Page 2 of Last Call Lindy Hop
I flipped her off.
She snorted. “We both know you’re not interested in what I’ve got. Come on. Why did you move here?”
Out of blankets, I snagged a throw pillow and held it over my ear.
Kenzie was undaunted, pushing my legs to the side so she could sit on the couch. “When you asked me to find you an apartment so you could move here, I thought it meant that I’d have my best friend around. Instead I’ve got a hermit who needs to be reminded to take out the trash.”
I grumbled at her.
She sighed and squeezed my leg, a more conciliatory tone to her voice. “Look, I get it. I really do. That jackass hurt you, and it’s healthy to have a pity party. But the party should have ended a year ago. You’re only hurting yourself now.”
“I’m fine,” I mumbled from my safe spot under the pillow.
She reached over and tugged on the pillow, but I held it tight and she gave up after several seconds. “You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since…” She paused. “Since that day.”
I didn’t say anything.
She squeezed my leg again. “Come on. I found a movie I think you’ll like. I already bought tickets.”
“I’ll pass…”
Just the thought of a theater was too much. We’d always cuddled at the movies, a bucket of popcorn between us.
“Please?”
I shook my head. “I… I just can’t Kenzie.”
She sighed again. “Can I at least help you throw away whatever’s stinking and get you to take out the trash?”
I thought about it for a minute, then nodded. I could do that.
“Come on. I’ll do some dishes while you toss any old leftovers from the fridge.”
“Ok…”
Chapter 2 - Eli
Ismiled politely as my date—Cassidy—droned on about her dog.
I like dogs, I really do, but the way she talked about hers made it apparent that her little Jack Russell named Chip was the center of her universe.
“Oh, you’ll have to come over and meet him,” she declared with a huge smile and chipper tone to her voice. “It’s good you’ve got brown hair, the last guy he met was blond and Chip just barked and barked. Or maybe it was because Dylan was obviously a gym-rat. He did have a lot of muscles.” She shook her head. “That’s ok, you look nothing like him, so Chip should be ok with you. He’ll try to bite the first few times you see him, but it doesn’t hurt and he’ll stop once he gets to know you.”
I had no interest in being barked at, bit, or getting to know the dog. Hell, as far as I was concerned, the dog was a lawsuit waiting to happen. All it would take would be for one kid to get nipped, and she’d likely end up facing hospital bills. Not to mention the other red flags, such as her admitting that she’d approached random dogs with him on numerous occasions, declaring him friendly when the other owners told her to keep back.
She was so oblivious that she probably thought the date was going well too, which it was decidedly not.
Cassidy swiped through her phone, still yammering about her dog, before turning the screen to me.
“Isn’t he so smart?” she exclaimed as I stared at the photo of the dog surrounded by trash. “He figured out how to open the cabinets to get to the bin.”
The phone disappeared as she started scrolling for more photos.
I could have probably left, and she wouldn’t even notice until she needed me to praise her dog again. I’d considered it, but she was a friend-of-a-friend of my friend Josh, and I didn’t want him to have any blowback about me being rude.
I’d just have to grin and bear it, thank her for her time, but let her know that I didn’t feel any sort of spark. I’d leave her with some sort of line about how she deserved somebody who could see a future with her… and Chip.
That was assuming I could stay awake long enough for her to finish telling me everything about her dog.
