Page 47 of Fight Or Flight

“You look disappointed, Nat.”

“I’m not.”

“I know disappointed when I see it. I watch actors trying to pull it off all the time.”

“Fine. I am. A little. Maybe.”

Chelsea smiled. “You like him.”

“You’d have to be a complete psychopath not to like him. He’s a genuinely good person.”

Chelsea nodded. “True. He’s a real ‘my rock’ type, you know.”

Natalie snorted. “Rock? He’s like the goddamn Canadian Shield.”

Chelsea laughed. “I knew it! You don’t like him the way Grandma liked him. Or Speeler, or Ben, or me, or the snakes, or the people in town. Youlikehim, like him.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s not interested in me.”

“He is. Actors try to pull off that look, too. Most fail. I should record him talking to you and play it back so that they can see exactly what smitten looks like.”

Natalie rolled her eyes. “Fine. I think he is interested. And I do like him. But he won’t ever act on it, and I can’t expect him to. I’m leaving, and he doesn’t seem like he wants a one-night stand.”

Chelsea cocked a brow. “Have you asked?”

A smile broke out on Natalie’s face. “Not verbally.”

“Maybe you should.”

Natalie laughed. “Maybe when I’m dressed better.”

“I doubt he’d turn you down, even in that atrocity.”

A knock came from the other side of the door, and Natalie pushed away from it.

“That must be the pizza. You get it,” she said to Chelsea as she walked past. “I don’t want to be seen like this anymore.”

She went to the living room and sat down on the couch next to Ben. He was happily staring at the TV with colourful sprinkles crusted onto his sweet little face. She put an arm around him and hugged him, dropping a kiss on top of his little head. Then she reached into the box on the coffee table, grabbed a chocolate-glazed Timbit, and shoved it into her face.

As the crumbs tumbled down the front of her hideous nightgown, she silently vowed to give herself extra time to get ready before dinner the next night. At least she’d look her best if she was going to throw herself at him and get shot down.

ten

“Ethan, can you light the candles and take the appetizers out?”

His mother was in the kitchen, pulling on oven mitts. She opened the door to the oven, and a waft of savoury chicken pot pie billowed out, filling the whole room. The smell was almost as incredible as the “bake-sale brownies” she’d made earlier for dessert.

Turned out, Natalie had pretty good taste in favourite meals.

“Are candles really necessary?”

They never had candles when it was just Amy, Jaclyn, and him. Candles felt too formal. Too romantic. He already knew this was going to be a disaster, but as long as he didn’t look at Natalie or talk to Natalie, he could conceivably get through it. Candles would set a mood that added to his difficulty.

He’d just have to wolf down the meal, say goodbye, and never see her again. The thought made his stomach drop, but he wasn’t sure whether it was relief or dread.

His mother stuck the tip of her knife into the golden crust of one of the pies. “This dinner is important to your father and me. We miss Natalie.”

“How much time did she spend here?” he asked, pulling the matches from the junk drawer and lighting the candles on the table.

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