“Oh, no. Am I going to like this?”
“You need judges for your new show, right?”
“You want to judge a savory cooking challenge?”
“No, not me. Although if you did a pastry edition of the show, I hope I’m your first phone call.”
Aaron laughed. “All right. Or better yet, you shouldcompete.”
“I still don’t think I’d be good on TV, but we’re not talking about me.”
“Sure, sure. Who should I hire?”
“Lindsay.”
“Your ex-girlfriend Lindsay? The woman you’re trying to woo back Lindsay?”
“Yes. That Lindsay.”
“Really.”
“Can you do it? Not just for me, but because she’s theForum’s food editor and a long-time restaurant critic with a culinary degree and is therefore very qualified.” He glanced at Lindsay, who stared back at him with her eyebrows raised.
“I mean, yeah, I can do that. We’re actively recruiting judges right now, actually.”
Brad gave Lindsay a thumbs-up. The expression on her face was pure joy. He wanted to take a picture and frame it. She hadn’t looked at him like that in five years.
“Let me just look at my schedule,” said Aaron.
Ten minutes later, Lindsay was all set up with a date to report for filming.
“This is perfect,” she said. “Getting my face on TV will be great publicity for theForum, plus I can write a little preview of the show for the website and hopefully get some clicks. People love food competition shows.”
Brad slipped his phone back into his pocket and spread his arms. “Who came through for you, babe?”
“All right, all right. You did me a solid. But this doesn’t mean anything.”
Brad begged to differ. She had come to him when she could have gone to one of their other classmates or to Will, for that matter. Evan’s boyfriend must know a lot of food people. But she’d come to Brad. And, well, he didn’t regret calling in this favor, because he wanted to do something nice for her, and the expression on her face for those few seconds had been reward enough.
Of course, he had an ulterior motive. He liked having made her happy, but he also liked being able to do a favor for her, something for which she’d be grateful. That was, he wanted to help her, but he also wanted her to trust him again. Or for the first time, maybe. She’d asked him for something, and he’d come through for her.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” he confirmed. “It’s one friend doing a nice thing for another friend.”
“Friend?”
“I mean, are we friends? At least?”
She frowned. “Yeah, okay. But don’t get a big head about it.”
He just smiled at her.
She looked at him and smiled, almost like she didn’t want to. “I’m going to be a judge on a Food Channel show! I’m going to be on TV! That’s so exciting!”
Brad laughed, appreciating her excitement. “You’ll be great. You know a ton about food. You certainly knew how to tell the chef at Pepper that his food was flavorless and terrible using a lot of clever wordplay.”
Lindsay nodded, still smiling. “This is so awesome. You came through better than I hoped. I can’t wait to tell my boss.”
“What are friends for?”
