“I just didn’t know if I should believe it,” Trisha continued. “I mean…it’s Jordan.”
“Yeah, she’s a little rough around the edges, but Ty is trying to school her on the finer things in life. He’s actually taking her to the International Dance Festival on Saturday.”
“No! No! No!” Tyler mouthed frantically, waving his arms in wild abandon in front of Matthew. “Abort! Abort!”
“Oh…” Trisha said, sounding more despondent than jealous. “That’s great.” Another stilted pause. “Well, Matt, thanks for the call. Give Tyler my regards.”
“I will,” Matthew said with an imperceptible sneer and hung up the phone.
“What the hell was that?!” Tyler shouted.
“It didn’t go the way I planned, but this is gonna work, Ty. Did you hear how crushed she sounded?”
“It wasn’t necessary to hurt her feelings. You know I take her to that festival every year.”
“It kinda was,” he said with an unapologetic shrug. “And that’s precisely the point. So now you gotta take Jordan.”
“What? No!”
“Ty, I’m ninety percent certain that if Trisha knows you’re gonna betherewith Jordan, she’s gonna be there too.”
“The whole objective of this plan was to buy us some time so that I wouldn’t have to take Jordan out again for a while.” He shut his eyes, pressing two fingers against his temple. “And I would rather go swimming with an open wound in a tank full of sharks than ask her out again.”
Matthew rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
Yeah, it was that bad.“You’re not a good friend. The predicaments you put me in are not indicative of best friend behavior. What if Trisha doesn’t go on Saturday?”
“Look, if you go and she’s not there, you’ve lost nothing, but if she goes and you’re not there, you’ve lost an opportunity. You said you have one more shot. Take it.”
Matt was right. As dumb as this plan was, it seemed to be working. It was obvious that his supposed relationship with Jordan had a negative effect on Trisha and maybe all she needed was a little push.
“Fine.” Tyler stood up with a groan. A few deep, therapeutic breaths were required before the execution of this soul-shattering exercise.
Please just let her say yes.
If he’d been presented with a choice at that moment to either drown in quicksand or ask Jordan this very awkward question again, quicksand would win hands down. There was a word for what he was feeling right now. In fact, there were several. Dread. Trepidation. Anxiety. A small dose of Terror.
His legs were so heavy as he walked to her desk, he felt like he was trudging through three feet of marsh.
“Hi…”Just breathe.“…Jordan.”
She looked up from her paperwork. “Hi…Tyler.”
“So…you remember when we…went to Giovanni’s?”
“Yeah, it was only five days ago.”
Five days weren’t enough for him to forget how she looked that night. Visions of her in that cocktail dress flashed through his mind.Don’t think about it.“And remember…when you said…” To avoid a repeat of their last encounter, he actively tried not to look at her breasts. “…I still owe you dinner?”
Her eyebrows twitched with uncertainty. “Yeah.”
“So I was thinking…maybe…”God, this is painful.“I could make it up to you…on Saturday.”Eyes up. Don’t look at her breasts.
“Saturday?” She was genuinely confused by this. “You do know Saturday isn’t a working day, right?”
“I am…aware.”So painful.“Um…it’s just that there’s this thing…” His voice was faltering, becoming unsteady with nerves and humiliation. “…like a festival…of dance. I thought maybe we could go…and afterwards I could…take you to dinner.”
She smiled. “Is this your way ofnotasking me out on a date again?”
