“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Seeking reinforcement, James glanced toward Connor.
Connor shrugged apologetically. “Sorry pal, I felt it, too. Could have cut the air between you with a scalpel.”
“You should have called her after taking her out,” Ron suggested, making a wild guess at the cause of that tension.
“I’ve never taken her out,” James replied somewhat stiffly.
Ron widened his blue eyes dramatically. “She shot you down? Seriously? The woman is immune to James Stillman’s notorious magnetism?”
James felt his cheeks warm a bit—irritation, he assured himself—even as Haley shook her head. “She wasn’t immune. Trust me on that. Whatever else was going on, she was definitely not immune.”
“So why did she turn him down when he asked her out?” Ron inquired, turning slightly on his chair to look at Haley.
“He must have made a mess of asking her.”
Ron goggled dramatically. “James? Dr. Smooth? Dr. Every Ladies’ Dream? Dr.—”
“Okay, Ron, that’s enough,” Haley interrupted drily, to James’s relief. “I think you’ve made your point.”
“I’d say so,” James grumbled, stabbing his fork rather viciously into a noodle, even though he’d pretty much lost his appetite.
Always the encourager, the one Ron always flippantly referred to as the class cheerleader, Haley smiled across the table. “You should ask her out again, James. I mean, you’re obviously attracted to her and she wouldn’t have stopped to say hello if she wasn’t interested in return.”
“You know, she looked a little familiar,” Ron commented before James had a chance to come up with a response to Haley’s advice. “Have we met her before?”
“She looked familiar to me, too,” Haley agreed.
James shrugged. “I just met her myself a couple weeks ago. Now, could we please discuss something else?”
The others looked at him oddly, as if they weren’t accustomed to seeing him so disconcerted. He supposed they weren’t. He usually maintained his composure in front of other people, having been drilled from childhood to keep his problems and negative emotions to himself. “No one’s interested in attending your pity party,” had been one o
f his father’s favorite sayings.
Haley responded immediately to his strained request. “Of course. So, Connor, how is Alexis? I haven’t seen her in a while, is she still growing by leaps and bounds?”
“She is,” Connor replied. “We had to buy all new uniforms for the upcoming school year because she’s outgrown all the ones from last year. Hard to believe she’s going to be nine in a couple of weeks. Remember, anyone who’s available that weekend is invited to drop by the day of the party for munchies and cake. We’re going to keep the kids in the backyard and the adults can mingle in the den. Mia and I will be running back and forth, but the party organizer said she’ll do most of the kid-wrangling.”
Which wasn’t exactly a change of topic, James thought with a wince, even though Haley and Connor had been trying to help him out.
James swallowed a gulp of wine, then blurted, “That woman who just spoke to me? Shannon? She’s the one Mia hired to organize Alexis’s birthday party.”
Three sets of surprised eyes turned his way again. He’d had to tell them, he reminded himself. They’d find out for themselves soon enough.
“No kidding?” Connor glanced in the direction of the booth. “She’s the one you suggested I recommend to Mia?”
“Yeah. You said Mia could use some help and I’d just met Shannon. I knew she was a kids’ party planner, so I sent Mia the Web site address.”
“Very interesting,” Ron murmured, then winced. James suspected Haley had kicked Ron beneath the table to keep him from starting up his teasing again.
“Well, she looked nice,” Haley asserted. “I bet she’s good at her job.”
“I hope so,” James murmured, feeling the responsibility of being the one to recommend Shannon for Alexis’s party. “I saw her in action with her nieces and nephews, and she was really good at organizing them. They’re obviously crazy about her.”
Connor shrugged. “Mia checked out the Web site pretty closely. She wouldn’t have hired Shannon if she didn’t think it would work out. It’s not like we wanted anything fancy or extravagant. Just a simple kids’ party with a few decorations and a couple of craft projects to keep them entertained. Mia could have done it herself if she weren’t so crazy busy right now.”
He glanced at James. “It was my idea to invite some of our adult friends, too. Since Mia’s birthday is just a few weeks away, and I’ll be getting ready to leave for the away rotation then, it seemed like a good idea to sort of combine the two celebrations. It’s going to be a real casual thing. Mia and I will keep an eye on the kid party and take some pictures, but Alexis is at the age where she doesn’t want us hovering over her and her friends,” he added with a rueful expression. “She liked the idea of us having our own friends to play with inside.”
Ron chuckled. “Wait until she starts inviting boys to her parties. She’s really going to want you to disappear then.”