AllFreeNovel
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“Yes.”
“No problems with sharing the space? No constant irritation from things she says or does? That’s promising,” she notes when I shake my head. “Has she complained about any of your habits to you?”
“She hasn’t.” I’m slightly offended she asked, but Paige continues on.
“Then ask her out.” She sits back like it’s that easy.
I stifle a sigh and sip my wine.
“But what?”
If I don’t tell her the whole truth, she won’t let this go. Her stubbornness is on display through my side window, winking his Santa eye at me every two seconds. “She doesn’t really see me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like someone to date. This is embarrassing. Can we change the subject?”
“Definitely not,” she says. “Do you know Lily Greene?”
The gracious woman in the fine foods market. “I’ve met her.”
“She’s the most skilled matchmaker in Creekville and long may she reign, but I want to be just like her when I grow up, and I’m pretty good at it too. I had way more to do with my brother getting married than he realizes.”
“Sounds like a good story you should tell me right now.”
“So we don’t have to talk about your unrequited love? No chance. I can help you figure this out.”
“No. I can’t tolerate the idea of making it”—more—“awkward in the office if this went poorly. I wouldn’t want her to be uncomfortable sharing a space if she declines.”
Paige sits back and gives me a look of surprise mixed with approval. “That’s thoughtful.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? You handled me entirely wrong.”
“Fair,” I grunt.
“How long will you be sharing an office?”
“She’ll get her own in January.”
“I’m going to mull.” And then she settles into the armchair, eating bites of her panna cotta, her expression far away.
I finish my wine, and I like that our silence is comfortable. I always feel like people are waiting for me to speak, and I don’t like talking just to talk.
“I’ve got it,” she says so suddenly that I jump. “We make you look dateable. And then when she can’t stop thinking of you as dateable, you ask her out.”
“Make me look dateable?” I’ve never uttered a stupider sentence.
“Yeah. A makeover! We’ll make you look so good.”
“Do I look bad now? And who is we?”
“Evie and me, of course. I know you only ever see me in jeans and tees, but I promise, I have an excellent sense of style, and she inherited it. We’ll work magic.”
I notice she didn’t answer whether I look bad or not, and I fight the impulse to ask again like I’m a junior high girl before her first dance. Worse, I have an even stronger impulse to hear Paige say I look good. Time for evasive maneuvers. “Fine. Make me dateable.”
Because if this evening has shown me anything, it’s that I desperately need a distraction.
