“Andrew,” he and Patrick said at the same time, Jake with resignation, Patrick with amusement.

Sadly, she was not allowed to make herself pass out. The cushion was too porous for that anyway, she didn’t have any real trouble breathing through it. Which meant she ended up telling her friends everything that had happened since New Year’s Eve – thanks, Olivia. At least Kate had gotten her another hard root beer so she had something yummy to sip on while she spilled her guts.

Well, since Jake’s little sister was there she didn’t go into detail about everything... But she probably told them all more than he would be comfortable with. Oh well. It was his own damn fault for blowing their cover in front of everyone.

“Okay, but do you like him?” Angel asked when Sharon finally finished her recital of events. Melody was finally finished feeding and had fallen asleep in Angel’s arms, completely oblivious to the conversation happening over her head. That was one good baby.

“I mean... Now that he’s not a stick in the mud all the time... I mostly do,” Sharon admitted. Which was true. She felt like she could relax around him, something she couldn’t always say about the men she dated, but Jake already knew what she was like at her most obnoxious. There was no reason to hold back with him.

And it was kind of fun to see what he found annoying and what he found funny about her. Sometimes he even surprised her.

But she didn’t know if there could really be anything between them, because he was still exhaustingly obstinate a lot of the time. While he found some of her antics amusing, he disapproved of others. Sharon did try to put her best foot forward when she was dating someone, but she wasn’t going to change who she was for them in the long run. Jake didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be okay with her outspoken ways for the long-haul.

Heck, they hadn’t even been out in public together except in group settings, where he’d often seemed embarrassed by her.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she said warningly, pointing her finger at all of her friends in turn. “This is not going to be some kind of cutesy, we’re the last two single people so we get together type thing. I’m not going to settle for a guy just because he’s the only other single person in my group of friends.”

Lexie bristled defensively. “Why would my brother be someone you have to ‘settle’ for?”

“Because I’m pretty sure he’d see himself as settling for me,” Sharon explained, not at all bothered by Lexie’s automatic reaction. It was to be expected. “Any guy that sees himself as settling because he’s with me is a guy that I just settled for.”