“Uh, Friday?” I said.
Mai beamed as she bounced into the room, still dressed in her black tunic and yoga pants from Real Life Bodywork.
“Exactly!” she said. “You promised we would hang out and get drinks this weekend.”
Had I? I thought back to last weekend. Right. I’d come home from work, already reeling from Alec asking me out, and I’d caught her and Hob on the sofa. I’d wanted to hide away in my room rather than go out to celebrate my resignation from RLB, but Mai had extracted a promise from me that I’d go out with her this week.
She was a hard person to refuse.
“I don’t think Ipromised, exactly,” I wheedled.
“You said it was a date.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yousaid it was a date!”
“All right. Why won’t you date me, Lumen?”
Oh boy.
I looked down at the open notebook on my lap. I’d actually gotten ahead of myself, working out the details for lesson plans farther into the year than was necessary. I liked being prepared, but this was even a lot for me. I didn’t need to be a shrink to know that I was overcompensating.
I glanced up at my friend.
Shit.
She was giving me those puppy dog eyes. The same ones she used whenever she needed me to take a shift for her. I’d mostly grown immune over the years, but my resistance was down. I blamed it on the crazy amount of prep work I’d been doing.
“I don’t want to go far,” I said with a sigh.
“MacLean’s is like three blocks away!” Mai replied, her eyes lighting up in triumph.
“Have I been there?”
“No, but me and Hob have. Super classy Irish place. Or Scottish? Scotch is Scottish, right? I mean, it mustbe, because otherwise, it’d just be stupid. Then again, we both know not to get Mama started on the comparison of Chinese food here and Chinese food ‘back home.’”
Scottish. Dammit.
Understandably, my thoughts immediately went to Alec and his accent. I’d managed to mostly put him out of my mind while working on my lesson plans, but his voice still seemed to float in the back of my brain, popping up at the most inconvenient times. Sometimes, I’d feel like I heard him call my name, and then I’d picture him walking into the parlor, hair wet from the rain, magnificent body wrapped in that expensive suit, bright blue eyes settling on me…
This wasn’t going to lead anywhere good.
“It’s Scottish,” I said, my voice quieter than usual.
“Right, well, you don’t need to drink scotch, but it’s got a dance floor and yummy cocktails. What more do you need?”
She knew how much I loved to dance, even if I didn’t drink a lot. She was a master manipulator, and I made a mental note to discuss with her how she should never use her powers for evil.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
Mai made an exaggerated fist-pumping display of excitement that made me laugh. Maybe this was a good idea after all.
I wasn’t the sort of person who usually went all-out on my appearance, but dressing up for tonight sounded like fun, and I could use some of that. I shook my hair out from my normal ponytail and used some product to keep the frizz down, then squeezed into my black faux leather leggings – the most daring pair of pants I owned. When I pulled a white sleeveless blouse from my closet, Mai wasted no time snatching it from my hands.
“No way are you wearing this. I approve of the leggings, but this shirt isn’t going to work.” She tossed it onto my bed and disappeared into my closet where I heard her muttering as she flipped through my wardrobe. “Nope. No. Definitely not. Hell no. What the…I don’t want to know.”
I’d never had much in the way of money to spend on clothes, which meant I stuck with simple styles and neutral colors, the sorts of things that I could get at least a couple years out of before I had to go shopping again. While that made for smart budgeting and always-ready work outfits, it didn’t tend to lend toward night-on-the-town fun.
“I’ll get you something from my closet,” Mai announced as she emerged from mine.
