“I’m going to find out when that meeting is and just show up anyway,” she said, trying to ignore the way she could still feel his touch on her skin.
I like you just fine.What the hell did that mean? He objectively didnotlike her. He didn’t want to work with her, he didn’t like the way she took care of his daughter, he didn’t like the way she bought celery.
He grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it in black marker. “Good. You should be there.”
“What?”
He stood up, slowly, and handed the paper across the desk. It had a date, time and location on it.
She stared at the paper, then up at him, then back to the paper. “Just like that?”
“I won’t go.” Was that an offer, or a statement?
Wordlessly, she reached out and took the paper. Then she swallowed hard. “We bring different perspectives. We should both go.”
The tight, hesitant beat he waited before responding just about killed her. “All right.”
Yeah. Relief flooded through her, bringing a delayed onset of hot, complicated tears to her eyes, so she spun on her heel and left before he could notice them.
She went back to the clinic, put the meeting on her calendar, then checked her schedule for the rest of the week. She laughed out loud when she saw that Becca had an appointment on the calendar for Saturday—but Jenna was going to see her, not Kerry. She hated that she felt relief at that, but after her run in with Owen right now, it was for the best.
But avoiding Kincaids wasn’t that easy. That night, when she’d had enough of lying on her couch and watching the giant clock on her wall not move, she went over to the Green Hedgehog to find some of the soccer players.
Lore was behind the bar, but the only other person Kerry recognized in the place was Adam Kincaid, who was at a table with his friend Silent Stevie. He waved, and she returned the gesture, then took a seat at the bar.
“What’s the drink of the day?” Kerry asked.
Lore gave her a wicked grin. “A Michelada. The Canuck Edition, if you will.”
Kerry didn’t know what a Michelada was, but she was in. Lore’s concoctions were always worth the gamble. “I will.”
When the bartender reached for the Caesar rim mix, Kerry thought she should warn her to make it not too strong, because she was driving, but as the drink building progressed, she realized it wasn’t a shot of vodka that would be the base of the drink, but…beer from the tap.
“Just try it,” Lore said as she pushed the cocktail across the bar. “It tastes like summer.”
She was three sips in when Adam appeared beside her. “I’ll have one of those, too.”
Kerry glanced over her shoulder. Silent Stevie was nowhere to be seen. “How’s it going, Adam?”
“You know. Work. Play.” He winked.
She laughed. “In equal measure?”
“For now.” He shrugged. “How about you? How’s it going?”
I stormed into your brother’s office and yelled at him.“You know.”
“Work and play?”
She lifted her glass. “Mostly work. Although soccer practice is ramping up, so…”
Adam accepted his own drink from Lore, who leaned in. They chatted about the state of the soccer fields—still wet from the heavy spring rainfall—and the co-ed team Lore and Adam had tried to get going, and before Kerry knew it, she was at the bottom of her glass.
Lore tapped her fingernails on the bar top. “Do you want another?”
Kerry thought about her lack of a social life, and her light schedule for the next day. Then she glanced at the drive-home service number on the wall and nodded. “Yep.”
Adam shrugged. “I’ll take another, too.”
