“Natasha’s on the left near the back. You want your usual Caesar salad with shrimp?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She wove her way through the restaurant and slid into the booth across from her friend. “Hey, girl. Sorry I’m late. The office was beyond busy this morning. Did you order already?”

“I’ve only been here five minutes, and yes, I ordered. I come here so much, Ms. Bernice already knows what I want,” Natasha added with a laugh.

“I know. I love being able to eat someone else’s food for a change.”

“So, what’s up with you and Gabriel?”

Serenity stared at Natasha. “Okay, that was out of left field, and I don’t know what you mean.” She should have known something was up when Natasha wanted to change their typical Friday lunch date to Wednesday.

Natasha leaned forward. “You just met the man, and you were pretty frosty during dinner, especially with that crack about the corn being dry.”

Her friend knew her well and didn’t miss anything. “He’s the same guy from the grocery store.” And every time he’d seen her since then, he’d waved as if nothing had happened. She wondered why he was trying to be nice all of a sudden. He hadn’t even apologized.

“Ha! I knew it. But that still doesn’t tell me why you were all upset. He seems to be a nice guy, based on the conversation, so I can’t imagine he was purposely trying to be rude. And he even complimented you on how good the corn tasted.”

“Whose side are you on anyway?” Natasha didn’t say anything, just waited. Serenity let out a sigh. “Yes, he complimented the corn, but right after, he asked about putting bacon in it, as if how I’d prepared it wasn’t good enough.”

“I see. Serenity, Gabriel is not Lloyd, and I don’t think he meant it that way.”

Just the mention of her ex put a bad taste in Serenity’s mouth. “Maybe not, but it felt the same.” Over the year or so they’d dated, somehow it became less about them building a loving relationship and more about her cooking and playing hostess to his many parties and how she could have always done something a little better. Three months after their one-year anniversary, she’d had enough and ended it. “You’re probably right.” Had she automatically lumped Gabriel in with her ex when his comments could have been totally innocent? Reluctantly, she admitted to herself that might have been the case. I need to apologize.

“I talked to Andrea last night. She asked how dinner went. I told her it was fine. You might want to straighten things out with her brother before she calls, since you did kind of promise to help him out.”