Never Been Kissed

Ch.16 ↬ M

"Madeline and I are just going to use the bathroom," Raegan announced.

"Are we?" I asked. I'd never said I needed it.

"Yes, we are."

Without any other warning, Raegan gripped my arm and virtually dragged me off to the toilets inside Shake Shack. We'd all arrived at the same time, though Raegan had driven with Vincent and I'd driven with Josh, so this was the first proper interaction we were having tonight. We hadn't even been shown to a booth before we were traipsing to the bathroom, leaving both the guys utterly dumbfounded by Raegan's bizarre behaviour.

"What's going on?" I asked her as we pushed through the door to the girls' toilets.

As far as I knew, everything was okay between Raegan and Vincent again. They'd spoken through their differences and he'd agreed that he wasn't going to meet his ex-girlfriend and dredge up a heap of history that was better left buried in the past. So what was going on with her now?

"A little birdy told me that you're ditching your boyfriend tomorrow to hang with Josh," she said, waggling her eyebrows suggestively and pointing at me.

Figures that Josh would spill to Vincent and he'd pass the message along to Raegan. Not that I was mad, though, because I wasn't. It was expected and I had nothing to hide. I'd already called Noah and asked if we could reschedule for one night in the week. For the reason, I simply told him that I was celebrating with friends. When queried what we were celebrating, I was honest with telling him that it was for getting the secretary job at Tucker Constructions. He didn't seem to mind. Actually, he seemed happy for me and that we'd definitely make plans in the week.

Did he seem jealous? No, I don't think so. And he knew it was Josh I was referring to. And I also knew of Josh's meetings with all the new Kelly Industries IT technician employees. It seemed a little odd and possibly unorthodox for the CEO himself to be interviewing them personally, but I decided not to question it.

Josh was the one with the business knowledge. Not me.

And was Noah my boyfriend? I guess he was, though we'd never specifically labelled ourselves as boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe we should have the talk, I mused.

"I told Noah the truth that we're celebrating, and I've rescheduled with Noah for some time in the week. It's nothing, really." The flush was creeping up to my cheeks slowly under Raegan's smug expression and her gaze that never wavered from me.

"Okay, to clarify... you're cancelling a date with your boyfriend in order to spend some one-on-one time with your neighbour... who also attended three disturbing mothers' classes for you."

For a brief moment I was worried that she would broach the topic of when Josh completely abandoned his hook-up one night when I was trapped in a nightmare, screaming and hollering, and he was banging on my door. But Josh must have respected my privacy enough in that intimate moment that he refused to share the sordid details with Vincent and Raegan. For that I admired and respected him a little bit more.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"I promise I'm not reading anything into what I just said," Raegan said with a large bout of faux innocence, batting her eyelashes profusely at me.

Is that her method that works on Vincent? If so, he was in dire need of toughening up. He surrendered at the first sign of batting eyelashes? Raegan had him wrapped around her finger. Vincent was so utterly in love with Raegan, so it was no surprise there.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Uh-huh."

"Tell that to your face."