He wanted Serena, and he didn’t want anyone in the world who wasn’t her.
As he was thinking of some way to approach this reality with Kelly—tell her she was great, but he wasn’t really interested in moving forward even to a second date—she asked without warning, “Is this not working for you?”
He blinked. “What?”
“This.” She waved her hand to indicate the two of them. “The date. It seems like we’re getting along pretty well, but you don’t seem... I don’t know... into it.” She looked slightly self-conscious about her words, but she was clearly an honest and forthright person, and he appreciated it.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a long sigh. “You’re great. You really are. And I had a good time tonight. I guess I’m just not really in the right headspace to be dating right now.”
“Yeah. That’s what it seemed like.” She looked resigned and maybe just a little disappointed, but not resentful or upset. Her reaction made him like her even more. “Like you’re giving it a try, but you’re really emotionally unavailable.”
He gave a soft snort at the word choice. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”
“Is it Serena?”
He blinked three times in a row. “Is what Serena?”
“The problem. The holdup. The reason you’re emotionally unavailable.”
“Why would you ask that?” His words came out very slowly.
Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a guess. The way she always talks about you, I assumed you and her would end up together eventually. You just seem really close. Then she got this idea to fix me up with you, and I figured, hey, I must have been wrong. But now I’m not sure I was. It feels like I’ve stepped right in the middle of someone else’s romance.”
He groaned and leaned his head on his hand for a minute, trying to figure out how much he should say. He didn’t want to compromise Serena’s privacy. And he also didn’t want to express certain hopes he had that Serena herself wouldn’t approve of. But Kelly was being honest with him, and he wanted to be honest with her too.
“It’s complicated,” he finally concluded. “Really complicated. We’ve been friends for a long time, and when you’re that close to someone, it’s hard to feel a matching closeness with other people. But we’ll figure it out.”
Kelly nodded like the issue was decided, like she knew exactly what was happening now. “I’m sure you will. I know she had a really rough time with her ex, and that’s made it hard for her to move on. I hope you’ll be patient with her.”
“Of course I will. I’d never push her into anything.”
Kelly’s eyes searched his face for a moment before she gave another little nod. “I believe you. And to tell you the truth, I don’t even think it will take very long. She’s been really hurt, but she loves you like crazy. And pretty soon she’s going to realize exactly how much.”
Those words—from a woman who was almost a stranger to him—gave him more hope than anything had in ages.
MAYBE IT WAS THAT HOPE (or simply the fact that he’d missed her this evening), but when Keith got to his building, he went to Serena’s door instead of his own.
He hesitated a minute before he knocked. He shouldn’t. There was no reason to show up at her door right now. It was eleven thirty in the evening, and she usually went to bed by ten or eleven. He shouldn’t wake her up right now. Eva was at her father’s, so he wouldn’t disturb her, but still... He could tell Serena how the date went tomorrow morning. The best thing for him to do right now was go home and go to bed.
Instead, he rang her doorbell.
It wasn’t long before he heard movement from inside. Then the door swung open.
Serena stood in her pajamas, blinking at him, looking tousled and curvy and soft and delectable.
His heart gave a ridiculous lurch toward her. And the rest of his body gave a definite lurch as well.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, concern tightening on her face as she processed his presence.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “There’s nothing wrong. Sorry if I woke you up. I was just going to report on my date.”
“Oh.” It took just a few seconds for relief to wash over her expression. She stepped aside to let him in. “You scared me.”
“Sorry about that.” He came into her entryway and tried to keep his gaze from dropping to her breasts, which were free and jiggling slightly and were unfortunately highly visible in her lavender tank top. “Did I wake you up?”
“No. I was in bed, but I wasn’t sleeping. I was actually wondering how things were going for you. It’s kind of early for the date to be over. Was it bad?”
“It’s not early. It was three hours, which is a perfectly normal length for a first date.” He wasn’t sure why he sounded defensive, but he did.
“Okay. So it was good then? Did you like her a lot?” Her voice cracked just slightly on the last word, but that was probably just because he’d gotten her out of bed.
“Yeah. I liked her.” Maybe it was mean and petty—it probably was—but he let the sentence linger in the air for longer than he should, just so he could gauge her reaction.
It was gratifying. He clearly saw a flash of something that looked a lot like jealousy on her face before she controlled it.
Surely it wasn’t wishful thinking. Surely he wasn’t making this up.
“That’s good then,” she mumbled. “I knew you would. So are you going to see her again?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Serena had always been quicksilver like this, moving from one feeling to another, often without warning. “She’s amazing, and you said you really liked her!”
“I do like her. And she is great. But I already know there’s no potential for more there. And I’m not the kind of guy to string someone along when I know there’s no hope. It feels like a really crappy thing to do.”
“It is a crappy thing to do, and I know you’re not like that. But it’s just been the first date. You really know for sure there’s no potential?” Her eyes were big and wide and gray-green in the low light.
“I know for sure,” he said, his voice coming out thicker than it should. He absolutely couldn’t stop himself from taking a small step closer to her. “I know.”
She nodded and swallowed visibly and dropped her eyes. “Okay.”
In the silence that followed, she darted her gaze up a couple of times, like she was checking his expression and anxious about what she might see there.
Keith could only imagine how utterly besotted he must look right now, but that was something he couldn’t control.
“Serena,” he murmured after a minute. He remembered what Kelly had said earlier. Maybe he’d waited long enough. Maybe Serena was ready. She looked so soft right now. So warm and fond. Nervous but excitedly so.
She took a shaky breath and kept her eyes down. “What?”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
“Because I’m... I’m...”
“You’re what?” He took another step toward her, close enough to touch now. He was almost shaking from his attempt to restrain his hands.