She stared at the cell phone in her hand, her stomach twisting painfully. Her mother was right, she needed to call and properly thank Ted for his help the other morning. Without him, she would have been lost.
And if she was being honest with herself, which she was, Reece wanted to hear his voice. She felt that he’d been on the very tip of asking her out again that day, but they’d been interrupted by her mother’s return.
What harm could it do to call and invite him to have a free lunch? It wouldn’t be overstepping any imaginary boundaries. This would be par for the course, right on the correct straight-and-narrow path. She wouldn’t be doing anything to betray her friend.
Okay. Deep breath. She could do this.
Reece had his number from when he’d called her before, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Her hand trembled when she hit the call button and lifted the phone to her ear.
Please don’t answer. Please don’t answer.
“Hello?”
Oh no. He answered. What was she supposed to do now? She couldn’t breathe. Her heart was jackhammering against her rib cage. Sweat was sprouting on her forehead.
“Reece?”
“Yes, it’s me. Hey. I, um, sorry. I was distracted for a second.”
In the background she heard a small voice. “Daddy, can we play now?”
Ted’s own voice was low and distant as if he’d pulled the phone from his mouth. “Give me just a minute, sweetheart.”
“Then we’ll play hide-and-seek?”
A giant hand squeezed Reece’s heart until it felt like it would burst. Dear goodness, he was about to play hide-and-seek? He was handsome, kind and a totally doting father?
I cannot fall for him. I cannot fall for him.
“Yeah, honey, give me just a minute,” he told Hadley. Reece recalled her name from when Ted had brought his daughter into the restaurant. “Sorry about that,” he said, his voice louder now.
“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You didn’t,” he replied, his voice smooth like smoke rolling over velvet. “We hadn’t started our hide-and-seek battle for survival yet.”
She chuckled. “Okay, well, I’m calling to thank you for what you did the other day?” Why had she made it a question? “When you helped out?” Why was she still lifting the end of each sentence? She had to get control of herself. Reece cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome.”
Good. One part of the conversation down. “Since I didn’t get to properly thank you, I’d like to invite you to have lunch, on us, at the café, whenever you’d like. Feel free to bring Hadley.”
“You remember her name,” he said, sounding like he was smiling.
“She’s so sweet, how could I forget?”
“She liked you a lot.”
The conversation was not supposed to go sideways. It had to stay on track. But Reece couldn’t stop herself from taking a detour. “She’s cute as a button. She really is.”
“I appreciate that.”
“You’re most welcome,” she said, repeating his own phrase and allowing, against all her better judgment, for there to be a hint of teasing in her voice.
“Thank you for calling to invite me to lunch, but I can’t accept that as payment.”
Her stomach fell. “You can’t? Why not?”
“Because that’s not what I want.”
She bristled. “What do you want? An hourly wage?”
He laughed, really barked, then. “No. I don’t want money from you. I’d like for you to have dinner with me. That’s how you can repay me.”
Her stomach twisted in anguish. Oh, goodness. Mayday! Mayday! SOS! This was not how the conversation was supposed to go.
“Well, um…”
“I’m not taking no for an answer.”
She scoffed. “Awfully full of yourself, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m full of myself. I just know when there’s something between two people that shouldn’t be ignored. Unless you’re still seeing that ex-boyfriend of yours.”
Her stomach did that falling thing again. Should she lie? She’d already lied to him once, telling him that she had an ex-boyfriend and they were trying to work things out.
The lie sat on the tip of her tongue. It would be easy to let it slip right off, to simply say, Yes, I’m still seeing my nonexistent ex-boyfriend. But instead she let the words hang in the air until Ted spoke for her.
“I take it that you’re free.”
“It’s not that simple,” she finally managed.
“Then you can explain it to me over dinner. Unless you don’t want to go, of course.”
It was an out, a perfect out, and Reece should take it. But her heart ached to go out on a date with him, it ached to get to know Ted better, to see that little Hadley again. So as much as she wanted to say no, the words simply wouldn’t come out.
In that moment she didn’t think of Shelby. Her best friend was absent from her mind as she confessed, “I’d like to go out.”
As soon as the words were out in the world, she instantly regretted them. A pang of remorse made her stomach wobble, and as much as she wanted to eat her words, they were gone, slipping into Ted’s ears.
“How about Friday night?”
Friday? Friday was good. She didn’t have any plans except to apparently stab her best friend in the back. She should tell Ted. She should come clean about Shelby liking him, but for just a moment Reece wanted to feel free. She didn’t want to have any responsibilities to anyone but herself.
“Friday is good.”
“May I pick you up?”
Her mouth tipped up into a smile. The way he asked, it was so Southern gentleman that her heart swelled. “How about I meet you someplace?”
“Fair enough. Does six sound good? I’ll give you details about where to meet when I figure it out.”
“Six is perfect.”
“Great. See you then.”
As soon as they hung up, Reece’s insides withered. She’d betrayed her best friend. Shelby would never forgive her.