She's With Stupid Read online

  Why was she taking the risk of screwing all this almost-perfection up by agreeing to a potential double date fiasco, again?

  Leo nudged her hard in the ribs to get her attention. She winced in surprise as she rubbed her now aching side. “What’s your problem?”

  He tilted his head as if to gauge her intelligence. “My problem is that you strong-armed me into meeting this all-important friend of yours when I would have much rather watched the race on TV. And now she’s not even here!”

  Emilie tried to pat his arm, but he jerked his arm back, not interested in being soothed. Taken aback, she let her hand fall lamely back into her lap.

  “Kate’s always late. I’m sorry. You didn’t seem this annoyed when you met Lana.”

  Leo shook his head in irritation. “She was just standing there in your apartment. There was no forced social situation with her, I didn’t have to spend a significant amount of time making small talk with her, and since the girl doesn’t really have much to say, I found her only mildly irritating.”

  It was Emilie’s turn to glare now, as he was being needlessly rude.

  “From what you’ve told me of this one,” Leo jerked his thumb towards the door Kate was now rushing through with Will in tow, “she never shuts up. I’m not in the mood to deal with that tonight.”

  Before Emilie could respond, Kate sank into the seat across from her and a sour Will slumped into the chair opposite Leo.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Kate. “Traffic.”

  Emilie forced her lips to curve up. “No big deal!”

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  Emilie flushed but hastily shook her head, hoping Kate wouldn’t notice the too-tight grip that Leo had on her wrist. “Everything’s fine,” she assured her. “Let’s order.”

  “I hate this place.”

  This was the first time Will had bothered to speak, and of course it was only to gripe. His sullen expression indicated Kate had faced just as much of a protest to this gathering as Emilie had.

  “Well, no one asked you, did they?” Kate ground her teeth together and gave a patently false smile to Leo, studiously ignoring Will’s pouting. “Leo, I hear you like frogs.”

  Leo’s eyes lit with enthusiasm as he launched into a frog anecdote Emilie had already been forced to hear. Twice. She mentally groaned at the wicked smirk Kate was giving her.

  Luckily, or unluckily depending on your point of view, Will actually seemed interested in Leo’s frog tales, so the two of them hit it off and moved on to an enlightening discussion about a comic book character who was spawned from a tadpole. Kate and Emilie, not unaware of the humor in their situation, caught each others eye and started to giggle at the absurdity of two grown men so thoroughly enjoying frogs and comic books.

  “What’s so funny?” Leo scowled at Emilie, who swiftly tried to stifle her amusement.

  She gave him her most innocent expression, but he still looked less than delighted by their private banter. “Sorry, Kate and I were just, um…” Emilie shot Kate a plea for assistance.

  “We were remembering a funny encounter we had with a frog when we were kids,” Kate said cheerfully. “Emilie’s terrified of them, you know.” She smiled brightly at Leo, who seemed mighty displeased by this information.

  Will yawned and scratched his head before blinking slowly. “What happened?” At Kate and Emilie’s blank stares, he was forced to elaborate. “The funny frog encounter?”

  “Oh,” stammered Emilie. “Well, uh...”

  Kate kicked Emilie under the table in order to quiet her. Emilie was a horrible liar. Kate had no idea how the girl survived in the modern world.

  In an effort to divert attention from Emilie’s obvious caginess, Kate launched into a story she’d been dying to tell Leo ever since she’d been informed of his unhealthy love of frogs. “When we were kids we always spent our summers on the lake with my great aunt,” she said with a smirk. “She has this big house, and there was this croaky old frog that basically lived outside our bedroom window and had probably done so since the Mesozoic era. Ethan had this bright idea one night to bring it inside and feed it.”

  “Who’s Ethan?” Leo asked in a bored voice, clearly not caring much for a story about frogs that didn’t stem from his own expertise.

  Emilie gave Kate a warning look, which Kate, of course, chose to ignore. “Ethan’s my cousin, he and Emmy used to make googley eyes at each other. They’re like soul mates or something.”

