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Chapter Two

Kay

“Just because you saved my laptop from that Venti Frappuccino doesn’t mean you get to torture me,” she accused Heather the following day.

She flopped down into the chair across from her friend.

It was a dramatic move, but Kay held on to enough sense to not spill the steaming cup of tea she’d just purchased.

Her friend winced and took a sip of her coffee. “I’m guessing things didn’t go well last night?”

“Well?” Kay snorted. “An unmitigated disaster would be a more accurate description.”

“Damn, did he talk about himself too much?” Heather asked. “Sometimes people get nervous and try to impress their dates. Or was he too accommodating? Like he was so worried about you and your feelings that you didn’t get to know him at all?”

“Heath,” Kay replied. “I’m saying this with the utmost affection but .

. . you’re losing your touch. Your wonderful hubby has rotted your once sharp and precise brain.

” She raised a finger when Heather would have argued.

“I see it with my characters all the time. They fall in love and they get soft—”

“One,” Heather interjected. “Your characters are a product of your brain, so they don't get full human status in this argument and two, RoboTech and its subsidiaries made record profits last year, so my hubby isn’t making me soft. Rather”—she waggled her eyebrows—“he’s giving me hard .”

“First,” Kay said, mimicking her, “gross. And second . . . gross.”

“That’s all you got?” Heather lifted a brow. “I thought you were supposed to be some super successful author.”

Kay rolled her eyes. “Words are hard.”

Heather’s mouth curved. “Uh-huh. Okay, so why was your date with Garret a disaster?”

“Before or after he stood me up?”

Kay had to hand it to herself, she’d surprised her friend and that didn’t happen very often. So, she took great pleasure in the slack-jawed expression currently adorning Heather’s face.

“I waited an hour,” she said. “Nursed that bread basket like a son of a bitch, downed two glasses of really good wine. But after sitting alone at the table for an hour, I decided I’d had enough punishment and so I paid and left.”

Heather winced. “Shit. I’m so sorry. I thought Garret was—”

“I haven’t even got to what happened after the date ditching.”

“Hold on”—Heather took a slug of coffee—I need to prepare myself. Especially since I’m the one who forced you to go out with him.” She sucked in a breath, released it. “Okay, go.”

“He called me a cow.”

The look on Heather’s face was scary, Kay had to give her friend that much. And it wasn’t even directed at her, so really, she hadn’t even witnessed the full potential of that glare.

“He. Did. What? ”

Kay explained leaving the restaurant, the sexy—albeit awful—man who’d knocked into her, causing her to spill her purse, before overhearing the conversation and—

“Then he basically said only gross cows write romance novels and that he’d purposely come late because he didn’t want to be there in the first place.” Kay sipped her tea. “And so I walked over to him, slapped him in the chest with one of my books, and walked out.”

“You didn’t!” Heather gasped.

Kay nodded. “Fuck yes, I did.”

“That is amazing,” Heather said, and the slight awe in her tone smoothed over the ruffled edges of Kay’s temper. “You should have really slapped him though.”

Kay sighed and sat back. “As much as I wanted to, you know how I feel about actual violence.”

“You and your morals.”

“I know”—Kay’s lips twitched—“pesky standards.”

Heather’s phone buzzed, but she kept her eyes on Kay’s. “I’m really sorry. Garret mentioned to Clay that he was single and looking to settle down, but that he’d been struggling to find smart, talented woman, I thought, Who’s smarter and more talented than you?”

Aw .

Another buzz, which Heather ignored. “Obviously, I knew you fit the bill, but I didn’t know he’d be such a douche. Next time—”

“There will be no next time , Heather O’Keith.” Kay narrowed her eyes.

Heather’s phone buzzed for a third time, and she sighed. “I need to go.”

“Not until you promise no more blind dates.”

Avoiding Kay’s eyes, she stood up, tossed her purse over one shoulder and turned to leave. “It was good to meet up. I can’t wait for your next book!”

“No more new books unless you agree to no more blind dates.”

Heather winced. “You’re mean.”

“I’m practical. That was torture, and I’m old enough to only want to do things that I want to do.” All well and good in words, but Kay had serious pushover tendencies, which Heather certainly knew . . . and would probably exploit if the chips were on the table.

“It’s for your own good,” Heather began.

See?

“I’m happy with my life,” she told her. “Would I turn the right man away if he dropped into my lap? Hell no. But I’m not actively looking for a relationship, and I’m totally fine with that.”

“But you’re a romance writer,” Heather said. “You create stories that make people happy, and you deserve to have some of that happy for yourself.”

Kay smiled and pushed to her feet. “Thank you for caring.” She hugged Heather.

“But I am happy and if you read some of my reviews, you’d see that I make plenty of people miserable.

” Her smile widened to a grin. “Plus, consider this whole horrible event fodder for my new book. I’ll name someone Garret, kill him off, and then move on with my life in blissful abandon. ”

Heather considered that for a few seconds. “Okay, fine.” She finally glanced down at her cell and made at face at what she saw on the screen. “I just don’t understand how he transformed from Mr. Nice Guy into Sir Asshole.”

“Either way,” Kay said. “He’s not Mr. Right. So”—and she wanted to make this crystal clear because Heather was a master negotiator and had a penchant for finding workarounds and loopholes—“repeat after me: No more blind dates.”

Her friend nodded. “No more setting you up on blind dates. Got it.”

And with a quick squeeze and a promise of dinner soon, Heather left.

Kay stared after her, trying to figure out why that interaction had come off as weird. Heather’s agreement had been almost too easy, but then again, she had felt bad about the disaster of a date, so maybe that was it.

Huh. Kay shrugged mentally as she pulled out her laptop.

Weirdness aside, Heather was a woman of her word. If she promised no more blind dates, she would follow through with that.

It was only later that Kay would realize that while Heather had promised no more blind dates, what she hadn’t promised was to forgo dates altogether.

Words, man. Sometimes they came back and bit a girl on the—