Huge Deal - Lauren Layne Page 0,63
last night they’d been in almost this exact same position—her primping, him patiently waiting to take her out. Weirdest of all, it felt strangely natural, as though they’d been doing this for years.
She tried a minute more to get her hair to do the bouncy curled-under thing, but it just wasn’t cooperating today. Kate tossed the brush aside and pulled a hairband out of the drawer, deciding for a messy bun instead. It better matched the outfit.
“Okay,” she said, coming out of the bathroom. “I’m ready. Or at least I think I’m ready. I could say it with more confidence if I knew what we were doing.” She looked pointedly at the navy duffel in his hand. “What’s in there?”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people who can’t handle surprises.”
“I’m absolutely one of those people who can’t handle surprises. I’m the one who plans them, not receives them. Not knowing is annoying.”
“Says the woman who planned my surprise birthday party.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t my idea. I merely steered your girlfriend in the right direction so you had something to eat besides oysters.”
“And yet that ice sculpture . . .”
She shook her head. “I tried, Kennedy. Really, I did.”
“How hard?”
Kate laughed as she grabbed her purse. “She was persistent. How is Claudia, by the way?”
“No idea,” he said, opening her front door.
She paused in the process of dropping her keys in her bag. “Really? You haven’t talked to her?”
“Do you talk to your exes?” he said, pulling the door closed behind them.
“My exes are all super old news.” She turned to lock the door, but Kennedy, in his usual take-charge way, pulled the keys out of her hand and did it for her.
“What about Jack?” he asked, looking at her out of the corner of his eye as he put the key in the lock.
“Oh, well him, yeah. I guess he’s an ex. He’s great. But then, you already know that.”
Kennedy’s hand stilled. “You guys talk?”
“Sure. He called on Friday to offer his condolences, see how I was doing.”
Kennedy’s scowl deepened for a fraction of a second, but then it cleared. “He’s seeing someone, you know. A Broadway dancer.”
“I know. He told me. We talk, remember?” Kate said sweetly as they headed downstairs.
“You’re not upset that he’s got someone new?”
“I don’t really have a right to be, do I? I mean, I was making out with his brother just a few days after he and I broke up.”
They stepped out onto the sidewalk. “That’s not an answer to the question.”
“No, it wasn’t. Oh, it’s gorgeous out!” she said in surprise. “A perfect spring day.”
He looked like he wanted to push the Jack thing further, but he relented with a slight sigh. “Yes, the weather cooperated nicely with my plans.”
She gave him a dubious look. “You made outdoor plans?”
“I did,” he said, lifting his hand to hail a cab. “What, you thought I melted in the sun?”
“No, I thought you melted at the threat of dirt,” she countered, climbing into the taxi ahead of him.
“Seventy-Ninth and Fifth,” Kennedy told the driver.
Kate rolled through her mental Manhattan geography and frowned. “Not much there. It’s right by the park.”
“Indeed.”
“But what else—Wait. Are we going to the park?”
He glanced over. “You don’t like Central Park?”
“I love Central Park! I thought you didn’t.”
“What sort of jerk doesn’t like Central Park?”
“I told you, one who doesn’t like dirt.”
Kennedy patted the bag and then looked out the window. “Good thing I’ve got a blanket to sit on.”
Kate gaped at him. There was only one reason someone took a blanket to Central Park. In all of her imaginings, and there had been plenty the night before, the thought of Kennedy planning a picnic in the park had never occurred to her.
“Why are you staring at me?” he asked, not bothering to look her way.
“Why Seventy-Ninth? The park starts at Sixtieth.”
“All the tourists enter at Sixty. It’s less crowded up north.”
“It’s also closer to your apartment. Like, really close.”
“So?”
“So why the heck didn’t you just have me meet you? I could have grabbed the subway. You didn’t have to come all of the way south just to pick me up. What a waste of—”
“Kate?”
“What?”
“Be quiet.” He smiled a little as he said it, still not looking at her.
Her mind raced. Friends didn’t cab thirty blocks downtown, only to retrace their steps uptown. Friends didn’t. But dates sure as heck did.
She wasn’t sure whether the thought pleased her or terrified her. Maybe a little bit of both. But she’d meant