  It was Emilie’s turn to kick Kate under the table and she did so with extra fervor. “He is not my soul mate,” she protested hotly.

  She glanced at Leo, who didn’t look jealous so much as surprised by her outburst. Will just looked uninterested.

  “He is not my soul mate,” Emilie repeated in a slightly more modulated voice. But she was clenching her jaw and her body had gone tense.

  “Whatever you say,” Kate said lightly. She continued to shrewdly eye Emilie as she went on with the story. “Anyway, Ethan brought the frog into our bedroom, not realizing how disturbing Emilie had found our recent frog dissecting experience at the fifth grade science fair, and he put it in a the box on the night stand next to Emilie while he fished some crackers out of his pocket.”

  Leo tossed his head. “Amphibians do not eat crackers,” he said pretentiously.

  Kate stared at Leo for a full minute before giving Emilie a meaningful look. “Yeah, well, he was only twelve at the time, so I don’t think he was aware,” she said sarcastically. “He’s doesn’t really think of amphibian eating habits as necessary life knowledge.” Emilie kicked her again, but Kate barely winced before continuing with her tale.

  “Anyway, when the frog started ribbitting right by her head, Em screamed so loud the poor frog jumped right out of the box and onto her bed, which, of course, only made her scream louder.” Emilie scowled, but Kate remained undeterred. “Ethan froze for about five seconds and then bravely dived on top of the bed to catch the frog, which only made Froggy angrier and caused him to hop right into Emmy’s hair.”

  Kate grinned at Emilie’s increasingly unfriendly expression and raised her eyebrow. When Emilie remained silent, Kate could not contain her grin.

  “So, by this time, Em was hysterical, Lana and I were wide awake and screaming right along with her, and Ethan was hollering at all of us to shut up so the frog would calm down. He finally managed to wrestle the big bad frog out the window only to have two pairs of shoes come flying at his head for pulling such a stupid stunt. Lana and I were laughing by this point, but poor Emilie was kind of rocking back and forth on the bed in some sort of fear-induced shock.”

  “Is there any point to this story?” Will asked. He had never had much interest in Kate’s childhood and plainly didn’t see why he should have to pretend he did now.

  Kate glared at him before going on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Before Lana or I could help her, Ethan crawled into bed next to Emilie and pulled her in his lap, humming in a kind-of-off-key way and promising he’d never let anything bad happen to her again. They fell asleep like that, I think. It was super sweet. Remember, Em?”

  Kate gave her friend a concerned look when she saw Emilie’s blanched face and clenched hands — her fingernails had to be cutting into her palm.

  Emilie avoided Kate’s alarmed stare and appeared to be forcing air into her lungs. After a few silent moments, Emilie picked up her menu with shaky hands. “Can we please stop talking about Ethan?” she said in her calmest voice. “He is a dreadfully dull subject.”

  Kate arched her brow at that blatant lie, but held her tongue for once. She had made her point. No matter how meddlesome she was being and no matter how hard Emilie tried to deny it, Emilie definitely still had feelings for Ethan. And Ethan, who called Kate at least once a week for an update on Emilie’s every move, was clearly into Em. Now all Kate had to do was get the two idiots to admit it to each other. It is exhausting being this smart, Kate mused as the waitress approached their booth.
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  Once their food was placed on the table, an awkward silence fell over the group. Emilie and Kate tried to make small talk, but the silence from Will and Leo made it uncomfortable. Sensing Emilie’s growing misery, Kate made an attempt to lighten the mood with wedding talk.

  “Leo, did Emilie tell you what a help she’s been with all the plans for my wedding? She’s like my hero.” Kate smiled at Leo, but his only response was a brief, uninterested shrug as he shoved another unnecessarily large bite of his chicken sandwich into his mouth.

  Emilie smiled brightly and tried to take up that line of conversation. “Oh, it’s not a big deal. I like planning things.”

