Page 14 of Scoring with my Bestie's Ex

“That will only add a little bit to our trip, rather than running over there now and coming back for everything else.” He shakes his head. “Sorry for getting so bull-headed.”

I blush, his apology making me more embarrassed. “I’m sorry, too. I guess I was being stubborn over nothing.”

Aaron shrugs. “Sometimes we get that way. But we figured it out, right?”

He winks at me. My stomach flutters as though a thousand butterflies have been let loose.

It leaves me breathless.

What is this?

I can’t remember the last time I had a feeling like this.

And I certainly don’t want it!

I’m fresh out of a breakup.

The last thing I need right now is to complicate things with butterflies—my life’s already a zoo, and I’m pretty sure I can’t afford a petting zoo!

I take a deep breath as Aaron and I head toward the park.

At least this will be over in a few days. Then Aaron and I will go our separate ways, and I won’t have to worry about it any longer.

But why does that feel just as bad?

Chapter six

Aaron

Bella and I finish off our side of the scavenger hunt quickly.

Other than the one disagreement about the oak tree, we’re on the same page for everything else.

We’re done half an hour earlier than we’re meant to meet Ellen and Mike, so we head to the café to wait for them.

“You don’t have to,” Bella protests when I buy her a lemonade. Her cheeks go pink.

“It’s no problem.” We sit at an outdoor table under the shade of a patio umbrella.

A cool breeze slides through the air, making the otherwise hot day bearable.

“Those are some dark clouds over there,” I note, pointing toward the east. “With any luck, they’ll blow around us.”

Bella drinks her lemonade. “I hope so. I can only imagine how much longer the cleanup will take if we end up with more bad weather.”

There’s nothing we can do to change the weather, so I turn the discussion to our matchmaking scheme.

“What should we do next? The scavenger hunt was great, but we need to up the romantic tension,” I suggest. “I can’t think of any way to bow out of the picnic on the beach without being obvious about it.”

“Yeah, I thought about that, too.” Bella frowns.

She drums her fingers on the table as she thinks.

I fight back a smile. Even sitting here, relaxing, she likes to keep moving.

“The notice board over there might give us some ideas,” she says.

We go over to check it out. There are so many notices that it takes us a while to go through them all.

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