“Veal piccata.”
“Nice. Why is he even dating if he’s not over his ex?”
“Who knows?” She sighed. “He was sort of cute, though. Great hair. It’s a bummer. All the good ones are taken, I swear. Or gay. Or both.”
“Speaking of cute, you’ll never guess who just moved in downstairs.” I turned around and leaned back against the sink, eyeing the fridge where he near-kissed me.
“Who?”
“Quinn Rusek.” I lowered my voice. I didn’t want him to hear me talking about him.
“Quinn Rusek just moved in downstairs from you? Why?”
“Because my brother told him he could.”
“Your brother,” she said wistfully. “A perfect example of cute, taken, and gay.”
“We are talking about me,” I reminded her peevishly. “And I have not heard the proper amount of outrage from you on my behalf that my cute, gay, and taken brother is subjecting me to this cruel and unusual punishment!”
“I’m sorry. It is cruel and unusual. What’s he doing here?”
I filled her in on the details while I rinsed my dishes, put them in the dishwasher, and hunted around in my pantry for something sweet. “And then when I saw him, he had the nerve to act like nothing was wrong. Like he hadn’t been such an asshole to me that night.”
“Well, it was ten years ago, Jaims.”
“That doesn’t matter! My humiliation is still fresh! It rose right to the surface the moment he brought up the thing I said.”
She gasped. “The ‘I love you’ thing?”
Spying a can of Duncan Hines frosting at the back, I pulled it out, took off the cap, and peeled back the foil lid. “Yes. Turns out he still remembers that. I’d been hoping he forgot.” I dragged a finger through the thick chocolate sludge and licked it off. “It was so horrible. He teased me about it. Made me feel seventeen years old and ridiculous again.”
“What an asshole,” she said, finally giving me what I wanted. “How did he look?”
I groaned and dug back into the frosting. “Good. Too good. You can’t trust people that good-looking. He’s probably an alien or something. He’s just here trying to charm women back to the mother ship to breed his ridiculously beautiful alien babies.” I sucked the chocolate off my finger.
Claire laughed. “OK, don’t follow him to any spaceships, but maybe you can try the whole bikini seduction again. Bet he’d go for you now.”
“Wrong. He came up here, and I’m so stupid and gullible, I invited him in for a glass of wine. Talked about myself. Tried to get him to kiss me.”
“Omigod! Why?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I have no idea. I swear to God, it came out of nowhere! One minute I’m telling him I won’t go on a date with him, and the next, I’m puckering up! He’s got some sort of weird spell on me or something!”
“Wait, he asked you for a date?”
“Yes. No. You know what? I don’t even know.” I stabbed the frosting. “He’s so damn cagey, somehow I don’t even know what he’s saying. Plus I get distracted by his face.” I shoved the frosting-coated finger in my mouth. “And his body.”
“Dang. So did he kiss you?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Who knows? To torment me? I mean…I thought he wanted to kiss me. He was flirting with me, I think.”
“You couldn’t tell?”
“No. And I hate when I can’t read people. It makes it impossible to keep the upper hand.”