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“I know.”
“So, are we going to Kit’s with Katie and everybody?” He grinned. “I hope Ava’s there.”
“Would you just forget about Ava?” Rolling her eyes, Kelly took sandwich fixings out of the fridge. “And yeah, I told her we more than likely would.”
“I shall confirm,” he said, tapping away on his phone. “Katie says to make the Brussels sprouts…”
But I hate Brussels sprouts.
“…and your spoon bread.”
She shrugged. “Okay, I guess I can do that.”
Thoughts of Kodiak weighed heavy on her mind. In her heart. The man had foraged his way inside and taken up residence there.
“That FWB thing almost never works out, you know. Feelings always get in the way. Someone falls in love…someone else gets hurt.”
Leo could very well be right about that. Only two months into their friendship, Kelly was already emotionally invested—perhaps too much. How had she ever thought it would be possible to remain somewhat detached?
But then Kelly hadn’t anticipated the way he’d look at her with those mesmeric eyes of pale green. How the slightest brush of his fingers would bring goosebumps to her skin. A kiss that brought her to her knees. The sound of his smooth whiskey voice in her ear.
She was fucked, wasn’t she?
Because it didn’t matter if Kelly was falling in love or ended up being the one who got hurt. Either option scared her shitless.
Sipping on her kombucha, Babs scrutinized him from her side of the screen. She looked somewhat rested this morning. Up in its usual twist, her hair was combed at least. “How’s the weather over there in Chicago?”
Planning to come for a visit, Babs? The get right down to business type, she wasn’t one to make small talk.
“Cold.” Gray. Dismal. Same as most other days in November. “And how’s it in Santa Barbara, Barbara?”
“Warm.” She smirked. “The forecasted high is a balmy seventy-two degrees.”
“I’ll be breaking out the shovel by this afternoon.”
If WGN-TV chief meteorologist, Tom Skilling, was to be believed, and he was seldom wrong, there’d be a few inches of white stuff on the ground come nightfall. That was okay with him. Other than having dinner with Dillon and his sister, Kodiak had no plans for tonight.
“You have fun with that.” Notepad at the ready, Babs picked up her pen. “Everything going all right?”
“It is.”
“Any dreams?”
“Nope.”
Truth.
Not the kind she was interested in hearing about anyway.
“Has your father made any more attempts to contact you?”
“No.”
It had been more than a month since he deleted the last email. Maybe Jarrid finally got the hint. Never mind the damn ‘circle’. Kodiak had no intention of speaking to him ever again.
Period.
Amen.
