I throw her a side-eye, my expression sour, already knowing where this is going. Her tone isn’t hiding anything. “I don’t want to be fixed up.”
Bridget’s head whips in my direction, her eyes wide as she feigns incredulousness. “Elle…”
Yeah. She doesn’t even follow my name up with anything else. I cock an eyebrow at her, and she groans, slouching her rigid posture until she’s practically falling into me only to straighten just as quickly so she can move us through the light.
“I mean it.”
“Fine. But there might be a few single men at my dinner.” She rushes on with a pleading tone when she catches my murderous glare. “They’re great guys. Smart. Good-looking. Well”—she laughs—“some of them are very good-looking. Others”—she shrugs—“not so much. But the one I want you to meet is absolutely gorgeous. And a super nice guy to boot. If I weren’t married, I’d date him.”
“The ink on my divorce is barely dry.”
She glances in the rearview mirror, then smirks without looking at me. “But it is dry and that hasn’t stopped you so far.”
“Bridget!” My jaw drops.
“I don’t mind you talking about dating. I think you should date.”
I flip around to Stella, pointing at her. “You do?”
She giggles lightly, and I can’t stop my smile. This girl does not give out smiles all that often. Much like her father in that respect.
“Yes. You’re smart, fun, beautiful. Any guy would be lucky to date you.”
“You’re excellent for my ego. I’m going to write that down on a Post-it and keep it by my bed.” I give her a wink, only to scrunch up my nose. “But life lesson, Stella. Blind dates are the worst. Trust me on that. When you’re allowed to start dating, avoid them like the plague they are. And remember the words you just said to me because you could have been talking about yourself.”
She gives me a look and a shrug that suggests she’s absolutely indifferent to the notion of dating. “My dad says I can’t date until I’m twenty-five.”
“Smart man,” Bridget and I both say together, forcing laughs from all of us.
“Besides… I think I like girls. But that stays between us.”
Well, that’s a bomb I didn’t see coming, and I wonder if her father knows that one.
“Our lips are sealed. But girls can go on blind dates with girls. Doesn’t change a thing, though admittedly, I’m a little jealous of you, Stella. Women are easier than men.”
“Have to agree with that,” Bridget jumps back in. “So help me push this along, Stella. I don’t want you to see your smart, fun, beautiful teacher get sucked into an anti-men vortex just because she’s newly divorced and wasn’t so happy before that. Am I right? She deserves to have some fun. Meet some new men. Good men,” she emphasizes. “Men who will treat her like the goddess she is.”
I snort out a laugh, leaning over to plant a kiss on my friend’s cheek. “Thank you for that.”
“She’s right,” Stella agrees, and I groan dramatically, sagging down in my chair. “You should go to that dinner party and meet some new people.”
She is right. They both are. But still. I’m just not there yet. At least with the dating part. I went from living in hell with a man I was constantly on eggshells around to sleeping with a guy who treats me like a rental car—there for his pleasure cruising, only to dispose of me when he’s done with the ride.
Single Elle is just fine. More than fine.
And I have a bad habit of growing attached like a stray cat you feed only once. It doesn’t take a therapist to figure out it’s because I got very little love or attention at home growing up. It’s part of what made me such easy pickings when David came along, though I’ll admit, at first, he was nothing short of Prince Charming, and I was his princess.
“Fine. You’ve both convinced me. I’ll go if you promise not to try to set me up. The last thing I want right now is a man. I’m working on me. I don’t have any desire to get involved with anyone.”
“It’s a deal. I won’t actively try to set you up.”
I roll my eyes, knowing just what that means.
“That’s perfect. Keep slicing the carrots like that.” I watch Stella for a second and nod. “Awesome stuff. I’m going to slice up the chicken because that’s the gross, boring part.” Raw meat—poultry especially—gives me the skeeves. “What made you want to garden and learn how to cook?”
“You’re going to think I’m lame.”
I turn my head over my shoulder and level my gaze at her. “I swear, I absolutely will not. If you tell me, I’ll tell you the truth about why I wanted to be a history professor.”
A barely detectable twitch of her lips builds my intrigue.
“When I was a baby, my parents used to call me the human garbage disposal because I would literally eat anything they gave me. It became a bit of a game with them. Everyone got in on it, even my grandparents’ chef, Sophia. My mom liked to cook, and the only memory I have of her—well, I’m not even sure it’s a real memory, maybe more something I’ve been told enough times that it feels like a memory, but I swear, I have flashes of it—I was standing on a chair in the kitchen when she was making dinner, and I kept stealing food off the counter and eating it whenever she wasn’t looking.” Her hands still as she stares down at the chopped vegetables spread out over the cutting board. “I don’t know. It makes me feel closer to her. I like growing things. Watching a tiny seed grow into life that can feed people. It’s fun. All of it is. Being in the greenhouse and growing food and cooking it.”
I swallow past a lump in my throat. “That’s not lame. That’s actually the least lame reason for doing something I’ve ever heard.”
Her bright eyes flicker over to me, yet another rare smile on her lips, and I can only hope that in doing this with her, I’ll be treated to more of them.
“Now you have to tell me.”
“Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?”
“The movie? No. It’s not really my thing.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. Otherwise, we can’t be friends. We’ll watch it one night. I swear, you’ll love it. But I was obsessed with those movies when I was younger. Indiana Jones is a history professor, but he also got to go on adventures and experience history. That was my dream.”
“But now you teach middle school.”
I laugh at the deadpan way she says that. She’s so like her father. “Now I teach middle school, which I enjoy more than I thought I would. Probably because I get to hang with some cool, smart kids.” I give her a hip bump. “But maybe one day I’ll go back to school and get my Ph.D. and I’ll be Doctor Wilde, adventurer.”
Now that I’m done with the chicken, I wash my hands, dry them, then add butter and olive oil to the large Dutch oven, showing Stella how I let it melt and then add the vegetables with some salt and pepper, sautéing them.
I hand her the slotted non-stick spoon, and she takes over, a quick study as she mimics my technique perfectly. “Where did you learn how to do this?”