Page 4 of Fumbling in the Dark

“Who is Kade?” I ask her, pretending I’m clueless.

She looks at me, her jaw dropping at my words. “He’s only my boyfriend. The guy I’ve been dating for a month now, and the one who is going to set you up.”

“Why me?” I ask, feeling a little lost. Wasn’t she just saying I have no fun?

“No real reason. My thoughts that ran through my head were actually ‘who do I know that doesn’t have a date for tomorrow, oh yeah, Janae.’”

“You’re such a jerk,” I tell her, shaking my head.

Samantha then moves closer to me on the couch and playfully wraps her arms around me, giving me a wet kiss on the cheek. “But you love me anyways.”

“I guess I love you,” I tell her as I wipe the slobber she left behind on my cheek. “I don’t know this guy.”

“Listen, I’m not asking you to sleep with him. Just have dinner and a good time. If it makes you feel better, Kade and I can go to dinner, too.”

“Like a double date?” I ask with a tiny bit of hope in my voice.

“Exactly. A double date,” Samantha answers, snapping her fingers at me.

I can tell that if I don’t give in to her, this is never going to stop. Letting out a sigh, I closed my book and leaned over to her. “What are you going to do for me if I go?”

My friend rolls her eyes at me. “Seriously, Jay? Aren’t I already helping you by getting you out of the house?”

“No. And I’m dead serious. This feels like a favor, Sam, and if I’m going to do it, I’ll need payment in return.”

Sam scrunches her face as she thinks about something she can offer me. It’s not money I’m looking for, because honestly neither of us has any of that. I work as a florist at a shop here in town while I’m finishing up my floral design program, and Sam works as a cocktail waitress at one of the popular casinos while putting herself through college.

“I’ve got it,” she says, interrupting my thoughts.

“What?”

“I’ll get you that new book you’ve been wanting,” she says with a look of victory in her eyes.

I bite my lower lip, letting her wonder if I’ll take her form of payment. The fact that look of victory hasn’t left even though I haven’t answered right away is a sign that she knows she has me. Because we both know that I’ll never turn down a new book.

“Fine. I’ll take it.”

“And?”

“And I’ll meet Kade’s friend,” I sigh.

She hugs my neck tight while chanting in my ear, “Thank you, thank you.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Now leave me alone, I want to read my book.”

Chapter three

Shane

“Man, are you just going to sit here and pout all weekend long?” Kade’s voice pulls my attention to him.

“What do you mean?” I ask him, furrowing my brows. “I don’t pout.”

“You know what I mean. And you definitely do. Since you’ve been drafted, all you’ve done is sit at home. You never come out with us or talk about doing anything.”

He’s the only one who could ever get away with talking to me like that outside of my family, and that’s because he basically is. Kade and I used to be teammates in college. We’d roomed together in the football house and quickly became friends.

He was like one of my brothers: helping me navigate classes, football and the social scene at school. We were living our best lives—football and partying. Until he left and I met Shelby. Being two years ahead of me, he’d been drafted to the VegasVipers before me, and it was sheer luck that I ended up on the same team as him.

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