Page 125 of A Dream for Daphne

“A tossed salad and potato salad.”

He scrunched his nose. “I’ll have the potato salad.”

“I know. That is why I brought both. I wanted a tossed salad. Don’t worry, it’s not the spring mix that grosses you out. It’s romaine lettuce.”

“Don’t care what kind it is,” he said. “I’ll take a hard pass. There isn’t any broccoli on it, is there? The smell of that still makes me gag too.”

“You’ve said that before,” she said, laughing. “I remember. No, there isn’t.”

“Good,” he said. “I’ll get your seltzer if you want.”

He was reaching in to get a beer when he said it. “Sure,” she said. “These wings are done and I’m going to toss them if you want to get some plates and lots of napkins out.”

He went about setting the table while she finished with dinner.

He was just grabbing more napkins out of the pantry when he heard his phone ringing.

He came out and saw Daphne with her eyebrow raised as she looked at his phone on the table next to her. “It’s Ella.”

Shit.

“Let it go to voicemail.”

“No,” she said. “Answer it.”

“There isn’t anything going on,” he said. “I don’t want to talk to her.”

“Answer it for me,” she said. “Ease my mind.”

It was the uncertainty mixed in with some other emotion in Daphne’s eyes he couldn’t pinpoint that had him picking the phone up.

“What do you want, Ella?”

There was a pause on the other end. “That’s not a greeting,” Ella said.

“No,” he said. “It’s not. This isn’t a social call and I’m not sure why you’re calling me.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not sure either.”

He frowned. “I don’t know what that means. There has to be a reason you called unless you’re pranking me and if that is the reason, goodbye.”

“No,” Ella said. “Wait. I’ve been thinking.”

“Okay,” he said. He couldn’t imagine what this had to do with him.

“I miss you. I was wrong. I think I did a lot of things wrong and I thought maybe we could give it another chance.”

“No,” he said. “First off, I don’t care what you think. That’s all in the past. You’re with Nash and I’m with Daphne.”

“Daphne?” Ella asked. “Who is that? I didn’t know you were dating someone.”

“She’s the woman I love. Not my problem you didn’t know about her.”

He looked at Daphne and saw the frown on her face.

“Why didn’t you tell me about her before when we were talking? It never came up.”

“I didn’t see any reason to bring it up. You approached me those times. I was happy to go about my life. Just like I’m going to do now.”

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