After sitting quietly for a few minutes working through the best way to say I’m sorry I kissed you without making it seem like there was any reason why anyone wouldn’t be thrilled to be kissing someone like Rohan, someone sat beside her. Someone who wasn’t Rohan.

“Hi, Kamila!”

“Oh. Hey, Dane.”

“Great to see you here tonight. Alone. You usually have so many friends with you,” he said.

Kamila frowned. To be perfectly honest, while she was still holding out for a match between Maricel and Dane, she wasn’t really in the mood for his brand of butt kissing right now.

She ran her hand through her hair. “I’m actually meeting someone.”

He wagged his eyebrows for a reason Kamila couldn’t decipher. He was sitting a little closer than she’d have liked, and he smelled like beer. Alone at the park on a Wednesday night smelling like a brewery? She frowned again. Had she been wrong in thinking Dane was an upstanding potential boyfriend for her friend?

“A date?” he asked.

“No, not a date.” She didn’t want to mention she was meeting Rohan, because then she’d hear more brownnosing about Rohan’s brilliance. “Just a planning meeting for some work I’m doing for a nonprofit. What are you up to?”

“Nothing. I still don’t have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. My nights are pretty lonely. I assumed meeting you would mean I would have a more active social life.”

Okay, that was rude. Kamila had been inviting this man to her Bollywood parties for weeks and had introduced him to all her friends. What more did he want from her? “You could have called Maricel—she’s working days at the shelter this week. You could have gone to a movie or something.”

He inched closer. “Or I could have called you,” he said.

Her nose wrinkled as she tried to inch away. “I’ve been really busy lately…”

He only inched closer again. His hand landed on her knee. “Did I mention how great it is to see your gorgeous face alone, without your whole squad…finally?”

Holy shoe leather…Dane was totally coming on to her. She removed his hand from her knee. This was because he was drunk. She should divert his attention back to where it belonged. “I mean, I’m not bad, but nowhere close to Maricel. Didn’t she look stunning on Friday night? You love her in pink, right?”

He jerked back. “Really—Maricel? Why would I notice a Maricel when there is a Kamila in the room?” He smiled and leaned close, his hand finding her knee again. Ugh. He wasn’t even good at this.

Kamila’s mind jumbled as she froze, panicked. She had to stop this—now. “Maricel! You printed a picture of her!”