The Blind Date by Landish, Lauren (suggested reading .txt) 📕

a ten-minute head start to get dressed and maybe get to the sporting goods store a half-mile down the road so I can get a mouthpiece before he tries to kill me.

Dental hygiene is important to me.

I chuckle again, knowing that the hilarity is a symptom of my nerves, so I take a deep breath before opening the door. I walk down the short hallway, expecting to find one of three things. Either Arielle and Riley are glaring at each other, one of them is standing over the other’s bloody body, or there’s a silently crying Riley, ready to blame me for fucking up her life.

Instead, the first sound I hear is Raffy running toward me, and then . . .

“Well, now, he does dress up nicely, I guess,” Arielle says sharply.

Okay, they’re both alive, there are no tears, and they’re looking at . . . me. Which must mean I’m the dead man walking.

I stop, looking at Arielle and Riley sitting together at her small kitchen table. Riley’s wearing a fluffy bathrobe, white with yellow suns on it, that actually looks pretty damn adorable on her, while Arielle looks furious, stirring a cup of coffee as though she’s calculating whether the living room rug will roll around my dead body twice or three times.

“I . . . uh . . . fuck.”

“Yeah, Riley was telling me that’s pretty much what you two did last night,” Arielle snaps, getting up and coming over to poke me in the chest. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Wait.

So she kept her cool the entire time with Riley, adding cream and sugar to a fresh cup of coffee like they were just catching up on the gossip, only to blow up at me the second she lays eyes on me?

“Arielle, I don’t think —”

“No, you don’t.”

Raffy decides now’s the time to jump in on this argument, yipping and barking at my shins. I look to Riley for help, but she lifts an eyebrow, her eyes wide and lips pressed together. Maybe she’s getting a kick out of how ridiculous I look getting cussed out by my baby sister and her fluffy cockblocker while wearing a makeshift blanket toga.

Not that Arielle’s backing down. “Noah, I know you’re not perfect, but I never dreamed you’d be the type to . . . what do you even call this?” she bites out, waving her hands around menacingly. “Sport-fuck my best friend?”

That gets to me, and I bend down to get right back in my sister’s face. “I’m not here for that!” I growl, staring her down because there is zero chance that I’m going to let Riley hear that shit. Especially since it’s completely untrue. “We’re not fucking. We’re dating.”

Arielle freezes, looking back and forth, her finger pointing along with her eyes. “Wait, are you saying you two are . . . dating? For real?”

“That’s literally what I said,” I tell Arielle again, hoping it sinks in this time and she doesn’t keep spouting off insulting shit.

Riley gets up, and the small shrug she gives to Arielle as she comes to my side is like a punch in the gut. I want her to be proud to be with me, but I get that she’s nervous.

But I can be proud enough for the both of us.

I pull Riley to my side, placing my hand on her hip possessively, and kiss the top of her head. And then I glare at Arielle, daring her to say one ugly word.

Riley is finding her strength. Not that she ever lost it, but this morning’s been weird. I mean, we’re standing here half-naked in bed linens with my sister, explaining ourselves, so I can give Riley some slack on needing a second to catch up.

“Yes. For real. He’s Mr. Ninety-Six Percent,” Riley tells Arielle. “We started talking, not realizing who we were talking to.”

Arielle thinks for a moment, then grins, looking at me with newfound realization. “Noah Mark Daniels . . .”

“Yeah, was trying to do QA-QC for the app, so I signed up. I didn’t . . . well, I didn’t expect to meet anyone. Let alone Riley.”

“I so need the full story on this,” Arielle says, “because I was there that first night. And I remember seeing the way your eyes lit up reading about this hottie named Mark. When you didn’t say too much about it afterward, I figured you’d dropped him. But now . . . I’m not walking out the door until I get the details.”

“Can it wait until I get my clothes back on?” I ask, gesturing to my toga. “This is not my best look.”

“No, I think this is something I should’ve known a long time ago,” Arielle says, and I can hear the faintest sense of hurt blooming from our keeping this from her.

“Arielle, I’m commando under here.”

Raffy looks up and barks. “Rowf!”

I cup my cock through the blanket, not trusting it to be enough if Raffy decides he’s hungry. And he’s always hungry. “Can one of you feed the dog too? I don’t trust him not to bite my ass or other important parts.”

Riley rubs at the exposed part of my chest. “I like your important parts.”

“Gag!” Arielle interrupts loudly, drawing our attention to ask again, “So this is for real?”

“Yeah,” I tell Arielle, but I’m looking into Riley’s eyes. “It’s real.”

* * *

“Well, I still can’t believe it,” Arielle says a half-hour later as we sit around the kitchen table. At least we’re all dressed now. “I mean, Noah . . . charming? Funny? You sure you didn’t hire a social media manager, Bro?”

I take a sip of coffee, trying not to glare. “I am charming and funny.”

There’s a moment of utter stillness and then Arielle laughs. “Now that’s funny.”

But she’s putting the pieces together. “So you messaged Mark that night, and you’ve been talking ever since? Dating and going out?”

“About that—” I start, thinking now is the perfect time to ask Arielle about her own dating escapades. She’s giving me a hard time, but she’s no saint either. Though she’s not dating my best friend. Or at least I hope she’s not.

Riley cuts me off, giving me