Page 26 of Eligible Best Friend

As we near the table, her dad rises, but her mom continues to sit, her expression getting frostier by the second.

“Mom, Dad, sorry we’re late.” She stops short of the table. Neither parent moves to greet her with a hug or a kiss. I have a feeling that’s standard practice.

My mom had the cards stacked against her, but she was, and still is, affectionate.

“Yes,” Mr. Wescott rumbles. “Why were you late?”

I have no doubt Lia’s going to make up some reason on the fly and it won’t make sense and shit will get awkward. So I laugh and smooth down the tie I loosened on the way inside. “Oh, you know how it is, Your Honor. State secrets.”

Mr. Wescott opens his mouth to say something, but he must decide he doesn’t really have anything to add. He snaps his mouth shut and sits, smoothing his own impeccable tie. I busy myself with helping Lia get settled.

“So,” Lia says once she’s in her chair and I’m seated. It’s a shame to cover up that body with the table, but fake dating or not, I’m not going to ogle a man’s daughter in front of him. “This is Ford.”

I’m sure introductions would’ve been much more pretentious had we been on time, and they would’ve found a way to insinuate that I’m so far beneath them I shouldn’t have tried looking at their daughter. I’ve never met them, but I’ve met enough people like them. The Pruitts and all of their friends. But Lia’s parents don’t know how to react when the control is taken from them. They’ve been on top for too many years.

Her mother’s withering gaze lands on me, but I give her my best congenial smile, the one I use to approach a patient who clearly wants me to leave and take the police and fire department with me. “I’d ask what you do and how you two met, but I guess we know the answer.”

“It’s all there in the Star of Life,” I joke and I’m met with blank stares. I gesture to my chest where the emblem would sit on my work shirt. “It’s the thing we wear— It doesn’t matter. Yep, we met at work.”

The server stops by and I let Lia order first. The judge orders for his wife, an old-fashioned move for a woman who holds a lot of power in their relationship. But hey, whatever works for them.

When Lia orders the chicken alfredo, her mom touches her arm. “The carbs, dear.”

Lia blanches and glances down at the menu, a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face.

“It’s amazing,” I interject, and Lia’s gaze jerks up to mine. “The alfredo is awesome. Promise to let me have a bite?”

Several expressions pass over her face and I read every one. Shock and relief that I stepped in, and chagrin that she didn’t realize she was caving to her hypercritical mother’s wishes.

“That’s a promise.” She smiles, the one she gets when she lands on a valid reason for treatment that an argumentative patient didn’t think of. “Want to split dessert, too?”

* * *

Lia

Dinner is almost over, and despite half joking about sharing a dessert, Ford pores over the sweets menu with me and we select a cheesecake bite sampler.

Mom tries to intervene, saying that she and Dad are taking off soon. That only made Ford ask for a double order to go. Cuz we’ll be hungrier later.

I didn’t realize I’d fallen for Mom’s food policing until Ford defended me. I’m more horrified to think that I put up with it for years, well into adulthood, pretty much until I moved.

Samuel, for all his faults, always encouraged me to stand up to her and shut down her fine criticisms, but he also never defended me in front of her. All through dinner, Ford was downright obnoxious in his support of me. I needed it. I got the pasta dish and ate every noodle except the ones I shared with Ford.

My parents drive past us out of the parking lot as we wave. Ford grins and throws his whole arm into it as he clings to two to-go boxes with the other.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he says as my perturbed parents drive away. They have a flight out in two hours.

“It was awful. I’m so sorry.”

“It was nothing compared to meeting the Pruitts and then dealing with them after I moved back to Fargo and Cass came with me. I might’ve been a little bit of a jackass today though.” We walk to his car. He takes off his suit coat and flings it into the back seat. “I didn’t go overboard, did I?”

“Are you kidding?” I slip into the passenger seat and sink into the scent that is Ford, which is seeped into every surface of the vehicle, a combination of Irish Spring and plain shaving cream. Ford’s presence overpowers most women. He doesn’t need to add a heavy cologne to it. “You had every right to be worse. It was embarrassing how they acted.” I snicker before dropping my voice in imitation. “‘It was either my mom on the street or me in an ambulance rig, and any idiot could make that decision.’”

Dad deserved it. He’d made a pointed comment about throwing so much money away for nothing.

“You know how many times I’ve wanted to say that over the last few years?” he asks.

Every time he’s around Cass and her parents. I sneak a glance at him. Strong profile. Blue eyes glowing under the high sun. His tie got looser over the course of the dinner until its loop was hanging halfway down his chest.

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