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I shake my head. “No! I mean, please run anything you’d like to say by me.” That still isn’t quite right. I am a buffoon.
She smiles, though, obviously understanding me despite myself. “Great. Meet you for cookies at Smart Cookie Bites? It’s new since you left. My friend Abby owns it. They have the most delicious cookies in the world. They’re made with fresh fruits and vegetables locally sourced from Trenton Farms. They’re fantastic. You’re going to love it.”
“Perfect.”
She grins. “Great. See you then.”
“Wonderful.” I stumble past her and the rest of her entourage, waving goodbye awkwardly. In the last ten years, one would think I’d have gotten smoother. Not when it comes to Amelia.
But we’re meeting tomorrow. And there’s something specific she wants to talk to me about. As I open the door and step out of the Cordial Diner, my chest puffs out, and my heartcha-chingswith hope. This is what I’ve come back to see. This is exactly what I hoped would happen.
As I glance around the snowy street in search of my car, I realize I’ve already made two crucial mistakes. The first is that I’m freezing and have left my coat inside. The second is that I didn’t finish my dinner or pay my bill.
I turn around to go back in. There’s always hope that I’ll find a way to up my game tomorrow.
Because tomorrow I have a date with Amelia Taylor.
ChapterThree
Amelia
“Oliver Jameson sure grew up good,” Felicity says, waggling her eyebrows at me as we shepherd Trace and Hudson down Main Street together. We just went by the big Christmas tree in the square to visit the ornaments we hung at the tree lighting. Now I’m on my way to meet the grown-up-good Oliver Jameson himself, and Felicity and the boys are going Christmas shopping at Gifts and Bits, a fun little shop that sells local crafts and jams, novelty T-shirts, and Cherry Creek branded merchandise. Trace and Hudson like it for their extensive candy selection. I haven’t pried, but with the shifty way the three of them are acting, I think I’m the one they’re doing their Christmas shopping for today.
“You think so?” I ask, though of course I’d noticed. It’d be hard not to notice a man who’d grown at least a foot taller since I’d last seen him and filled out the shoulders of his suit coat like Superman.
“Oh, yeah. Don’t you think?” She pauses to pull Hudson back from the curb he’s poised to jump off.
“I guess.” When I saw him, it hit me that he’d be the perfect person to help me with my plan for Felicity. But he might be useful in more ways than one. Especially if Felicity’s noticing a man who isn’t a cartoon character. I glance at her, watching for her reaction to what I’m going to say next. “If you’re interested in him, I could talk to him for you.”
Felicity freezes mid-step. “Amelia, that’s not funny.”
I fold my arms, and my purse and messenger bag slide down my shoulder. “I wasn’t making a joke.”
She bites her lip and rescues Hudson from a muddy snow pile he’s attempting to jump into. “You know I don’t date. Notafter what their father did.” She whispers that last part so Trace and Hudson won’t hear. My sister may be bitter about love and relationships and her runaway ex-husband, but she wants to give her boys a healthy outlook and doesn’t say bad things about their father in front of them. “Besides, I’m too busy for any of that. You know this. And even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be interested in Ollie.”
“What’s wrong with Ollie?” She was the one who’d just commented on his attractiveness. And she wasn’t wrong.
“He took drama with you in middle school, right?”
“Right.”
“Yeah, there’s no way I’d date anyone who has anything remotely to do with acting after Mark.”
“Point taken.”
“And Ollie is such agoodguy.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
She tilts her head. “You know I like a bad boy.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
“Still. But most of all, I’d never be interested because he’s one hundred percentyourguy. I mentioned him, though, because I was thinking ofyouand Ollie.”
“Meand Ollie? Nope. Can’t picture it.” Ollie was my first and best friend in kindergarten. And kindergartners don’t date. I’d never thought of him that way. “We’ve always been just friends.”
She gives me a pointed look. “He didn’talwayslook like Superman.”
