Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,27
she didn’t know. She didn’t know why she wasn’t head over heels for him, and it was driving her crazy.
“I do like him . . .”
“But?” Sabrina nudged when Kate trailed off.
When Kate didn’t reply, Lara asked softly, “But . . . Kennedy?”
“What’s Kennedy have to do with this?” Kate said automatically.
Lara turned away and looked at Sabrina. “Flip for it?”
“Nope, I’ve got this. You get more champagne. We’re going to need it.”
“For what?” Kate demanded as Lara went to the fridge and came back with another bottle.
But Sabrina didn’t answer. Instead, she waited until all of their glasses were full of another mimosa before turning to Kate. “Okay, babe, we’re way past due for this. Are you in love with him?”
The question hit Kate like a punch in the gut. Had it been anyone else besides Lara and Sabrina, she would have played dumb. She’d have pretended to assume Sabrina was asking if she was in love with Jack. But she knew she wasn’t, and Kate wouldn’t lie to her closest friends. What’s more, she realized Sabrina was right. This conversation was past due.
And she needed to talk about it.
“Not anymore,” Kate answered simply. “But yes, once I was one hundred percent crazy, all-the-way in love with him.”
“Oh,” Lara said on a breath, sounding a little bit awed and a little bit sad. “When was this?”
Kate gave a small smile and sipped her drink. “My very first day at Wolfe. It was the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I remember it felt like the first day of school. The office manager at the time gave me a hurried tour of the building and showed me to my desk, which was in the middle of the bull pen.”
“Wait, how’d we get to baseball?” Sabrina asked.
“Not that kind of bull pen . . . It’s like a clump of desks where the all of the junior brokers sit. The Sams think it breeds healthy competition to put them all in the same area instead of separate offices, to see who wants it most. The bull pen is arranged into clusters of desks of four—one assistant to three brokers.”
Lara nodded to indicate she understood, and Kate continued with her pathetic story. Because in hindsight, it was really pathetic.
“Ian and Matt introduced themselves immediately,” Kate said. “They were like cute little puppy versions of the guys we know now. Smart and charming. Not quite desperate for people to like them, just sort of determined that everyone would.”
Sabrina laughed. “A puppy is the best comparison for those two back then. They humped just about anything in front of them, like boy dogs who haven’t figured out what to do with their nuts.”
“Where was Kennedy in all of this?” Lara pressed.
Kate tried to ignore the way her heart still did a weird little flip, just at the memory of that day. “He was on the phone when I got to my desk. I saw his profile, could hear his voice, and yet I was totally unprepared for it.”
“It?”
She bit her lip and tried to think of how to explain what had happened next. “You know that moment in cheesy movies, where the nerdy girl first lays eyes on the hot guy, and the whole thing switches to slow motion, and the music changes? It was humiliatingly exactly like that. He stood, extended his hand to introduce himself, and the second our eyes locked, I just . . . knew.”
“Knew what?” Sabrina asked with a frown.
Lara flicked her arm in reproach. “Oh, come on. Love at first sight, literally. It’s romantic as heck.”
“It’s really not,” Kate said. “It was so silly. Even back then, I knew it. I was twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, and my shirt had an honest-to-God bow on it. A big one. And then there was Kennedy. He was twenty-nine, broad-shouldered, serious, and just so manly compared to the college boyfriend I’d broken up with.”
Sabrina fanned herself. “Damn. I am so getting it now.”
“So what happened?” Lara asked, resting her chin on her hand and looking like a preteen at a slumber party, wanting to hear more about the popular boy.
Kate shrugged. “Nothing, really. I poured all of my energy into trying not to get flustered and breathless every time he spoke to me. He didn’t make it easy. Did you know he took his grandmother to church every Sunday until she passed away last year? Or that he’ll wait forever to hold a door for a woman. Or that he