Page 85 of The Dating Charade

She’d known that every day since their argument that she hadn’t called him was a mistake, but the thing she didn’t realize until watching him firsthand was that he was a hero. A bona fide hero.

And she couldn’t let him go.

Pulling herself back to the present, Cassie shook out the pink tablecloth and threw it across the Ping-Pong table, shaking out her thoughts as she did so.

Meanwhile, Bree, with crossed arms, stared at her as though she’d watched every bit of Cassie’s playback reel. “Listen, if you don’t call him, I’m going to. I’ll marry him myself, Cassandra Everson.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“With the story you’ve told me three hundred times? Oh, indeed I would. And make you my maid of honor. So call him. Now.” Bree turned back to the storage closet and threw the door open. When she emerged, she was carrying a stack of cups four feet high. “I’ll get the ice and tea while you call him.”

Oh, she planned to.

At the perfect moment.

Cassie split the cups and arranged them on the table. Then gave a look around the game room of the Haven, which the Leadership Club was transforming in a matter of hours into the Valentine’s Dance venue of the century. Bailey and Keely were pushing the beanbags to the corner of the movie area. Savannah draped pink streamers across the line of computers. Caden stood in the corner, playing with Cassie’s phone—or rather, playlist—where it was hooked up to one of the large, borrowed speakers.

Star, as she was always so keenly aware, was nowhere to be seen.

For the past seven years she’d watched for the magic minute when the girls left their schools and made their way to the Haven. At the window, at 2:15 p.m. every day, she’d waited for them to come. Like the rumblings of thunder before a heavy storm, she and her staff would feel the anticipation, the shake, before the magic minute struck. The sudden rush at the computer to finish that report, to send that e-mail, to put the finishing touches on that flyer. The dash to the coffee station for a refill, because it very well could be the last calm moment for the rest of the day.

Often Cassie couldn’t stand it any longer and would step out the front door with her fresh mug, beckoned by the distant sound of the final school bell.

And oh, how they came. To passing cars, the steady stream of kids walking along the sidewalk from the schools meant nothing more than keeping an eye out for flying skateboards and mischievously tossed cans. But to Cassie it was seeing the march of forty-eight flames, each licking the air with its own spectacularly colored blaze.

Where was Star’s blaze at that minute?

How bright was the light she was giving off somewhere in that town of Spartanburg, South Carolina?

Did whoever saw it appreciate it? Did they care?

Of everything that had happened that Christmas celebration morning, that was the most painful part of all.

She hadn’t just lost the chance at being a mother. She’d lost a dear friend as well.

Bree and her mother had been understanding the past couple of months. Bree, specifically, had eventually realized the depth of her grieving and dialed down her snarky charm, letting Cassie embrace the time of mourning she had needed. Calmly taking the pink bow from her hand when Cassie found it beneath the recliner. Dragging her out to dinner when the house was so quiet it threatened to swallow her whole.

Cassie was grieving. Would grieve.

But what Bree didn’t know was that Cassie was now ready. Not ready to move on from them, because she never would. But ready to make something else right in her life.

Everybody paused, hearing the tires turn into the parking lot. Cassie moved up to the window, watched one of her staff slide open the van door.

“It’s time, everyone!” Cassie called over the room, cutting the overhead lights. The disco ball spun as can lights spotlighted it. “Hit the music, Caden. Let’s go get them.”

One by one, elderly men and women walked into the game room, each accompanied at the elbow by one of the girl leaders. Cassie stood at the door, greeting each one with a carnation corsage for the ladies and a boutonniere for the men. Meanwhile, she kept an eye on the parking lot.

When she saw Edie and Donna Gene through the window, abandoning walkers to steal into the arms of helpful gentlemen, Cassie’s attention averted from the boutonniere she was pinning. A yelp brought her back.

“So sorry, sir.” Cassie gave a distracted pat on the elderly gentleman’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” Bree peered out the window.

Cassie’s lips drew up in a sly grin.

Bree looked from her to the window to her again. Even with a pitcher of tea in her hand, she pumped the air. “At last! My scheming girl returns.”

Donna Gene lifted the collar of a luxurious, plum-colored, floor-length evening coat, held onto the arm of her date, and winked at Cassie as she passed. Edie threw the head of one of the poor minks, strung together in a stole, over her shoulder.