Against my will, I snorted.
All right, I would admit it. Once.
Whoever this Lauren was, she was good.
“Kirsty, no.” I shook my head. “I’m not taking a date, much less a stranger.”
She bit her lower lip. “Problem.”
“If you tell me you already emailed her and set it up—”
“Okay, then, I won’t.”
I put my coffee cup down and buried my face in my hands. She had to be joking. There was no way she’d emailed a total stranger based upon a humorous Craigslist ad and set me up with the writer of said ad.
Was there?
Wait, scratch that shit.
This was my sister. My annoying younger sister who’d made it her life’s mission to get all up in my business at every available opportunity.
She had.
She’d emailed this Lauren girl.
“Kirsty…” I pinched the bridge of my nose and peered over at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve emailed her and set this up.”
She held her hands up and scooted the stool back a little. “Like I said, I won’t.”
“For fuck’s sake!”
“She’s gonna be there!” Kirsty stood up and pointed at me. “Do you want to show up there, single, while she’s flaunting her piece of shit?”
My jaw tightened as I gritted my teeth. “Claudia’s business is no longer mine. I couldn’t give a fuck if she shows up in a horse-drawn carriage with some foreign prince on her arm. She cheated. I ended it. It is what it is.”
“She’s going to take him, and you know it.” She raised her eyebrows. “Do you really want to show up with freaking Trevor of all people?”
“I don’t give a shit what Claudia does. She can go with who she pleases. I’m not going to go with some strange woman to make a point to a woman I no longer care about.”
“Come on. It’s been five months. Just long enough for you to move on but not so much that you don’t care about what she’s doing.”
“I don’t care.” I passed her a cup of coffee. “Honestly, Kirst, I don’t. I haven’t thought about her in weeks. I don’t need to take some stranger to an event I couldn’t give a shit about just to get under her skin.”
Kirsty stirred some sugar into her coffee. “Sure you do. It’ll be funny.”
I side-eyed her as she sipped. “I’m glad my life is a source of amusement for you. I’m not taking anyone to the reunion.”
“Oh, come on. You know what Claudia’s like. She’s going to lord her new relationship over you.”
“I could show up with Naomi Campbell on my arm and she’d still lord it over me,” I replied dryly. “I’m not taking a stranger.”
“Then meet her before. She won’t be a stranger then.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Can’t lose something I never had.” She grinned. “Besides, she’s already swapped her shift to go.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I didn’t need to get my eyes tested to see that I was fighting a losing battle. She’d organized this fully behind my back because she knew I wouldn’t agree to it.
She was a pain in my fucking ass.
“Just do it,” Kirsty said. “I’ll give you her number so you can text before. At least you’ll know a little about each other. And, if you’re really only staying an hour, then it won’t be hard to fake it.”
I sighed and leaned forward in despair. “Fine. Give me her number.”
And I’d use it to cancel the damn date.
***
MASON: Hi. This is Mason. My sister Kirsty gave me your number.
I had no idea what else to say to her to open this line of conversation. It was the most awkward fucking thing I’d ever done, and I’d once ended up on a blind date with a woman old enough to be my mother.
Still didn’t know how that’d happened.
Oh, that’s right—the internet happened.
I swigged from my beer and ran my fingers through my still-wet hair. Lauren’s number had been burning a hole in my pocket all day when I was at work to the point that I’d been distracted and almost plastered my own thumb to a wall.
I glanced at my phone. Still no reply. Why would there be? It’d been fucking minutes.
Jesus Christ, this was going to be the end of me.
It was why I had to cancel it. My nosy ass sister was a thorn in my side, and this date was not a good thing.
I’d meant it when I’d told her that I couldn’t give a flying, dancing shit about my ex-fiancé. Claudia Simmons was nobody to me now. That’d changed the moment I’d found her in bed with one of her co-workers six months ago.
She’d thrown six years of a relationship down the drain for a quick roll in the hay—and she wasn’t even seeing the guy anymore.
She was seeing her boss instead.
She could stay there. She was nothing more than a social climber, and while I’d been thinking about spending my life with her, she’d been thinking about how she could level up and find someone richer than me.