Kairi is next to coffee shop guy, wearing a butter yellow milkmaid dress and bedazzled sandals. She rarely wears her curls loose, but today they’re flowing down her back and over her shoulders in soft curls.
“She hasn’t been over to your place in months,” I grumble. “If you’re only noticing it now that she’s wearing it then you clearly don’t need it.”
She gasps again before a smile curls on her lips. “How do you know it’s been months since she was last over?” Her eyebrow lifts, and her lips spread into a full grin. “Are you keeping tabs on her?”
My ears grow warm but I don’t look at her, keeping my eyes focused on Kairi. “No, she just mentioned it’d been a while.”
”Right,” she replies, dragging the word out.
“Guys, shush!” Eliana hisses. “I can’t focus on reading their lips.”
I snort. “There’s no way you can read lips.”
”I’ll prove it to you,” she says, lowering her sunglasses and looking at me with a challenging expression. “He just asked her if she wants to get some ice cream.”
I swallow. “Ice cream?”
“Ice cream,” she nods. “Kairi’s sweet spot.”
“Wow,” Maliah says, sounding genuinely surprised. “He’s really checking off her boxes.”
I glance back at where she stood but she’s no longer there. Her and the coffee shop guy are slowly walking towards the ice cream cart vendor down the trail. I can hear their laughter from all the way over here and my stomach starts to do flips that make me feel like throwing up.
Could I be witnessing the moment I lose her completely to another guy? Is this something I can really live with for the rest of my life?
“Let’s keep following them before we lose them,” Eliana whispers, grabbing onto both Maliah and I, dragging us down the path after them.
TWENTY-ONE
KAIRI
“I’m lactose intolerant,”Hayden says when we reach the ice cream cart, “but I saw you eyeing this, so I figured you wanted some.”
I feel myself deflate inside as I look back to the ice cream menu. Part of the fun of getting ice cream is having someone to get it with. If Hayden is lactose intolerant, I’ll be eating ice cream all alone for the rest of my life—or worse, he’ll want to go on sorbet dates.
”Thanks,” I mumble before looking up at the cart attendant lady. “I’ll take the caramel crunch in a cup.”
”Coming right up,” she replies as she grabs an empty ice cream cup and begins scooping the flavour. “That’ll be four dollars.”
She stares at Hayden expectantly, but he just stares back.
“One second,” I say as I reach into my purse and pull out a five dollar bill. “You can keep the change.”
She narrows her eyes judgementally at him. “Women should not be paying on a date,” she chastises as she takes the money from me, but he looks unfazed.
“That’s okay,” I tell her as I grab a napkin and spoon from the cart top and take the ice cream from her, Hayden sticking close.
“I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t pay for that,” he says minutes later as we continue walking through the gardens. “I think the whole idea that a man has to pay for things on a date is a bit outdated and unfair. Don’t you?”
“I don't mind at all,” I say, “but I think it’s quite romantic when a guy treats his date,” I mumble before putting a spoonful of ice cream in my mouth to stop from saying more.
“Romantic?” He smirks. “You must like reading romance. How difficult was it getting through my self-help book?”
“Not difficult at all actually,” I say, giving him a forced smile.
Hayden has been one big disappointment from the moment our date started. He seemed so interesting at the coffee shop when we first met, asking all the right questions, but today he’s really letting his true self shine.
Typical of a man to think that just because I enjoy reading romance, that anything outside of that genre must bedifficultfor me to get through. As if I’m incapable of reading anything else.
