Storm Swept

"Sorry," I said to Lucy and Jase, digging my phone from my pocket. I flipped it open and stepped next door into the office for privacy. "Hey."
"Hey. Got your text a couple of hours ago," Carly whispered. "But I just found a chance to call."
"No problem. I wanted to tell you I'm already at Lucy's. She needed me early."
"What about your date tomorrow night?"
I groaned. "Crap. I totally forgot about Nick. Better call him, huh?"
"I'll say."
"Remind me why I agreed to go out with him...."
"He's hot, he asked, and you wanted Chris to get the message that you're over him."
"I remember now." Chris Norwood, a guy I started dating the summer before my senior year, cheated on me the following Christmas with a friend of mine. I should've seen it coming, I guess. He'd been acting weird for a few weeks--annoyingly territorial and accusatory--actions Abby, a newly-licensed psychologist, told me often indicated cheating. Though I'd been bummed for a couple of months, my mom had been thrilled. She didn't want me to fall in love until I completed my education, something neither of my sisters had managed. "I don't understand why he's started calling me again."
"I do. You dropped twenty-five pounds and got over him."
"Whatever."
"Oops." The line went dead, telling me Carly's boss caught her. With a sigh, I called Nick.
"Hello, sexy," he said.
Ew. I heard electronic beeps, dings, and whizzes in the background, which told me he was at the video arcade where he worked. "Hi, Nick. I have to break our date. My sis called me for help, so I'm in Shreveport."
"The one that's knocked up?"
"Yes."
"Bummer, babe. When will you be back?"
"Six weeks, maybe longer. I'm summer chef of her new bed and breakfast inn, remember? I'm sure we talked about it."
"Oh, yeah. Shit. That sucks."
Only for you, I wanted to say since I couldn't wait to get to work.
"Keep in touch, will ya?"
"Sure," I lied. Nick might be hot, as Carly said, but his obsession with his hair annoyed the heck out of me. I swear the guy couldn't pass anything shiny without checking his look. I wasn't a bit sorry I'd miss our date.
I shut my phone and joined Jase and Lucy in the kitchen. "Sorry about that. I left Dallas so fast I didn't get a chance to tell everyone. So where were we?"