I glowered at her. “This wasyourfault.”
She got that imperious look I’d seen way too often. “Excuse me if I managed to help you meet a girl you are clearly wild about. If you want to blow that, I won’t sit here and let you keep me from breakfast.”
My stomach churned at the thought of food, but I had a stubborn streak. I could sit here all day if it annoyed her.
She picked up her cell phone and dialed. After a beat, she said, “You’ve got to work things out with Evan. He’s sitting in Basil’s kitchen. He mentioned you wanted to go hiking.”
Fuck. I shook my head at her. I didn’t want to talk to Elizabeth right now. I needed to work out what to say.
Chelsea ignored me and repeated it. “Go hiking. Today. Will you talk to him?”
How could I spend a day with Elizabeth when she must be furious with me? I dropped from the stool, escaping into the den before she could force the phone my way.
“I don’t want to talk to her!” Not yet. Not before I could get my shit together.
She continued speaking to Elizabeth. “Well, you say something, and I’ll repeat it.” Then she said to me, “She says she wants to talk to you.” When I held up both hands in refusal, she added, “He’s thinking it over.”
I had to leave. I grabbed my jacket from the peg by the door. They couldn’t manipulate me again. “I’m not going anywhere with her.”
Chelsea held up a finger. “How about Crabtree Falls?”
I froze as it dawned on me there was no way Elizabeth was saying any of this. Was Chelsea making up a two-way conversation? “Shehateshiking.”
She repeated into the phone, “He says you hate hiking.” Then she pointed at me. “Clock’s ticking.”
Bas, the traitor, chimed in. “Better get a move on. It’s an hour away.”
“What makes you think I’m going?” Why were they teaming up against me?
“Meet me at my place,” she said before hanging up and launching at me. “Are you stupid?”
“What the hell?” If she was trying to force me to admit my many, many mistakes, she was only making me dig my heels in.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Don’t you get it? That list isn’t about you. It’s aboutmeand my fucked-up stunted emotions. My therapist suggested it.” Before I could respond, she went on, “Everything on our list was intended to challenge us to be our true selves and find adventure here and now. She never would have spoken to you if I hadn’t dared her.”
Aha. I pointed a finger at her. “See? Itwasall about meeting guys.”
She breathed in, rolled her eyes heavenward, then stepped into my space. “No, you ding-dong. It’s about personal growth. You might have noticed that Elizabeth is a smart, confident, beautiful woman, but she’s more at home three stories belowground with stacks of books that smell like the dead men who wrote them than she is at a wine tasting. She hates meeting guys at bars, and when I make her come out, the only reason she doesn’t go home with a different guy every night is because she’s heard every pickup line ever invented from the inebriated leches who come on to her. For some reason, she’s looking for something more long-lasting than a casual hookup. Before you, the closest thing she’d had to a date in months was with the retired eighty-year-old professor she has a standing lunch with. So yeah, I push her to break the ice because if it were left to her, I’d be her only friend. You should thank your lucky stars she deigned to choose you to approach that night.”
Damn. My jaw dropped, and I had no response to any of that. It was like she’d slapped some sense into me. She was right that I’d been lucky to meet Elizabeth, so why was I sabotaging this? “I’ll take a shower.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Elizabeth
“Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.”
Sonnet 116
What in the mixed messages?
I stared at my phone, wondering what Chelsea was up to. Of all the people in the world, she’d normally be the last to help patch up a busted romance, but lately, she hadn’t been herself. Maybe Cupid’s arrow had finally hit its mark and now she thought everyone was worthy of love.
No. That didn’t pass the smell test.
More likely, she just wanted Evan out of her space so she could have Bas—and his Polska Kielbasa—to herself. She’d practically ambushed me, saying things to Evan that I had not uttered. Go hiking with him, what the hell?
