Page 87 of The Dating Charade

“We got her up, Miss C! We got her—” Caden called out. The floor shook. “Oh . . . no, wait.”

“State your address, please.”

“Girls Haven. 109 East Cedar Street.”

Cassie rattled off the rest of the answers to the operator’s questions while Donna did everything she could to push the unruly, helpful citizens off and to stay down. By the time Cassie saw the fire station’s response vehicle slow to a stop on the side of the road, Edie was beating people off with the heads of her mink stole.

“Go get ’em.” Bree slapped Cassie on the backside. Cassie stumbled in the pink stilettos that, in any other circumstance, she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing.

Well, well, well. How the tide had turned. Cassie worked to walk smoothly as she moved onto the same sidewalk Jett had met her on those months ago. Back then she had been the unknowing one, his offer of a night on the town received with as much gusto as if he was offering to pull a tooth. Tonight, Jett was the uninformed one. Tonight, it was her turn to ask for that chance.

In a very convenient, roundabout way.

Was she sweating?

As inconspicuously as possible, she began flapping her pink cardigan.

She closed in on the ambulance, the engine still humming. Rapped twice on the glass. Took a breath.

She had this moment memorized. A startled look as she told him how surprised she was to see him. A light joke about how she guessed he couldn’t escape Donna Gene. It was good to see him. How had he been?

Wait. Pray. Hope he turned the conversation into a tread upon fresh waters.

Through the darkness of the interior cab she watched two people separate. A woman brushed quickly at her bangs as the window went down.

Cassie’s mouth opened. Shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

The man, most definitely not Jett, waved her off quickly. “Oh, no, no, no. We were just . . . training.” He threw an arm back. “And you see, Sarah, in situations like this, you may need to use the head-immobilization device, for stabilizing the head—” He motioned to his own. “—and keeping the neck secure.” His hands went up and down his own neck as though she needed the visual. “We also might need an Entonox Analgesic Apparatus, or what I like to term happy gas.”

Two seconds in she recognized his voice as the Haven’s very own Santa visitor. Sunny, Jett’s roommate. And just one of her many failed dates.

“I think some of your trainee’s lip gloss got on your face there. Somehow. Accidentally.” Cassie rubbed at her own cheek.

Sunny grinned, rubbing the shimmering red spot from his cheek.

“So . . . Where’s Jett?”

But Sunny just shrugged, a meaningful smile—of what, she didn’t know—rising. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Like everybody else around here, he’s got a date.”

“Oh.” Cassie shifted her weight, suddenly very uncomfortable in her heels. “Okay, then. Thanks.”

Sunny called after her. “Wait. You guys need me in there?”

She waved him off. “No, we got it.”

She turned her face back swiftly, unable to bear the pity in the other woman’s eyes.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Cassie,” Sunny called.

So he remembered her after all.

“You . . . too.”

Crossing her arms tightly over her chest, she strode as quickly as she could across the sidewalk, averting her gaze from the sneaky, shadowy figures of Bree and several teens at her office window.

Jett had moved on.

Of course. What should she have expected?