“Hey,” Kendall said, coming up to stand in front of their respective bar stools.
Her arms instantly went across her chest.
Good to know she wasn’t feeling this little Oprah moment either. Though she had shown up. Evan wondered what that meant. “Hey,” he said, sure his smile looked more like a psychotic grimace.
“Okay, I’m heading out. Be civil and you’ll be surprised how much better you feel tomorrow.” Tuesday threw down some money, scooped up her purse, cheek kissed Kendall, and breezed towards the door.
“Your friend is nuts,” Evan told Kendall, taking the water the bartender handed him.
“What’s nuts is that I actually listened to her and came down here.” Kendall plunked herself down on Tuesday’s abandoned stool. “Though she did threaten me.”
“With what?” Evan felt a little more at ease knowing Kendall wasn’t any more on board with this than he was.
“She always uses her blog as a threat. But this time she threatened to bring you to my apartment if I didn’t show up.”
“How would she have managed that? I’m not really that maneuverable.”
A hint of a smile crossed Kendall’s lips. “But you are a man, and probably not one to turn down sex. I think her devious plan was to let you think you were going to her apartment.”
Evan’s eyebrows shot up. “She is nuts. God, I pity the man who finds himself in her clutches.” He sipped his water. “And I would not have had sex with her. I’m not that easy.”
Kendall snorted. “Sure.”
He felt defensive and more than a little offended. “I’m not some man whore. I don’t just sleep with anyone.” Though he was remembering a particular campsite incident a few months back with Nikki Strickland’s maid of honor and felt a twinge of something that he was not going to call shame.
“I think you’re protesting a little too much.”
He would not rise to the bait, he would not . . .
“I’m a born again virgin,” he told her. “I haven’t had sex in years.”
That would show her.
There was a pause, then she started laughing. “So who are all those women you’ve been prancing around with over the years? Your abstinence counselors?”
It occurred to Evan that she wouldn’t have known who he’d been with if she hadn’t been paying attention to him. “You noticed, huh? Jealous?”
“Of what? Silicone? Hardly.”
“But you’ve clearly noticed them. That says jealousy to me.” Which felt mighty good, he had to admit.
“How could I not notice them? They all have br**sts the size of Rhode Island. It’s a little hard to miss that crossing the stage at drivers’ intro.”
“I never took a woman across the stage at drivers’ intro. That’s for wives and fiancées and serious girlfriends.” He wasn’t sure why it was important to clarify that, but it was.
“And you’re allergic to those apparently.”
That felt a little below the belt. Evan scrutinized Kendall, noting the high color in her cheeks. She was nervous and agitated being with him. Ten years was a long time to wonder and he was feeling a little tired of it.
“Why do you think that is exactly, huh, Kendall?”
“I have no idea. You’re shallow?”
He had thought about confessing, thought about telling her that he had planned to propose marriage to her, that her sudden cold shoulder had had more impact on him in the last ten years than he’d like to admit. But that snarky comment stopped him.
“Exactly,” he told her, scooting his water closer in reach on its cocktail napkin. “How did you guess?”
Kendall sighed. “I’m sorry, that was bitchy.” She fingered her necklace again and gestured for the bartender’s attention. “I think I need a beer.”
“Look, just tell Tuesday we talked and we’ll call it good. There really isn’t any point in digging into the past. We had some good times and then we didn’t. No big deal.” Evan worked pretty damn hard to inject total nonchalance into his voice.
And he was not sneaking shots at Kendall’s cle**age. Much.
But Kendall suddenly blurted out, “How could you laugh at me?”
He had to admit, the rum had his engines cranking over slowly, but he had no clue what she was talking about. “Huh? I’ve never laughed at you. I was just teasing you today, honestly, I wasn’t trying to be a pig.” Because he suffered from the need to get the last word, he couldn’t stop himself from tacking onto his apology, “And you brought up girl parts first.”
She waved her hand impatiently, then ordered a beer from the bartender, which is what he should have done. Screw what other people thought. If he’d stuck with beer, he wouldn’t have felt like his head was floating in Jell-O.
“I don’t mean today.” Kendall turned and stared at him intently. “Do you remember that last night we were together? How you snuck into my room and spent the night?”
“Yeah, of course I remember. It was a good night. We made love then just lay there talking about the future.” A future he had assumed included her.
“I told you I wanted to be a driver in the Cup series and you laughed at me.”
Evan frowned at her. “No, I didn’t. I admit you caught me off guard. I mean, I knew you liked racing midget cars and that you saw it as a hobby, but you’d never talked about driving pro. It startled me.”
“Why, because a girl can’t drive?”
“No,” he said slowly, wondering where this was going. “I knew you could drive. I went to a bunch of your races, remember? What surprised me was it seemed like an ambition that came out of nowhere. I wasn’t expecting it, that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Kendall frowned, her forehead wrinkling. She took a long swallow of her beer, opened her mouth to speak then shut it again.
“What?” he asked her.
“Did you think it was a stupid goal? That I was setting myself up to fail?”
Shifting on his chair, he turned so he could see her fully, his legs entrapping hers. “No. I was young and confident, both in me, and in you. I went home and fantasized about you and me finishing one-two in the series. I knew you could do it. I even made plans for you to hit the track in one of my dad’s cars later that week.”
“You did what?” Kendall’s eyes were as big as saucers.