“I think it’ll be Jake. He’s already done it, after all.” Evan gave a laugh but it sounded forced.
She took a settling breath before replying. “You know you don’t have to do this, right?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I am more concerned it won’t work.” His voice was quiet, something rare from her loud, confident friend.
“Do you want to talk first?” she offered.
“Nah, I’ve got this. Can you get it set up? I already did the account thing on my end, so it’s just letting the dates come through.”
She knew that. “I know. I’ll make sure I get them. Pass my email along to Jake, and I’ll make sure it gets set up when the women come through.” She tried to keep the emotion out of her voice. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure why it was there in the first place. “I think you set your profile up a while ago; you might want to go through it and make sure nothing needs updating on the questionnaires.”
“Ha! I knew you were going to say that, so I did it already.”
She forced a smile into her voice. “Look at you. Must be more excited than you are letting on.”
“Everything okay with you?” he asked instead of acknowledging her comment.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Apparently she wasn’t hiding her confusing emotions well.
“I don’t know. You sound…off?” he elaborated.
“Probably just because it’s been a long day.”
“Don’t work too hard.”
“You know me,” she said in an attempt at a joke.
Evan blew out a breath. “I do. That’s why I said it.”
“Funny.”
“Let’s do lunch tomorrow?”
“I’ll get back to you on it. Let me get this all set up. Maybe you’ll have new plans by then.” That thought punched her in the gut without warning.
Evan laughed. “I’ll still have time to get lunch with you, regardless.”
She gave a noncommittal hum. “Let me get this set up and I’ll text you when it’s done so you can make sure it’s good from your end.”
“Okay. Thanks Kayla.”
They ended the call, and she dropped the phone onto her desk. Evan dating wasn’t something she thought about often, on purpose.
She loved hanging out with him, and his business advice was great, but she couldn’t bring herself to attempt more with him. If things didn’t work out, she’d lose the friend she had and potentially the partner in her business.
What she wanted and what she was going to do were at war, yet again. Evan tied her up in knots sometimes.
They’d get really flirty and there had been times when she thought that he was going to be the one to make a first move and kiss her, but then something would happen to pull them back. It was usually her.
Fear kept her immobilized when it came to Evan, and now she was going to have to let him move on. That was her big problem—she didn’t want to.
Her phone vibrated again and she answered it without reading the display. Any distraction at this point was a good one.
“Hey!” Lauren’s chipper voice came through the speaker.
“Hi, Lauren. How can I help you?” Kayla scrambled for a pen and got ready to write whatever Lauren wanted down.
“Well,” she dragged. “I was calling because Evan is next out of the men doing the blind dates.”