  “Like being in charge of things, you mean,” muttered Will. Kate jabbed him in the arm with her fork and he cast a grimace her way. But he did stop talking.

  Leo laughed at Will’s statement. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that Emilie gets real twitchy when something is beyond her control.”

  Kate’s mouth dropped at the rude remark. Sure Emilie liked making lists and planning things to death, and sure Lana and Kate teased her about it all the time, but this joker was new and he had not yet earned the right to mock.

  Ignoring Leo’s comment, Emilie directed a sarcastic glance at Will. “Have you managed to find another groomsman yet? Kate said you were having some trouble.”

  He looked at her suspiciously, not sure if she was taunting him or not. “I don’t really have any friends besides Gene,” he finally mumbled. “Kate said she’d just ask her cousin to stand in for me to make the line-up even.”

  Emilie cast a horrified look at Kate, who suddenly became fascinated by the carrots in her salad.

  “Ethan is going to be in your wedding —the wedding I am planning— and you didn’t think that was information I might have needed before now?” Her voice had steadily risen to the level of mild hysteria and Leo and Will were now giving her similar looks of astonishment.

  Feeling distinctly guilty, Kate shrugged sheepishly. “I was going to tell you! It just sort of slipped my mind.”

  “It slipped your mind?” Emilie said incredulously. “You know how I feel about that man, Kate. How could you not warn me he was going to be in the wedding? I didn’t even know he would be in the country!”

  “Em, he’s my cousin. And we were all so close when we were kids,” Kate said in her most cajoling tone. “You know, this could be a good thing. I know you haven’t talked to him in a while, but I swear he’s not the same jerk you remember. He’s moving to New Bern soon, so he’ll be around a lot. You’ll have to get used to each other again, anyway.”

  Emilie’s eyes narrowed and Kate had to force herself not to flinch.

  “That man has done everything in his power to avoid staying put for the last decade, Katherine. There is no way he’s going to stick around long enough for me to make that kind of effort.” Emilie shook her head and stared at her half-eaten food before managing to meet Kate’s imploring gaze. “I know what you’re thinking, Kate, and it’s not going to work.”

  “What did this guy do to you?” asked Leo.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Emilie took a large gulp from her wineglass before shrugging. “It was a long time ago, and I have no intention of letting him do it again.”

  And with that dinner was pretty much over. After a few more awkward minutes at the table, they paid and rose to put their coats on in silence. When they parted ways outside the door of the restaurant, Emilie stiffly hugged Kate and mumbled that she would talk to her tomorrow.

  Kate wanted to talk now, but Will was impatiently holding his watch in front of her face to indicate his desire to leave and Leo was breathing down Emilie’s neck, holding her right arm in a death grip. He did that a lot, Kate had noticed, and she didn’t think it was in keeping with the kind and gentle soul Emilie had painted him out to be.

  “It was nice meeting you, Leo.” Kate held out her hand and waited.

  He looked at her hand for a long moment, as if debating whether or not to take it. He finally reached out and gave her a brief, limp shake before pulling back and whispering something in Emilie’s ear. She wearily nodded and gave a small wave to Kate as they turned to go.

  “Tomorrow,” Kate reminded her.

  Emilie gave a slight nod and allowed Leo to pull her towards his car, and Kate scowled at Will as they piled into her car to leave. “You know, you could have made more of an effort.”

  Will turned away from the window and gave Kate a baffled frown as she pulled onto the street and headed towards their small house. “Why would I want to do that?”

  Kate glanced at him, trying in vain to convince herself that he was being sarcastic or ironic or anything other than what she was coming to suspect he was — alarmingly stupid. When her worst suspicions were confirmed by his blank stare, she groaned.

  “Emilie is one of my best friends, Will. I tolerate your bonehead friend Glen, even though he is constantly lounging on my couch and using my decorative bath towels to wash his face and hands. I hold my tongue when he eats all my food and drinks all of my pop. I even refrain from pointing out the fact that there is some kind of yellow mold forming on his teeth. I don’t understand why you can’t afford the same courtesy to my friends.”

