Down and Dirty(37)

“You’re just jealous because I didn’t invite you,” Lacey said. “Oh! And I heard Shane has a date from that site already, huh?”

The nugget of self-righteousness faded as a wave of despair hit her, leaving her chilled from the inside out. She pulled her sweater tighter around her. “Where’d you hear that?” Too soon. It was too fucking soon.

“Galen.”

“Did he say with who?”

“He did, but I can’t remember her name.”

She strived for a casual tone. “Maybe Deedee? Or Greta?” She squeezed her eyes closed and mentally crossed her fingers. She’d even be okay with the macramé chick, as long as it wasn’t—

“I want to say Cari…no, Courtney? Was that one of the choices?”

Shit. A vision of the beautiful blonde who, in truth, looked anything but vapid, floated before her eyes, and Cat’s stomach roiled. “Okay, yeah. I think that was one of them. Well, good for him. I’m sure they’ll have a great time together.”

“They were going to Sully’s for wings or something.” There was a long pause and Lacey sighed. “Why are you doing this, Cat?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

In spite of her words, she didn’t have the strength to mask the misery in her voice, and Lacey’s derisive snort echoed over the line. “I don’t understand why it would be such a terrible thing to admit you dig Shane and give it a go.”

You wouldn’t understand, she wanted to reply, but bit her tongue. Lacey had been under her mother’s thumb for so long that falling in love with Galen had been more freeing than anything she’d ever known. Cat had been free her whole life. Getting into a relationship with a guy like Shane, who already was taking up way too much real estate in her brain and her heart, would smother her until she had nothing left but her man and a sad violin case on a shelf.

“I don’t know how much clearer I can be, Lace. It’s not going to happen. Now do you want to go out to eat or what?”

Silence crackled over the line before Lacey broke it by chirping, “Sure. Let’s go to Sully’s, too. You love it there.”

And run into Shane? “No way. I’m not doing that.” Even as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back, but Lacey was already pouncing like a cat on a rat.

“If you’re not interested in Shane, then why would it be a big deal? I’m confused, Cat. Either you like him and don’t want to see him with another woman, or he doesn’t matter. Which is it?”

Little Lacey Drawers thought she could play with the big girls now and muscle her into admitting something she had firmly filed in the “deny at all costs” file, huh? She was out of her league. “You want to go to Sully’s? Fine by me. I want to see what he’s wearing anyway. I told him to stop with the T-shirts all the time. He’s not in college anymore, right?”

Lacey’s tone grew hesitant. “We’re really going to go there?”

Rule number one, Lacey Drawers. Don’t wave the gun around if you don’t want to use it. “Absolutely. See you at seven.”

After they said their good-byes, she set her cell phone on the coffee table and hunkered deeper into the couch cushions. Part of her dreaded seeing Shane with his date. Especially if she was as pretty as her picture. But an even bigger part of her was oddly relieved. Sitting at home not knowing what was going on—if he was laughing at Courtney’s jokes or if she had a fat ass—would have been way worse. Her imagination would have run wild, and by the end of the night she would have convinced herself the woman spent her days curing cancer and shitting gumdrops.

No. Getting to see what was happening was definitely better.

So why did it feel so frigging bad?

…

Shane popped a chip smothered in spinach dip into his mouth and chewed while he scanned the room. The kitschy neighborhood bar was pretty dead this early on a Thursday night, and the relative quiet made conversation easy. He locked eyes with Courtney and gave her his full attention. “So you’re a nurse. Tell me about that. You enjoy it?”

Her pretty face lit up, and she leaned in across the table. “So much. I work in the ER now, and I love the fast pace. It’s also good for someone like me because it’s easier to stay detached. The patients are only with us for immediate issues before they’re either released or transferred. Before you can get too involved, they roll out or go home, and another stretcher rolls in, and the latest and greatest crisis takes center stage.”

He knew all about crisis, and he knew a fair bit about trying not to get involved and how hard it was not to. “Where did you work before the ER?”