Operation Date Escape

the air around her, teasing her sleepy senses.
    “Hello?”
    “Morning,” Kelsie muttered.
    Nanci laughed on the other end of the line. “I can’t help but notice there was no ‘good’ in your morning.”
    “Sorry. I haven’t had my daily caffeine fix yet.” She wasn’t about to tell her friend that her irritability was really due to having lost several nights’ sleep now thanks to a certain firefighter.
    “Well, don’t even think about picking me up until you’ve gotten your fix.”
    “Don’t worry, ” she told her. “It’s brewing as we speak.”
    “Good. You need to be in top form today. You should see all the sales going on at the mall.”
    Kelsie pulled a knife from the kitchen drawer and began spreading peanut butter in a thick layer across her toast. “You’ve already been out to get a paper?”
    “Are you kidding? Even I don’t venture out that early. It’s my neighbor’s paper. I borrowed it.”
    Yawning sleepily, Kelsie grabbed a coffee cup from the mug tree on the counter. “You stole your neighbor’s paper?”
    “I didn’t steal anything. It’s like a ride share only involving the newspaper instead.”
    “I’m not sure that theory would hold up in a court of law if the guy presses charges,” she told her with a grin as she filled her cup to the top with steaming hot coffee.
    “Oh, hell, Johnny’s not going to even notice the rest of the paper’s gone.”
    Kelsie bit into her toast. “The rest?”
    “I left him the sport’s section. That’s all he cares about.”
    Nanci was right. Her neighbor was an ex-college football player who lived and breathed everything sports. And seeing as how he lived in sweats, she couldn’t imagine him having any need of department store ads.
    “I need to finish eating before I jump in the shower.”
    “All right ,” Nanci replied, a little too chirpily for Kelsie’s liking. “I’ll let you go.”
    “See you in a n hour.”
    * * *
    T hree cups of coffee later, Kelsie eased her blue Ford Mustang up to the curb in front of Nanci’s house. Nanci was outside and heading toward the car before she ever had a chance to blow the horn to let her friend know she was there.
    A stack of sale flyers tucked in the crook of her arm and her cross body ‘shopping’ purse in place, Nanci was in shop until you drop mode. She rounded the car and swung open the passenger door, popping her head in with a smile. “Hi.”
    “Hi back. ”
    She settled onto the passenger seat, laying the store ads on her lap while she buckled her seatbelt. “Hope you wore comfy shoes. This is no shopping trip for the fainthearted.”
    Oh, goody. “Can’t wait,” she told Nanci with a forced smile. “By the way, not one word to my mother about my date.”
    Nanci flashed a toothy, know-it-all smile. “Are you referring to the date you’ve agreed to go on with Worthington Fire Department’s calendar hunk?”
    “Yes. That’s information my mother really doesn’t need to know.”
    “My lips are sealed,” she said, running pinched fingers across the seam of her mouth.
    She could only be so lucky. Kelsie smiled. “Thanks.”
    “At least around your mom,” Nanci added as she settled back against her seat. “They’ll be fully functioning tonight when I see the man I love.”
    Kelsie’s head snapped around. “ Love?”
    Her friend nodded.
    “You mean lust?”
    “That, too?”
    Nanci had never used the word ‘love’ when referring to any man. “Who?”
    “Joe.”
    “Cole’s friend?”
    She sighed softly. “That’s him. Killer blue eyes. Nice ass. We talked on the phone for about two hours last night after you left.”
    “Just talked?” she asked as she pulled out onto the street.
    Nanci smiled. “It was a phone date.”
    She couldn’t resist. “As in phone sex kind of phone date?”
    Her friend clicked her tongue. “You know me better than that. I never sleep with a guy on our first phone call.”
    “But you wanted to.”
    “You have no idea. That’s not saying things didn’t get hot and heavy.”
    “I’ve never seen you like this before.
    “That’s because I’ve never met anyone quite like Joe before.”
    Kelsie laughed. “Something tells me he’s never met anyone like you before either.”
    “What can I say? I’m one of a kind.”
    “You’ll get no argument from me on that statement.”
    “Hey,” Nanci said excitedly , “maybe the four of us can go out together sometime. You and Cole. Me and Joe.”
    “I wouldn’t hold