Mine too. Food, sex, you name it.
Briefly I wonder if Savannah likes it spicy or sweet in the bedroom, but then I strip that thought from my mind. We’re friends, and I’m not looking for anything more.
Eddie waves a hand, big and bold. “I got it!” He clamps the hand on Savannah’s shoulder. “Ask Savannah to be your date.”
3
Savannah
I’ve kind of, maybe, sort of had a thing for Gavin for a long time.
As in, since I started working at Glass Slipper Records a couple years ago, handling PR for a number of our top acts. It’s not just a looks thing, because I’m not just a looks gal.
But he has those. Oh hell, does he have a fabulous face, with strong cheekbones, yummy blond hair, and bright eyes that mesmerize me.
But looks fade.
What caught my eye and still ignites my brain is the way he holds the door for me and how we can endlessly obsess over music together, and the fact that he loves to try new food trucks at the farmers market near our office.
Plus, he remembers my coffee order. And I don’t know why that’s some magical thing guys do, but it feels like it is. When a guy bothers to remember your coffee order and that you like your Thai food extra spicy, and thinks you would love this cool new girl band Glass Slipper signed (and he’s right)—that’s the someone you should be thinking of as boyfriend material.
Except . . .
There’s one little issue.
He’s had a girlfriend for a chunk of the time we’ve worked together, so we’ve been friends.
Just friends.
That’s why I stomped on my crush. I stubbed it out so hard that I stopped thinking of him that way. Now he is only and absolutely a friend. The kind of friend I want to keep.
So it’s with only a friendly curiosity that I latch onto Eddie’s comment, meeting Gavin’s blue-eyed gaze as I ask, “What do you need a date for?”
“Well, it’s not really a date,” Gavin says quickly. I try not to let the cheetah speed of his response bother me. Who cares that he sees me as undateable?
“Ha! Yeah! Exactly. No real dates going on here,” Eddie says chuckling, as if the idea of dating me is the height of comic relief.
Gavin gives his best friend a sharp stare.
“You’re friends. You’re one of the buds,” Eddie explains, smacking me on the arm. “That’s why you’re perfect for this. Our guy here needs a fake date because his mom is riding his ass about his single status.”
“Ah, the plot thickens,” I say in my best spooky voice. It’s better than letting on that Eddie’s comments bum me the hell out, since he obviously knows Gavin’s true heart.
“My mom is definitely on my case. I have to go to my sister’s engagement party, and she wants to set me up with about a million women from the neighborhood. And I’m just not into my mom setting me up,” Gavin says with a casual shrug.
I drum my fingers on the bar, understanding his situation. “If I let my mother set me up, I would be dating the butcher.”
“The butcher? Why?” Gavin asks.
“She works right next door to him, and she’s convinced he’s the perfect man for me.”
“You don’t even like meat,” Gavin says, with an inquisitive lift of his eyebrow.
“Exactly!”
“So, again, why the butcher?”
I wave a hand airily. “Seems he’s interested in getting married, and like most mothers, mine is obsessed with grandkids, so she figures if I take up with the butcher, I’ll be popping out a baby nine months later.”
Eddie rubs his hands together. “The butcher is knocking up Savannah on their wedding night. Go, meat man!”
I scan the bar for my friends, since we’re meeting for a game of pool. Neither is here yet, though, so I stick with the guys. “What is it about moms that makes them want to set you up? And usually with the completely wrong type of person.”
Gavin’s blue eyes twinkle as if we’re speaking the same language. “Right? Because we spend our whole lives trying to avoid being our parents or having the same taste as them. And then all they want to do is meddle in our love lives.”
“So it’s settled, then.” Eddie claps Gavin on the back and squeezes my shoulder. “You guys will be fake dates.”
Eddie raises a finger, signaling the bartender, and as he places an order, Gavin looks at me, vulnerability in his crystal blue eyes. “Do you mind though?”
My heart beats a little faster, and my pulse hammers a little harder, all from the way he looks at me. Like he cares about me. Like he wants to make sure I’m truly good with this. “No, I really don’t mind. I mean, that’s what friends are for, right?”
He drags his hand across his forehead like he’s relieved. “Yeah. And you are an awesome friend, Savannah. I am so grateful. I’m just not ready to go to this event and have my mom arrange a plus-one.”