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I open the door and go to step inside.
“Wait…” Kael catches my elbow.
I turn to look at him again, and it kills me to see his expression is pained in a way that I’ve never seen before. This is harder than I thought it would be.
“If this Ashton guy turns out to be great, then I’m happy for you because you deserve to be with someone great. You deserve to be happy. But if he turns out to be a jerk, just know I’ll be coming for him. You can tell him that from me.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
“I’m just saying, if there’s a lag in the conversation, feel free to bring it up.” He smiles softly at me. A double-dimpled, perfect smile, but his eyes are tight and the little muscle along the side of his jaw just twitched. “Be safe, okay?”
“I’ll be sure to stick to well-lit areas.”
“He could be a serial kill—”
I let the heavy door close behind me, on Kael and our conversation.
Slumping against the door, I exhale all the air from my lungs with a rush, and it feels really good to breathe again because lately, it feels like I’ve been holding my breath way too often.
Sienna
The doorbell rings a few minutes past eight, and as much as I was reluctant to go out on this date to begin with, now that it’s actually happening, I have to admit I’m a little excited.
Grabbing my purse, keys and cell phone from the hall table, I notice I’ve got an unread text message from Andrea. She must have sent it to me while I was in the shower.
Andrea: Just wanted to let you know we got here okay. It’s been a long day. We grabbed burgers for dinner. Bailey’s in bed already. You better be wearing sexy lingerie. Something slutty. There’s condoms in the hall table. I’ll call you tomorrow to find out how the date went.
Condoms? What the hell?
I open the top drawer and peek inside. There are definitely no condoms in there… oh, well look at that. Definitely condoms. Andrea must have put them in there when she picked Bailey up this morning. And extra large, too. Apparently she has high hopes for this evening.
I type out a quick reply and hit send.
Me: Underwear is sensible. Boobs, however, look amazing. Kiss Bailey good night for me.
I shove my phone into my purse and check my appearance one last time in the entryway mirror.
A knee-length red dress that’s fitted in all the right places, accentuating my curves and ample bosom, with matching red lipstick and strappy high heels, meets my eyes. I had my hair styled in long loose waves that fall gently around my shoulders, and I give myself a nod of approval before opening the door with a casual smile, which I may or may not have practiced upstairs for a few minutes earlier.
“Hi. You must be Ashton.”
“Yep, I’m Ashton.” He holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.”
Ashton is handsome, average height with a broad chest, and dark hair that’s been parted and combed neatly to one side. He’s good looking in a hipster kind of way. However, the thick-rimmed glasses he’s wearing do nothing to hide the way his eyes just did a quick sweep of my body, and as hard as he’s trying to hide it, I don’t miss the quick flash of disappointment I see in his expression.
Well, isn’t that just great?
I swear blind dates are to social acceptance what nuclear waste is to the good of mankind. Torturous. Soul-crushing.
Ashton’s pale eyes focus on me, and they’re in no way apologetic about looking me up and down. He doesn’t blink for a really long time, and then he sighs, and I swear it’s the biggest, heaviest, most forlorn sigh I’ve ever heard in all my life.
I’m a curvy girl. There’s no point denying the obvious. And I’m guessing by the slightly regretful look on Ashton’s face right now, I’m not what he was expecting tonight.
I should probably put the poor guy out of his misery. Tell him he’s off the hook. So many things I could say, and yet none of them seem quite right.
But you know what? Screw that. He wants out, he can be man enough to come right out and say so.
