A Guide to Being Just Friends(43)

“I thought you didn’t want to date.” His voice was clipped.

Hailey stopped, a hand on the cart. “I don’t. I’m going for a friend. But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to test the waters, you know?”

“You could try an app,” he said, lips twitching.

“Would you invent one just for me the way you did for Everly?”

He laughed, pushed the cart forward. “No. Chris was so mad about that app. It was his idea but he kept complaining about the guys on it. They were all screened but he didn’t like the fact that she was dating. I’m not getting involved in anyone’s dating life again.”

“Come with us tonight.”

“What?” Now he stopped the cart.

“It would be good for both of us. Come on. It’ll be fun. We’ll go, see what the Love Gods have in store for us, and then go to dinner after. You like Fiona. It’s for her.”

Wes frowned. “For her article. I don’t want to be part of an article. It’s one of the reasons I was happy to leave New York.”

Hmm. So he hadn’t seen it. “Speaking of,” Hailey said, grabbing her phone from her basket inside the cart. She pulled up the web page she’d pinned. The business section of The L.A. Times had released a statement from Ana and Aidan’s company. Turning the phone, she showed Wes. “You might have wanted to mention your desire to stay out of the news to your new business partner.”

Wes took the phone from her, looked closer. She’d committed it to memory. New York’s finest brothers join forces with former sibling models making this the sexiest collaboration since Beyoncé and Jay-Z teamed up with Tiffany’s. To be fair, it was the newspaper’s headline, not Ana’s. The article was her commentary on a very lucrative and hopefully successful merger.

A growly sigh left his lips as he passed the phone back to her. “She mentioned she was going to announce it. No reason for the headline though. It diminishes the whole thing. It’s a great merger. An excellent acquisition on our part and instead of saying that, they talked about Ana and Aidan’s red-carpet days. Just what my father needs to stick his pins in a little further.” The red-carpet stuff had only been mentioned in the end, yet Wes’s whole body seemed to vibrate with tension.

“What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “My father has lawyers all over everything we do, trying to find some sort of basis for suing us. It’s his way of continuing to assert power.”

“I don’t understand how your father can be so toxic and you and your brothers are so great.”

Wes gave her a weak attempt at a smile. “I think when you grow up like that, you either shut your eyes and follow suit or you open them wide and head in the other direction.” They started walking, turning down the next aisle. “What about your parents? With the holidays coming up, will you see them?”

She avoided his gaze because he had enough parent issues of his own. “They booked a two-week vacation to Mexico over Christmas. They’re flying out of LAX and offered to meet me there for a drink before they leave.”

“How nice of them to set aside a little time. How do you seem so okay with it?”

The indignation on her behalf was oddly sweet.

She put her hand on his arm. “What choice do I have? I could keep trying to get them to include me like I did while I was growing up or I can move on and make my own life. My own family. They did their job. They raised me, supported me. They’ve never denied me anything. Some people only know how to love one way. I just remind myself that I don’t want to be that way. It took me a bit to realize I also don’t want to be loved that way by anyone else.” Dorian had taught her many things.

The look he gave her sent an unpleasant shiver up her spine. “Some people don’t know how to love at all.”

Taking a new approach, Hailey looped her arm through his. “That’s it. Enough of this. You’re coming to speed dating tonight.”

“Nope.”

“Yes.”

“Or no.” He pulled two cans of tomatoes off the shelf, making her smile.

“Please?”

Looking up from where he was rearranging the items in his share of the cart, he groaned. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Pretty please?” She clasped her hands together.

“Science fiction movies for the next three Saturdays in a row.”

Laughing, she nodded. “Done. Let’s grab this stuff and just order the rest online.”

He sighed like she was hopeless. “We’re right here. Let’s finish the job. Tell me about Leo’s first couple of days.”

They fell back into the routine but Hailey was distracted by the idea that even though it wasn’t their intention, they could both have dates before the end of the evening.



* * *



“I cannot see Wes doing this,” Fiona said for the third time as they waited by the bar. They’d put on their adhesive name tags. Hailey had been tempted to put a fake name for fun but it seemed to negate the purpose. She wasn’t sure anymore of her real reason for being here. To help Fiona? Wes? Herself? To see if anyone found her remotely attractive or intriguing? God. What if no one did? That’d be a kick to the head.

It’s just for fun. Just for fun. It didn’t feel like fun. Men and women were separated like they were at an eighth-grade formal. The guys clustered in a group but didn’t really talk to each other. The women told each other how good they looked and checked each other’s lipstick. Hailey felt like she was back in high school on the wrong side of the cafeteria. Fiona started chatting with a woman she knew to the right of her while Hailey’s insides turned into a spin cycle.