Page 66 of The Blind Date

"Well, go on then,” he prompted me.

"Thanks for paying the bill." I frowned, and his smug smirk only grew bigger. Before I could knock it off his face, the whole group approached us.

"Yes, Cedric,” Mum agreed with a large smile on her face. "You shouldn't have paid it all yourself, but thank you for the treat. It was very lovely of you."

"Don't mention it, Clarke. It's the least you deserve after you played so well in the competition." Cedric returned her hug before moving on to his mum and then doing one of those strange bro hugs with both our dads.

Why couldn't he be that pleasant and civil with me? It sure would save us a lot of arguments.

"When is the next game?" Cillian asked.

"In three weeks. The semi-finals will be on the same field, and if we make it into the finals, we’ll get to play the 18-hole course in Bath!” Yasmin grinned, excited.

"Bath? Wow!"

"That's amazing!" I grinned and nudged Cedric out of the way to reach my mum. "I'm so proud of you both."

"Thanks, kiddo,” Dad chuckled and patted my head.

After a round of goodbyes, the Barlowes and the Remingtons separated. As I had taken the tube here, Mum and Dad offered me a lift home.

"Today was such a lovely day, don't you think, Don?" Mum asked, a happy smile on her face.

"Yes, honey, it was great."

"It was even more special since all the kids came to watch us."

"All the kids? Are you forgetting that you only have one child?" I snickered from the backseat.

“Don't be silly.” She gave me a pointed look. "Cedric and Cillian were there as well. It was lovely to finally meet Cillian, and you know we always love to see Cedric.”

I hummed in agreement and whispered a silent prayer that she wouldn’t start harping on about how perfect we were for each other again. When she merely shared a knowing look with Dad but didn't say anything further on the matter, I counted my blessings.

"Bye!" I grinned and waved goodbye to my parents as they peeled away from the curb, having just dropped me off outside my apartment building.

Even though I was tired, heading to the cinema with some of my friends was too tempting to ignore. Especially since it was Batman.

With my mind made up, I shot a quick text to Victor to buy me a ticket and a large Tango Ice blast as I would probably miss the opening credits. What I didn't know, however, was that I had texted him prematurely.

"Are you going to open the door, or are we going to do this out in the hallway?" Cedric asked, not moving from where he sat on the hallway floor outside my apartment.

ChapterFifteen

“What are you doing here, Cedric?” I asked, stopping in front of him.

“We need to talk,” Cedric declared as he rose to his feet, slipping his phone into his pocket even though it appeared he was in the middle of a game of Among Us. That was big from him.

“You couldn’t have just called me?” I reached for my keys to let us into the apartment. This conversation was going to be a long one, and I didn’t want to have it out in the hallway for my nosy neighbours to overhear.

"I could have, but I wasn't sure you would have picked up.” He shrugged, his warm breath fanning across the back of my neck as he subtly pressed his chest against my back. "Anyway, my phone is nearly dead, and I didn't want to go home."

I hummed and opened the door, leaving it open for him to follow me into the apartment.

"Thanks again for the dinner," I murmured, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. With Cedric standing in my apartment, ready to talk after avoiding him all week and having endured several disrupted conversations throughout the day, I was going to need it. Something told me this wouldn’t be a short conversation.

“You’ve already thanked me, darling,” he murmured as he followed me into the kitchen and grabbed two glasses. “Plus, you paid for dinner last time. It would have been wrong of me to allow you to pay again. I don’t want you to think of me as a gold digger or something. Not to mention, it was the chivalrous thing to do.”

I laughed, but the sound died down when I saw him pull out a dark bottle from his jacket and place it on the counter. How had he managed to hide that?

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