Page 43 of The Dating Charade

These kids were merciless.

Through the thick crowd he spotted the DCS building a handful of buildings ahead. He started to pull off one sleeve of his jacket.

“Jett?”

Cassie?

His smile brightened as he watched her part from the sea of oncoming pedestrians. Her legs looked particularly long and lean in jeans that clung to her calves. Sleek gray boots with tiny heels covered her feet, and she looked warm in a white pea coat and thick collars wrapped in one of those uneven, stylish ways around her neck. Her hair curled around her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face, highlighting a relaxed smile and pink lips. It was clear as day she’d put more time into her appearance today than for any of their two-and-a-tenth dates.

“Well, look at you. I hope you aren’t off to some lunch date with another man.” Jett paused, his arms halfway out of his jacket, as she stopped before him. “He’d fall for you in a second.”

“Look who’s talking here. I don’t recall you wearing a fancy polo on our date. And I believe you called my T-shirt-and-ponytail ensemble stunning. What about all this talk about going for the outdoor-girl type?”

“Oh, believe me, with you I can be both.” But the charm of his words diminished significantly, he realized, with the fact he was currently trying to pry his fingers out of his feces-covered coat with coffee in hand. He successfully yanked one arm out, and her attention was drawn to the jacket.

“Um, Jett. What are you doing?”

He pulled his arm from the other side. “I’m warm.”

“It’s sixteen degrees outside.”

“Surely not,” he said, cautiously laying the clean part of his jacket over his arm. “I’d say it was well over thirty. Practically balmy.”

Cassie pointed to the First Tennessee Bank sign directly above them. It proudly stated the weather, all sixteen degrees of it.

His “fancy polo” proved to be about as useful as a paper towel as his chest left the safety of the warm down and faced the bitter wind alone. He tried with everything in him not to shudder.

“Hey, crazy.” Cassie’s brows drew together as she leaned in, eyes on the jacket. “I think you got something on your coat.” A breeze lifted her hair and left a few sweet flurries.

“I don’t think so.”

“Right there, see? Looks like maybe a bit of mustard . . .” Suddenly she began rummaging in her purse.

“Oh, yes. Maybe so—”

But just as he started to relax, waiting for the pack of paper towels to appear—women were always so resourceful—she whipped out an old, crumpled, impossibly thin, single-ply tissue and held it in the air. She began to straighten it out, and even then, it began to tear.

“It’s not much, but maybe it’ll at least keep it from dripping until you find a towel—”

“No, that’s okay.”

“Really, it’ll just take a sec.” And then her hand moved toward him, her perfectly soft, delicate fingers—protected by just a whisper of cotton—drawing in toward their filthy target.

He wasn’t about to explain. Twenty feet from the DCS building he wasn’t about to get this close and open that can of worms.

In a moment of either sheer brilliance or absolute panic, he took a step back, twisted his ankle, and flipped his entire steaming cup of hot coffee on his coat. “Whoa,” he said loudly just as Cassie reached out and grabbed him by the arm.

“Jett!” She stared. “What just happened?”

“I slipped. Watch out for the—” He looked down to the pale slab of dusted sidewalk. “—black ice.”

“Black ice?” Her gaze moved to the ground beneath him. “There’s no black ice.”

“That’s exactly why black ice is so dangerous. It’s invisible.” He scraped his boot against the perfectly safe, nonslippery surface. “See? We’d better move over there. I practically did it again.”

His entire body started to tingle from the cold as she let him guide her toward the window of a store, amusement highlighting her face. “Oh, sure. This is terrifying. I can only imagine what you’d be like in a real snowstorm.”

“Look who’s talking, Girl Who Calls 911 Over Cats in Pine Needles.”