I didn’t like him. I never liked him.
Okay, that was a lie.
When I got old enough to know that boys were more than dirty, irritatingly rambunctious and overall annoying, I had a crush on Dair, because he was almost as good-looking a boy as he was a man.
Then he took every opportunity to remind me how boys were dirty, frustratingly rambunctious and unceasingly annoying, and I got over it (though, truth told, it hurt a little that he didn’t like me “like that,” as, I told myself, any girl would feel the pain of a boy she had a crush on not liking her back).
Bottom line, he wasn’t even my type.
However, I thought my type was Chad, and very tardily realized I was very wrong about that. He was Mum’s. I’d gone through the whole fiasco with him just to gain my mother’s approval. Humiliating myself and costing Dad thousands and thousands of dollars through the process.
I’d had exactly two dates since I’d dumped Chad on the altar, and they’d both been disasters.
Good Lord, I didn’t even know what my type was.
“Blake?” Chloe called.
I got out of my head and into the conversation.
“You sure you’re okay?” she asked, not hiding she was scrutinizing me.
“I’ve just got a checklist on my mind,” I lied again.
“If you need any help…” she offered, not for the first time.
“You’ve been really great with hooking me up with vendors in Prescott already,” I told her. “And everything is set. I’m just fretting. It’ll all be fine.”
“You know you can ask me. Or Mom. Or Nora. Mika. Gal or Katie,” she stressed (yes, again).
I nodded. “I know. We’ll go over everything at the meeting in the morning, just in case I’m not around to see to something.”
She glanced over at Dair then came back to me.
“He’s very good looking,” she noted.
“He’s not my type,” I decreed. Then foolishly continued, “As the saying goes, football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen. But unlike other gentlemen who play that game, Dair doesn’t leave the hooligan on the pitch.”
Chloe appeared bewildered, and she explained it. “Your mom said you two were an item.”
What?
Oh my God!
Why would she say that?
“I worried you guys were fighting,” Chloe went on. “You’ve barely said anything to him.”
“That’s because he, nor his family, were invited tonight,” I informed her. “Davina is okay, though she never had much use for me. But Dair has always been an asshole and that hasn’t changed, case in point, our most recent conversation.”
“He sure can’t take his eyes off you for someone who’s just been an asshole to you.”
I felt frisson tingle down my spine.
Okay.
What was that?
Resolutely, I shook it off.
