Page 27 of Plays Well With Others

“Champagne filter,” he says. “It’s a thing.”

I laugh, grateful for the humor to defuse the tension. “Better than champagne goggles.”

“Definitely. And listen, I hope I didn’t come across as…um, crass,” he says. “Like I was trying to…ba—”

He can’t even breathe the awful words.Bang you.

Great. Just great.

“Sweet Unbangable Me” is going to be my new anthem. “Please. You were so gallant. Like a prince riding in on a steed,” I say, and what’s with the horse analogies? “A unicorn,” I say, trying again to make, well, hay. “A unicorn saving the day. You were a unicorn who shot rainbows from his butt.”

“Yeah, maybe notthatkind.”

Okay, perhaps that wasn’t the best compliment. “I bet you’re more like a fire-breathing unicorn, only you breathe rainbow fire. So thank you for your rainbow fire,” I say, and can someone just shut me up?

“No problem,” he says, then takes a beat to clear his throat. “And…I need saving now.”

Thank god. I’m more than eager to move on and put this awkward moment behind us. “Hit me up.”

With a heavy sigh, he says, “I owe Date Night some videos.”

He dives into the problem with one of his big sponsors and when he’s done, I want to throat-punch Quinn. I hate her more than I did before. “Want me to find Quinn and burn all her underwear on the Strip?”

He laughs, but then it fades. “Nah, but maybe instead would you go on a date with me?”

That tingle I felt last night turns into a hot spark.

9

I CAN BE DELIGHTFULLY UNDERHANDED

Rachel

There’s no way I heard him right.

After all that terrible lip-biting last night, he couldn’t possibly be asking me on a date, right?

Also, do I even want to date my best friend?

No, no, and a hell no.

Because then what would happen when the date went south? I’d be left alone all over again. No, thank you.

“A date?” I ask, a little uncomfortably.

“A platonic date,” he quickly corrects, and I breathe a very audible sigh of relief. Thank god. But now that he’s saidthat,I feel the tiniest bit let down. Yes, a date with Carter would have been a terrible idea, but for a few dangerous seconds there I felt…wanted.

And it was nice to feel wanted.

Warm and kind of woozy in my chest.

But I shake off the foreign sensation. Obviously I don’t need to be wanted by my friend.

“Sure,” I add, upbeat.

“You’re a goddess,” he says. “I don’t want to go anywhere near a real date, so my agent is getting it all sorted for me to do five first dates. And it’ll be way easier for me if you and I could do the first one. As friends. So I thought maybe we could do the Puzzle Nerds thing and record some of it.”

“Of course,” I say, even though I’ve already agreed, both to Puzzle Nerds and helping him. “I’ll get my profile up tonight.”

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