What Her Dad Doesn't Know(32)

“Steph,” I say holding up my hand. “No. Not this again.”

She leans in, ignoring my words.

“Chelsea, he’s tall, at least six foot, so you can wear heels unlike the last time. Sorry about that by the way, but he looked very cute while he was still sitting. And oooo, he’s got really nice wavy hair. Five o’clock shadow, and he’s wearing a red and black plaid shirt and jeans. Quick, he’s moving towards the bar! If you look off to the side you can catch a glimpse of him.”

“Steph!” I hiss. “What did I tell you? I’m not interested in dating right now. Stop looking at him like that. He’s going to feel you staring.”

“People can’t actually feel someone staring at them,” she says, swiping one of my fries. Good thing I’d already foreseen that and ordered extra.

“Doesn’t matter. Stop looking before he catches you.”

She huffs but thankfully looks away at last. I sneak a quick look, and not because I’m curious. I just want to make sure the guy hasn’t discovered Steph’s gawking. He is sort of cute, I guess, but he’s already headed back to his table with a handful of drinks so there’s no chance of me making contact.

“I don’t understand why you won’t give anyone a try,” she says. “Don’t tell me you’re still trying to sleep with Brandon?”

I choke on my fry. I thump on my chest a few times and gulp down some beer. Why oh why had I told her about my devastatingly handsome boss?

“No,” I manage to gasp at last. “Besides, I think he’s got a girlfriend. He asked me if I thought that a girl would enjoy going to the jazz festival this summer. Asked me to get two tickets.”

I try to sound as casual as I can while I tell her, but I don’t think I do a very good job, because she’s making sympathetic noises. It gutted me too. I was almost positive that he was single, because he hadn’t asked me to order him flowers or anything for Valentine’s Day. But maybe a classy man like him would go above and beyond flowers? Maybe he’d gone jewelry shopping for her. Maybe he’d found someone in the two months since then. He hadn’t seemed any happier than usual... My rambling thoughts are interrupted when my ears pick up something Steph is saying.

“Well, I guess we didn’t need to come all this way after all huh?”

I frown at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t pick this place because it was convenient that’s for sure,” she grumbles, oblivious to my growing annoyance. “I just thought maybe we’d run into your boss here.”

“You what?” My voice is pitching up. It’s a good thing that the music is so loud because I’m pretty sure I’m about to yell at Steph.

She shrugs like it’s no big deal. I try to calm my breathing but I’m failing terribly. Is he here? He can’t be!

“I thought maybe it would be nice to see him out of the office you know? Then maybe it wouldn’t be so hard for you to talk to him a little.” She finally sees how pissed I am. “Oh come on Chel! You’ve got it so bad for him. You haven’t dated anyone since you started working for him a year ago. So I looked him up on Facebook, and it turns out that one of my co-workers is his neighbor or something, so his profile is wide open for me. Found out that he likes to come to this bar, and I figured we could give it a shot.”

Steph leans back into her chair, crossing her arms. She’s pleased, I can tell, which only makes me more mad.

“Okay, firstly, I can’t believe you did this. What if he thinks I’m stalking him or something? And second, you’ve been able to see his profile this whole time and you haven’t told me?!”

“Relax,” she says. “We can just pretend we were in the area shopping or something. There’s a mall about a block away. Oh hey... I didn’t think it’d work this quickly though.”

“WHAT?” I almost yell, gripping onto her arm. I’m probably ruining the pretty silk material with my greasy fingers but I don’t care right now. I lean in close to her. “Did you say he’s here?!”

“Yeah,” she says, utterly calm. “I think that’s him over there waiting for a table. Want me to go say hi? We do have friends in common.”

I shake my head furiously. No way. The last thing I need is Steph going over there and talking to him, because I know that it’s not just small talk with her. She’ll ask all kinds of questions, and try to set me up on the spot. It only took one humiliation like that before I learned that putting Steph in front of anyone I like is a bad idea. She means well, but subtle is not her middle name.