Page 42 of Frosting and Flames

“We’re going to pretend Rachel went on a date with you and it was a million times better than anything she ever had with Kyle.”

“Of course,” he says, with no hesitation.

Jae grins and mouths to me,See?“Awesome, thank you. Rachel will let you know how it goes.”

“You’re going to see him again?” Nick asks me.

I clear my throat, which is suddenly parched. “No, I… I’ll explain it next time I see you.”

“Okay. Let me know when you want to make chili.”

“I will. Thanks, bye.”

I hang up before Jae can do anything else and take my phone back, clutching it securely.

“You’re making chili?” she asks, confused.

“It’s one of the fundraiser ideas for the fire station. A chili cookoff. But he’s never made it.”

She accepts my explanation without further question. “All right, we’re good to go. You ready?”

My jaw drops. “Wait, you want to do this tonight?”

She gets off the couch, brushing cookie crumbs off her lap. “No time like the present. And you’ll lose your nerve if we don’t do it now.”

Damn it. She knows me too well. “I never agreed to it.”

She shakes my shoulders. “It’s a brilliant plan, and you know it.”

I grumble about how her last plan stuck me making pancakes on a Saturday morning and starting up this whole thing with Kyle and Nick to begin with, but she goes selectively deaf.

“Come on, you told me you want to be in bed by eight-thirty so you can get up early, so we only have twenty-three minutes now. Let’s go.”

Well… I guess it’s go time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

RACHEL

Ifollow Jae out, my pulse picking up as she gets in her car and I get in mine. This isn’t a confrontation with Kyle, per se, but it’s close enough.

We’d never had a big blow-up when we broke up. He said he was having a baby with Autumn and that he would have his stuff out of the house as soon as he could. And that was really it. No yelling. No theatrics. Just me sitting on the couch, numb and disbelieving until he got up and left.

Yes, we’d been drifting apart. He’d been working a lot of late nights, which I later realized was a ruse. But I thought it was simply a rough season of our relationship. Where things are shaky and you’re disagreeing a lot, but you eventually work through it and come out better on the other side.

Not have an affair and knock up someone else.

And then at the fire station, him acting like it’s all good between us. That we can befriendly.

He can fuck off, like Nick said. And he deserves a taste of his own medicine. To feel sick to his stomach that someone could hurt him like that.

Or rather, humiliate. If I’m being honest with myself, I was more humiliated than hurt. Not only that I had no clue, but that I wasn’t… enough for him in some way.

Is it because Autumn is younger? Prettier? Or some other trait I’m lacking?

I push the thought out of my mind as I turn on my street. Oh, crap. I forgot I’m supposed to tell Jae how romantic Nick is. What do I say? How do I act?

You know what? It’s going to be fine. Kyle doesn’t know we know about the doorbell. So it’s not like we can mess it up.

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