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Somehow both of those felt like they weremyhang-up, but I needed to focus on this conversation.
Davis eyed me at my delay. “Unless you... wanted to play seventeen rounds of schedule tag? And another thirty of document control? We could loop in Debbie?” He pointed across the ballroom with his chin.
“No, that’s fine—I mean, this is fine.”
Davis grinned. “Aw, man,” he joked. “I dreamed Debbie and Davis could double team you, doctor.”
“Oh, see, I’m over here hoping we can make even more versions of the guidelines. Maybe one per employee?” Why was I teasing him back?
“Why stop there?”
“Great idea, I—” My teasing—flirting—reply caught in my throat. I was not doing this with Davis. I pulled my phone from my handbag and scanned through my calendar. “I’m free Tuesday at one.”
Davis consulted his phone, too. “Great. I’ll put you down for then. My office?”
“Sure.”
“Great.” Davis looked away, but turned back again. “Hey, itwasan article about my brother and Harper Tyne, right?”
“Actually, it was Jessica Stryker.”
Davis froze for just long enough for me to worry. I didn’t know why he’d be upset, but I wished I could take it back, fix it somehow.
“You—you didn’t really think that was me, did you?” he asked at last.
“I mean... you do kind of look alike.”
“Do we?” His skepticism was a little over the top to be believable. “Because he’s half a decade older than me. What are you trying to say?”
“Well, you know, PhotoShop.” I waved a hand. They probably did look totally different close up.
My mind tripped and fell right into that idea: moving close to Davis, with no intention of comparing him to his brother.
“There you are!” a delighted female voice declared. “Sorry I lost you!”
Davis turned to the approaching woman dripping in rivers of gold sequins. “Not at all. Just taking care of a work thing.”
“You and your ‘work.’” The woman laughed, playfully swatting Davis in the breadbasket. He didn’t flinch, returning a kind smile.
This woman was petite and pretty and blonde in ways that made me feel like I could take the place of the prehistoric woman mannequin at Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences. With her definitely-not-Ross-Dress-for-Less wardrobe, Davis’s date was a much better match for him than Jessica Stryker.
Or Cassidy Croft.
“Come on,” Davis’s date—girlfriend?—said to him. “I’ll introduce you.”
Davis nodded and turned back to me. “See you Tuesday?”
“Tuesday.”
Either the pre-dinner water was spiked or I was losing my mind, because it certainly looked like Davis Hardcastle looked longingly at the empty seats on either side of me for a second before he followed his date back to their own table.
I didn’t know what bothered me more: Davis being on a date with someone who was obviously more suited to him—or the fact that that bothered me.
Dr. Donaldson returned from the restroom before I’d begun to untangle that knot. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Are you good with him?”
“Yeah.” I glanced at his retreating form, and not just the way that his tux outlined his broad shoulders so perfectly. The way that—ifI wasn’t seeing things andifhe actually wanted to stay and talk to me—he still walked with his date to meet her friends, no protest, no outer reluctance. Just friendly and accommodating.
Two things I’d never been to him.
