Page 17 of Come Back To Me

“I am not going on another one of your blind dates,” I said to Maddy. She followed me down the hallway into our living room. I didn’t have to look at her to know she was pouting.

“Pleaaaaase,” she begged, her boots clicking loudly on our hardwood floors. “I don’t want to go alone.”

I spun around, and fixed her with a glare. “Then why did you say yes?”

“Because I wanted to. Why won’t you just come with me?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

I didn’t bother mentioning how disastrous my last blind date was because Maddy was there. After the date she set me up with, I gave her the silent treatment and not only because she didn’t tell me she’d set me up, but because the guy she chose was a complete asshole.

And I had no desire at all to have a repeat. Not even if she paid me.

“Well, you can’t say no because they’ll be here in ten minutes.”

I threw my hands up, feeling more and more frustrated. “Maddy! Seriously?”

Maddy winced. “Please?”

“Ugh, I don’t even know why I bother. You’re just going to do what you want anyway.”

“I don’t understand what the big deal is, Kenzi. It’s just a date.”

Hoo boy, now she’d done it. After the day I had, the last thing I wanted to do was entertain another college boy who saw me as an easy conquest. Which I was not.

“I don’t want to go on another date,” I half yelled, feeling my throat tighten. My emotions were all over the place, and having Maddy pull this stunt only made it worse. My eyes burned, but I swallowed back my inexplicable urge to cry.

Maddy’s response was cut off by a swift knock on the door. “They’re early,” she muttered, walking to the door. It was as if she refused to hear me. Two sophomores greeted her, and she showed them in. So much for our conversation. I might as well have been talking to the wall.

“C’mon in guys, my friend is almost ready.”

Uh, no I wasn’t. I was wearing black leggings, slippers and a Blackburn University hoodie. My hair hadn’t been washed in three days so I threw it atop my head in a haphazard bun. It was so skew I looked like a damn bobblehead.

My mood quickly deteriorated, so much so that I didn’t even bother with a smile when Maddy introduced our dates. Brian and Greg. What kind of names were those anyway?

They weren’t bad looking, but then again, I thought Collin wasn’t too bad looking either and he turned out to be Asshole of The Year 2016. To me, how a guy looked and how he behaved were mutually exclusive, but after last night, I was starting to reconsider.

“We got tickets to the Charity hockey game,” said Brian. He smiled impishly at me while his friend, Greg, openly gawked at Maddy. Yeah, I knew there was something off with him, with a name like that how can there not be? I bet if you looked at the updated list of Sex Offenders in our State every second one would be Greg somethingorother.

Okay, maybe I was being a little harsh. I bet it was really only every third name on the list.

I tried not to do the eye roll thing. Of all the places these guys could take us to in this college town they chose an ice-hockey game. In Colorado. Talk about original.

“Sounds great.” Maddy sounded a little too excited. “We’ll be out in a bit.”

She took me by my elbow, and dragged me to my bedroom.

“I’m not going,” I told her again, this time more emphatically.

“Yes, you are,” she replied. “You can’t make me go alone.”

“Where did you find these guys anyway? The casting call for the Beverly Hills 90210 revival of 1999?”

“They’re not that bad.”

I quirked a brow, no words necessary.

“Okay, fine, so they’re not the typical guys we’d go for but there’s something to be said for trying new things.”