candles and warm lighting glinted off the expensive crystal. Nor did the burden lie with the sumptuous feast they had consumed or the unobtrusive yet well-timed service.
No, the force behind the disaster sat directly across from her at a table set for four, but seating only two.
She held her tongue while the waiter cleared the plates but shot Ryan a look he would immediately understand.
You are gonna pay for this in chocolate.
He was often on the receiving end of that one.
Ryan held up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t look at me. This was all your idea.”
She rolled her eyes. It had seemed like a good one at the time. Ryan was her best friend; it should have been plausible that they could manage to set each other up with compatible and interesting dates.
Their dates were compatible all right—with each other. After lame excuses and hasty goodbyes, she and Ryan were left alone—with the tab. Elise and Brandon, their respective dates, were going to “share a cab home.”
Right. Share a cab. Probably share a bed too.
And Kelsey had worn her lucky Little Black Dress and everything.
“Ryan, that was the worst date ever....” She halted her erupting tirade as the waiter positioned a decadent piece of Chocolate Cherry Torte between them and handed them each a fork. It was their second dessert, but desperate times called for desperate measures of chocolate.
“Second worst.” He dug in greedily. “The worst date ever was when you set me up with your cousin from Hoboken.”
She winced. To be fair, that was more her mother’s idea than hers.
If you don’t want to marry the handsome, eligible doctor, the least you could do is pass him on to someone else in the family, Mom had told her.
Her cousin Marissa was a poor match for anyone who didn’t like monster truck rallies. Poor Ryan. He’d been the perfect gentleman, something Marissa wasn’t used to, so she’d decided he was gay. It made for interesting family gatherings whenever Kelsey brought him along. Uncle Bill, thinking he was open-minded, always asked Ryan for decorating tips.
Kelsey sighed. “I believe I apologized for that and suffered through an entire season of the Yankees to make up for it.” Baseball bored her to near suicide. Give her football all year round and she’d be happy. But she went to every home game with Ryan that year.
Every single one.
He balked at her. Not attractive with a full mouth of chocolate, Ry. “You didn’t exactly suffer. You caught the home-run ball.”
He couldn’t be serious. Kelsey gaped and then snaked the cherry off the torte and chucked it at him. “Ryan, you caught the ball! After I stopped it with my forehead.” She absently rubbed the still present, but smaller knot. “I had a headache for a month.”
“It was a great stop.” He grinned goofily at her, raising his eyebrows. God she loved his smile.
When Ryan grinned, it was impossible to stay mad. Kelsey knew he was doing it to distract her, but it didn’t stop her from grinning back. He knew her too well.
