Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(83)

“Yes.”

“All right. Thanks for telling me.” She bit into one side of the chocolate-chip cookie. Neat. No crumbs dribbled over the upholstery. He realized how much he liked Kristy’s orderliness. Not just because she made things easier for him, but because his own interior world was so often chaotic, and she calmed him.

He wasn’t calm now, however. That black-lace rumba perfume was getting to him, along with her neat white blouse buttoned all the way to the neck. Even as he told himself to change the subject, he plunged in again. “I mean, if he’s driving or something, he might get . . . You know.”

“Distracted?”

“Yes.”

She set the cookie on her napkin, those seductive little finger rings glimmering. “Okay, Ethan. What’s this about? All evening you’ve been acting strange.”

She was right, so he didn’t know why he was suddenly so angry with her. “Me? You’re the one who decided to show up wearing jeans!” Only after the words had left his mouth did he realize how inappropriate they were.

“You’re wearing jeans, too,” she pointed out patiently. “Granted, you ironed yours, and I didn’t, but—”

“That’s not the point, and you know it.”

“No, I don’t know it. What are you trying to say?” She added the cookie to their growing pile of discarded food.

“Did you wear jeans the last time you went on a date with Mike?”

“No.”

“Then why are you wearing them with me?”

“Because this isn’t a date?”

“It’s Friday night, and we’re parked in the next-to-last row of the Pride of Carolina! I’d say that’s a date, wouldn’t you?”

Her eyes snapped, no longer gentle at all. “Excuse me? Are you telling me that, after all these years, the great Ethan Bonner finally asked me out on a date, and I didn’t even know it?”

“Well, that’s not my fault, is it? And what do you mean, finally? ”

He heard a long labored sigh before she spoke. “Just what is it you want from me? ”

How could he answer that? Should he say, “I want your friendship,” or “I want the body you’ve been hiding away all these years”? No, definitely not that. This was Kristy, for pete’s sake. Maybe he should just tell her she had no right to keep changing around on him, and he wanted things back the way they were, but that wasn’t true. At the moment, he only knew one thing. “I don’t want you sleeping with Mike Reedy.”

“Who said I was?”

The fake diamond studs flashed in her earlobes. She was mad at him. Well, fine, he was mad at her, too, so what difference did the truth make? “I looked in your purse this week. The condom you had in there is gone.”

“You looked in my purse? Mr. Honest Ethan?”


The fact that she seemed confused, rather than angry, took some of the wind out of his sails. “I apologize. It won’t ever happen again. I was just—” He set aside his Coke. “I was just worried about you. You shouldn’t be sleeping with Mike Reedy.”

“Then who should I be sleeping with? ”

“No one!”

She got all stiff and starchy. “I’m sorry, Ethan, but that’s no longer an option for me.”

“I sleep alone. I don’t see why you can’t, too!”

“Because I can’t, that’s all, not any longer. At least you have a seedy past to look back on. I don’t even have that.”

“It wasn’t seedy! Well, maybe it was, but—Just wait for the right man, Kristy. Don’t give yourself away cheaply. When the right man comes along, you’ll know it.”

“Maybe I know it right now.”

“Mike Reedy isn’t the right man!”

“How do you know that? You can’t even remember that I hate hot dogs. You don’t know when my birthday is or my favorite singer. How would you know who the right man is for me?”

“Your birthday is April eleventh.”

“Sixteenth.”

“See! I knew it was in April!”

She arched one fine eyebrow at him, then took such a deep breath he suspected she was counting to ten. “I took the condom out of my purse because I felt stupid carrying it around.”

“So you and Mike haven’t . . .”

“Not yet. But we might. I really like him.”

“Like isn’t good enough. You like me, too, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to have sex with me.”

“Of course I’m not.”

He felt a stab of disappointment. “Of course not.”

“How could I? You’re celibate.”

Exactly what did she mean by that? That if he weren’t celibate, she might consider it?

“And,” she went on, “you’re not attracted to me.”

“That’s not true. You’re my—”

“Don’t you say it!” Feathery tendrils flew and the fake diamond studs flashed. “Don’t you dare say I’m your best friend, because I’m not!”

He felt as if she’d punched him. Much of his job involved counseling others. He understood the complexity of human behavior far more than most people, so why was he so clueless about her?