  “I don’t like them.”

  Kate stopped at a red light and turned to face him. “I do not care who you do or do not like. I am asking you to be polite to my friends.”

  “I don’t want to.” Will shrugged and turned back to looking out the window. “You can’t make me.”

  Kate could feel her blood pressure rising, and it was all she could do to focus on getting home without accidentally ramming the passenger side of her car into a tree.

  Trying to regain her self-control, Kate drew several deep breaths. The night had proven how wrong Leo was for Emilie, yes. Unfortunately it had also served to highlight several glaring flaws in her relationship with Will. And once she got over Kate’s little faux pas in bringing Ethan up in front of her new boyfriend, Emilie was not going to let Kate’s relationship issues slide for long.

  They made the rest of the drive in silence, and all the while the wheels in Kate’s head were turning. What was she really doing with Will? The only reason she had been attracted to Will in the first place was his blatant adoration of her, and he wasn’t even bothering to pretend to feel that way anymore.

  Bile crawled from Kate’s stomach to her throat, threatening to make her sick. What if Emilie and Lana were right? What if the only reason she had agreed to tie herself to this guy was because she was afraid of being alone? If that was the case, she couldn’t have felt more pathetic if she tried.

  Kate pulled into her driveway ten minutes later and exited the car with a heated slam. She didn’t even bother to check Will’s reaction. She had an overwhelming urge to get away — from this house, from Will, from her life. And she knew that her time to do that was rapidly fading. The longer she stayed and made excuses for Will and for herself, the slimmer her chances for getting the courage to leave would become.

  This was both depressing and terrifying.

  The minute she got in the house Kate stormed into the bedroom and shut the door with a resounding bang. Will was going to have to sleep on the couch with his stupid cat again.

  Right now Kate wanted to focus on something other than her own problems, and Emilie’s seemed like a good place to start. She reached for the phone and dialed the apartment, hoping that Leo wasn’t still sniffing around.

  Lana picked up on the second ring. “Hello,” she said huskily.

  Kate’s mouth curved in a smile. “Well, hello,” she responded in an equally throaty voice. “Is this the sexy phone sex hotline?”

  Lana snorted and went back to her normal voice. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “You were expecting someone else?”

  “No,” Lana sighed into the phone. “What’s up?”

  Kate made a face before realizing Lana couldn’t see through the phone line. “Is Em home yet?”

  “Yea
h, about five minutes ago. What happened at dinner, anyway? She looked like she was being chased by ghosts when she stormed in here.”

  Kate made a clucking sound with her tongue. “I’d say more like one ghost in particular. I may have told a teeny tiny Ethan story, and the girl practically melted in her seat.”

  “Kate, why do you keep doing that when you know it upsets her?”

  “Well, if she would just explain to me what actually happened between them back in the day to upset her so much, I wouldn’t have to keep bugging her about him.” In Kate’s mind, this was a perfectly rational argument.

  Lana sighed. “I think you’re disregarding one very pertinent fact. Maybe she doesn’t want to remember what happened. Every time you mention Ethan or their past, she gets really jumpy.”

  “So it’s a possibly painful subject, duh,” said Kate. “But we both know she’s carrying a torch for the guy, and I know Ethan’s still got a thing for her. The man calls me constantly for updates on her life, and he’s been doing so since we were eighteen. If that isn’t some bizarre version of love, I don’t know what is.”

  Lana could not argue with that. And she wasn’t unaware of Emilie’s keen, albeit carefully veiled, interest whenever Kate spoke about Ethan; she seemed to soak up every detail like a sponge.

  Emilie walked into the living room at that moment, having scrubbed her face clean and slipped on her roomiest flannel nightgown, a sure indication that she was unhappy about whatever had gone down on that date tonight.

  Lana bit back a smile and held out the phone to Emilie, silently mouthing, “Kate.”