Chapter 3
I checked first thing in the morning to make sure Ranée hadn’t gotten into my Facebook again. None of the notifications raised red flags. I looked at Ranée’s page to make sure she wasn’t up to any shenanigans there, and when that was all clear, I texted Paul.
Are we still on for dinner tonight?
He texted right back that he would pick me up at 7. He didn’t play games where he waited a certain amount of time to call or return a message. It was one of the things I liked about him.
I half-wished I could reschedule our date for the next night. I always started Fridays with a tingle of anticipation for the weekend, but usually by quitting time I was dragging myself home and longing to be absorbed into the Clan of the Bedding to rule there as its queen. In pajamas. And thick socks.
But Paul wanted to take me out to celebrate my promotion too, and after Ranée’s prank I owed him more than getting shuffled into a different calendar box so I could nap. Okay, fine. Not nap: so I could binge watch the new season of The Crown.
I couldn’t blow off Paul for that, not when he was taking me out to Pacifica, the best seafood restaurant in the Bay Area. I didn’t think I was a fancy food person until my mom and stepdad took me there for my graduation from Berkeley, and I discovered that I could love foods that sounded imaginary--like truffles and sablefish--as much as I loved Panda Express. I’m a complicated woman.
Work flew by, but I still came home as tired as expected, except Paul was due in an hour and I had no time to be tired. I splashed cold water on my face, posted a short status about going to Pacifica to celebrate with him, and went to get ready, pulling my new shoes out of their box. Time to let these girls out to play. I added a picture of them to my post. They deserved a little recognition. Heck, they deserved their own Instagram account.
He rang the buzzer of our apartment exactly at 7, and I was glad that Ranée was already out for the evening. His punctuality had gotten on her nerves ever since she’d come home one night to find him waiting on our doorstep, staring at his watch. Apparently, he’d gotten there five minutes earlier but was waiting for the exact minute he’d told me to expect him before he knocked. Ranée thought that was stupid, but then again, Ranée hadn’t liked him from the start, so she used anything and everything he did as ammunition. That’s when she started calling him Proper Paul like it was a bad thing. But that was another thing I liked about Paul. I was a project manager because I had exceptional organizational skills, but Paul was next level. It was nice not to have to worry about the details when he was around.
I opened the door and smiled at him. “Hey, you.”
He stepped in and hugged me. He leaned down for a kiss, but I turned my head, and he dropped it on my cheek. “Don’t want to smudge my lipstick. You can do that later.” His easy affection was another one of the things I liked about him. It was also the biggest reason I could ignore Ranée’s complaints that he was too uptight. He was so comfortable with open displays of affection—little touches, long hugs, kisses regardless of who was watching. Uptight men didn’t do that. Uptight men—like my dad—were stingy with their hugs and affection.
“You ready for dinner? I checked the traffic and we need to get on the road if we want to make our reservation on time.”
He lifted my coat from the hook by the door and held it for me. He didn’t say anything about my dress, a sleek black number. But when I turned and tied my coat, his eyebrows rose as his glance fell to my red stilettos.
“Are those new?” he asked.
“Yeah. A little treat for getting the promotion. Do you like them?” The glint in his eye said that Ranée was wrong, and that Paul was very capable of appreciating these shoes, but then the glint disappeared as worry clouded over it.
“They’re nice, but it’s kind of a walk from the car to the restaurant. Are you going to be okay?”
So…maybe a small part of me wished that the glint would have stayed, and that he would have offered to…I don’t know, carry me up to the restaurant door or something so long as I kept on the sexy red shoes. Not that I needed help walking in them. I was well-practiced in heels. But it was sweet in its own way for him to worry about my comfort.
“I’ll be fine.” I smiled and scooped up my purse and locked the door behind us.
On the drive over, we talked about work. He asked me about my new duties and caught me up on what was happening at his accounting firm. At the restaurant we ordered and went right back to shop talk, something that was easy to do with jobs as similar as ours.
The plates the waiter set in front of us looked delicious, but the excitement of the week had finally caught up with me, and I struggled to focus on the conversation until a series of electronic chirps broke through my end-of-the-week fog. Suddenly the flaky fish in my mouth tasted about as good as if I’d licked the tablecloth.
I gave my phone a quick glance. It was all Facebook alerts telling me someone had commented on a post Ranée tagged me in. I had a feeling I knew what was up, but I turned it to silent and tucked it back into my purse. I could deal with it—and Ranée—later, but then Paul’s phone—which of course he’d remembered to set to silent—started up with a persistent series of buzzes as it vibrated.
Paul frowned. “Why’s it going nuts? Something going on?”
“Let’s just turn them off and enjoy dinner.” Because now I knew for sure that Ranée had once again put her Jack friend up to no good.
Paul’s forehead was already furrowed as he reached for his jacket pocket. “I’ll just make sure that there’s nothing wrong.” He slid his finger across the screen and the furrows turned to gullies. He glanced from me to the phone and back again. Finally, he shook his head. “Why does this guy say he’s here with you right now?”
He turned his screen to show me a picture of me wearing a sparkly silver dress, sitting at a table very similar to our linen and crystal covered one, except in the picture I was leaning against a man with a face that was getting way too familiar way too fast.
There was Jack again, his stupid hair up in a stupid man bun while the rest of him was all business casual, striped button down with a sleek watch on an arm resting comfortably around my shoulders.
I snatched up my phone and found the photo. Emily Riker was with Jack Dobson at Pacifica.
I untagged myself while I offered Paul a tight smile. “It’s Ranée messing around again. I’ll text her really fast.”
He nodded like he wasn’t concerned but his hands stayed curled around his fork and knife.
STOP WITH THE PHOTOSHOPS. I typed like I was doing a keyboarding speed test. TAKE THE PIC DOWN.
I shot Paul another apologetic smile. “Sorry, should be handled in a minute.” He waved like it was no big deal but then his fingers curled right back around his knife.
But the alerts didn’t stop. I rolled my eyes at Paul to show him how exasperated I was and turned it off. “That should solve it,” I said. “Time to focus on relaxing.”
“And celebrating,” he added. “You’re a project manager now. That’s a big deal.” He called over the waiter to bring two glasses of champagne.
We toasted my rise through middle management and had a comfortable evening talking work and life, topping it all off with rich chocolate cheesecake. But somehow neither the bubbles nor the dessert was able to scrub the bad taste of Ranée’s newest prank from my mouth.