Page 15 of Taking Sides

I laugh loudly. “I picked the restaurant, jerk.”

“Why MVP?” Her expression is all amusement as she waits for my answer.

“I don’t know that many restaurants around town and every other place felt too formal or too casual.”

“The sports restaurant and bar didn’t fall into the too-casual column?”

She’s right. It was a terrible idea. What was I thinking? “Maybe I should text him and see if he could bring a friend. We could double date.”

“Don’t try to pull me into your crappy date.”

“Oh god. It’s going to be crappy, isn’t it?”

“I was teasing,” she assures me.

I groan.

“Why are you stressing so much? It’s only a first date. Go, have fun.”

“I don’t know. There’s something about him. He’s . . .”

“Hot?”

“Yes, very, but he said, like, two full sentences to me all week.”

“Why did you say yes?”

It’s a good question. One I’ve thought about a lot. “He’s interesting. I don’t know anything about the guy, but I want to. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” She nods. “It does.”

“Good, because I’m thinking I made a huge mistake saying yes. What if we have nothing in common?”

She laughs again. “I think that’s why the kids date these days, to get to know each other and see if there are shared interests.”

“The kids?” I roll my eyes at her. “Because you’re so old?”

“I feel ancient.” She sighs. “I mean look at me. I’m twenty-three and wearing a dress I sewed myself from hideous fabric I got at the fabric store where I’m a card-carrying member and the woman who owns it knows me by name. I’m a grandma.”

“You made that?” It’s a cute sundress made of baby-blue fabric with white flowers. The straps are thin, and the skirt is flowy. Sloane is shy and unassuming. She often fades into the background in conversations, but no one would look at her and compare her to a grandma. She’s beautiful.

“I could never. I’m completely helpless when it comes to artsy things,” I say.

“Sure you could.” Her gaze flits around the room as if the way I’ve taped posters to the wall is any comparison to her making a whole dress. “If you can teach math, you can do anything.”

“I thought the saying was ‘those who can’t do, teach.’”

Now she rolls her eyes. “I hate that saying. No one who has ever tried to keep the attention of thirty teenagers would ever repeat that.”

My phone rings again. Sloane raises her brows at me expectantly. “Need to get that?”

“If I can ever find it under this mess.”

“It’s the only messy part of this room.” She looks around again. “You somehow managed to make math look fun.”

“Math is fun,” I insist.

She pulls my buried phone out from underneath a stack of papers and hands it to me.