Quinn paused her drink halfway to her mouth. “Really?”
I leaned back in my seat. “Don’t look so surprised.”
“Are you feeling okay?” She reached over the table to feel my forehead. “When was the last time you had fun without thinking of the next deadline?” she asked and took a hefty gulp of her drink.
She was right. I’d barely taken a day off since starting my own web design business. I was a one-woman show, and, after a slow start, I could now pick and choose which projects I wanted to take on.
I batted her hand away. “I’m feeling fine. And I know how to relax and have fun.”
“Ha, all lies. Last time we went out, we had dinner, two drinks, and were home by nine. I bet you were in bed by ten past and worked until midnight.”
I didn’t answer since we both knew she was right. But I knew how to have fun. I just chose not to. I’d been wild when I was younger, following my brothers into one mess after another. But at least I’d learned something from it. And I liked to think I was now older and wiser.
I was a new and upgraded version of the girl who liked to dive headfirst into a situation without thinking about what she was doing beforehand.
“How are things with Tom?” I asked, taking a deep breath. The past needed to stay where it belonged. In the past. And I needed to change the topic.
“I’m seeing him tomorrow,” Quinn said with a grin.
Tom was a guy she’d met on one of her hiking tours. She liked to become one with the wild on a regular basis, much to my disgust. And when she wasn’t busy making magical pizzas, she was leading groups through Okanogan-Wenatchee National Park.
She would be doing tours full-time or be a park ranger if she didn’t have to take over the family business. She never complained about working at the restaurant, but I knew her heart wasn’t really in it. But she didn’t want to disappoint her parents, so she soldiered on.
Guess I wasn’t the only one with complicated family dynamics.
“That’s great. Where’s he taking you?” I asked.
She crinkled her nose. “Al’s Pizza.”
I cackled and soon was holding my belly, the laughter bursting out of me. “That’s brilliant. You can compare pizzas.”
“Not funny. He doesn’t know my family owns an Italian restaurant.”
I stared at her, wondering if we were both destined to become crazy bunny ladies. “But you’ve known him for six weeks. How can he not know?”
“We don’t talk much.”
I snorted. “Obviously.”
“Shut up. At least I put myself out there. When was the last time you even went on a date?”
I didn’t have an answer since I couldn’t remember. Maybe the banker I dated for a few weeks last year. Chad.
That was a mistake I’d never repeat.
“Let’s not talk about the wasteland that is my dating life,” I said, holding up my drink. “Instead, we should toast to good friends and better food.”
We clinked glasses and spent the rest of the night talking about everything and nothing. My heart was full and my step light when I got home.
My apartment was small, two bedrooms, one bathroom, with a combined kitchen and living area. But it was all mine, and I’d worked hard to get the money to buy it.
Killer, my Lionhead rabbit, hopped around his cage in excitement when I opened my door. I bet he’d gotten bored while I was out. But he couldn’t be trusted by himself in the apartment, a lesson I learned when he shorted out the power for the whole building after chewing through some cables.
I was lucky he didn’t electrocute himself in the process. I had since been put on a blacklist by the building manager, and despite my many attempts to right my wrongs, he refused to take any of my calls.
I even tried to bribe him with pizza from Deliziosa. But he was holding a mean grudge, and I now had to change my own light bulbs and call my own plumber when I had a problem.
“Come on, little bun. You can come out for a bit while I make myself a snack that I’ll definitely regret in the morning.”
