to avoid a dinner-long inquisition about my carb intake.”
“You look fantastic, Kenadi.”
“Mom will disagree. I can already hear her now. ‘How do you expect to find a man if you don’t put in a little effort, Kenadi?’”
Candice grinned sympathetically. “I’d kill for some of your curves!”
Some. Not all.
She managed to smile at them both, but deep down, she was already feeling her stress levels rising. She needed a distraction.
Kenadi reached for her phone.
CASH
Cash: Want to come over later? I scored an advanced screening copy of the new Marvel movie. I remember you saying you’re a fan.
Kenadi: I really wish I could, but…I have a date tonight.
Cash: I don’t remember setting up another one.
Kenadi: I did this one on my own. He messaged me through the app and asked me out to dinner.
Cash: And you’re going?
Kenadi: Guppies before sharks, right? ;)
Cash: Right.
• • •
Cash: Hey. How’s the date?
Cash: Let me know if you need me to call with an excuse to ditch him.
Cash: Kenadi, are you there?
He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel, but he knew it wasn’t this. The first time she turned down his invitation was understandable. This second time was a little bothersome. But now, she wasn’t answering his texts, and it was starting to feel personal.
Caleb dropped the game controller on the couch beside him. “What’s up with you, bro? You called me to hang out, but every five minutes, you’re on your phone.”
Cash avoided his eyes. “I haven’t—”
“You have. Where have you been? I’ve barely seen you outside of workouts, and even then, you get there right before we start and you’re out the door the minute the session is over.”
“I’ve just been helping out a friend.”
Disbelief was all over his friend’s face. “A friend?”
“Don’t be jealous, you’re still my number one.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’ll probably have this ‘friend’ on your arm at the party then?”
“Not that type of friend.”
“I know you, Cash. Something’s going on with you.”
Cash scratched his beard. From the moment he’d met Caleb, he’d been able to talk to him about everything. Until now.
“You know, if you took a fraction of this misplaced energy, maybe you’d find your own date for the party and stop pestering me.”
Caleb stretched his arms over his head, yawning loudly in the process. “I don’t need a date.”
“You’re wasting all your prime years. Nobody wants to see a seventy-year-old asking people to accept his rose.”
“You do enough dating for the both of us. When the right one comes along, I promise I’ll ask her out.”
Cash’s phone chimed. Caleb laughed as Cash leapt for it and snatched it from the coffee table.
“I’m gonna head out so you can talk to your secret girlfriend in private.”
Kenadi wasn’t his girlfriend…
Cash opened his mouth to argue, but shut it quickly knowing he couldn’t explain Caleb’s suspicions away. Besides, he was too eager to figure out what was going on with Kenadi.
Kenadi: All good!
Kenadi: I think I’m ready for the Caleb portion of date training now.
To make her point, she’d added a bunch of smiling and thumbs-up emojis.
Kenadi wasn’t his girlfriend.
SIX
Kenadi
CASH WAS ALWAYS on time, so it didn’t surprise her when the knock on her door came precisely as scheduled.
“It’s unlocked!”
He was barely through the door when he took one look and frowned at her in boxers and a sweatshirt that hung off her bare shoulders.
“You don’t look like you’re ready to go out.”
She looked over the rim of her glasses at him. “I cancelled the date. You have the night off.”
“The party is in two days. I don’t want the night off, Kenadi.”
“Well, I do!”
The harshness in her voice startled them both.
Ever since dinner with her parents, her nerves had been on edge. Despite her brother’s best efforts, she’d left Quentin’s house feeling raw and picked apart. Kenadi even found herself avoiding Cash by telling him she was on a date. In truth, she’d spent the night in bed, crying, trying not to eat her emotional weight in Oreos.
“Ken—”
“I had to sit through dinner with my mother and be reminded of all the ways I disappoint her. I can’t bear to listen to you point out everything wrong with me too.”
She did her best not to make any more eye contact as she attempted to stand up. Cash quickly moved to block her way.
She couldn’t look at him. If she did, his sympathetic hazel eyes would see through the facade of togetherness she was barely holding onto.
“Look at me, Kenadi.”
Tenderness woven through every syllable. He wrapped her in