“You hesitated.”
“So? Could’ve been because I didn’t want it.”
“Oh, you want it.”
Shit. David can be difficult to fool. He knows me too well.
“A box of Belgian chocolates should do. Even Dane agrees with me.” He texts. Then he frowns when his phone pings.
“He called you on your bullshit, didn’t he?” You can always count on Dane to douse a man’s enthusiasm better than a thunderstorm over a campfire.
“No. He says, ‘Eighty percent dark. Swiss.’ That’s probably his wife’s favorite.”
God damn it. I can’t believe Dane failed me. He wasn’t like this before…but then, he wasn’t married before.
Although I’m skeptical about the suggestion, I still find myself in front of Kim’s door after work, holding a box of Belgian chocolates from the fancy chocolatier David recommended. It isn’t like I have a better idea. And I should probably apologize for what I said yesterday anyway, because the whole herpes thing is from a long time ago. For all I know, maybe she forgot about it, or maybe she wants to forget it ever happened in the first place.
Regardless, I’m not going to hold it against her. I can be the bigger person. I am the bigger person.
Still, I still feel awkward as I knock on her door. It takes a while before she sticks her head out. She looks great, but somehow her makeup seems like a shield to block me out than something that she did to make herself look better.
I’m probably just being oversensitive. She doesn’t care enough to put up a defense like that.
I clear my throat. “Hey.”
“Yes?” She stares up at me like I’m something she’d rather not see. Like a puke stain on her couch.
“Uh, yeah. I thought maybe I should talk to you about…” I gesture with my hand vaguely. “Mind if I come in?”
She purses her mouth, and some sort of calculation flashes in her eyes. Finally, she says, “Okay.”
I walk inside. Her dog comes out with a soft whine and licks my hand. I pat him. ’Preciate the friendliness, buddy. Suddenly the back of my neck tingles, and I lift my head. Kim is watching me with narrowed eyes, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Here.” I thrust the box at her.
She stares at it. “What’s that?”
“Chocolates.”
No response.
“They’re Belgian.”
Instead of accepting it with a smile or thanks, she pulls back, her arms tightening around her. “What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you sprinkle them with rat poison? Herpes virus, maybe?”
What the fuck? Back to herpes again? And here I am trying to mend things so we can at least be civilized at the wedding!
She arches an eyebrow, obviously having taken my silence as some sort of acquiescence. “Trying to make sure I am indeed the super herpes spreader, huh?”
Maybe she smacked her head against something hard sometime after she left Corn Meadows. She’s the one who said she has herpes because I gave it to her way back when. On the other hand, she isn’t acting like she has brain damage.
She’s just crazy. Hot, but crazy.
And David’s an idiot. Dane, too. I could’ve gotten her chocolates from the god of cocoa himself, and she’d still be saying this kind of shit. I almost wish I had given her herpes, so this bullshit accusation wouldn’t sting so much.