All Summer on a Date: Three Romantic Comedy Short Stories Read Online Free PDF

choice.”
    “Well, I don't have a scarf or hanky or anything to toss to you, so I guess I'll just feed you instead. If you want to come home with me,” she offered, “I'll cook for you.” But then she took a step back. “I mean, unless you just want to get home. I mean, to your home. You don't—”
    “Summer,” he interrupted. “I'm starved. Let's go.”
     
    “How's this for starters?” Summer led Jeff into her hallway of a kitchen. “I can put on a pot of coffee, and then we can get changed and warm up.” She turned to face him. “Or do you want hot chocolate?”
    “Uh,” Jeff looked around the kitchen as if he'd never been in one before. “Both? I mean, can we mix them together?”
    Summer's eyes brightened. “Perfect.”
    She turned to the coffee pot and took filters from the cupboard just above. “And I can cook you up a swordfish steak. My parents sent me some for Christmas.”
    “No, thanks.”
    Summer glanced at him. “Oh. You don't like fish?”
    “I'm a vegetarian.”
    Summer's brows shot up as her mouth opened in a big smile. “Cool! Me, too. I make killer mac and cheese.”
    “Great.” Jeff leaned against the counter and watched her fill the coffee pot with water. “You're a vegetarian, but your parents sent you fish ?”
    “They don't think fish counts.”
    Jeff laughed. “Summer, you need to let your hair down.”
    Summer turned to him, splaying her two open palms over the sticky mess on her head. “I do?”
    “Definitely.” He reached forward, and slid one long pin out of her hair. Then he slid out the other pin. He stepped back, looking at her.
    Summer stuck her hands into her hair and messed it up even more until the gooey mass shifted down toward her shoulders. “Okay,” she said, “now what?”
    Jeff laughed again, throwing his hands up in the air. “Just shout it out. 'I'm Summer Hodiak and I don't eat cows or chickens or pigs or fishes or … or shrimp!”
    “Or tomatoes,” she called out. “I hate tomatoes.”
    “'Or tomatoes!'”
    When they both stopped laughing, Summer leaned her butt against the counter and folded her arms. “I try,” she told him. “You know? I have all these rational, logical thoughts lined up in my head. But then, when they start talking to me, my family ... Suddenly I just feel like a stupid twelve year-old. I can't say anything coherent.” She looked at him then. “Know what I mean?”
    “Uh … yeah.”
    “Your family's like that, too?”
    “Nah,” he said. “My family's cool.”
    “Then who can't you talk to?”
    He looked at Summer, then blinked. “Women.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Duh.”
    “Women?”
    “Yeah,” he assured her, turning to tidy up her trail, shutting cupboard doors and swiping away errant coffee grounds. “I'll know exactly what smart, charming thing to say, but then I'll walk up to her and say something lame like, 'Yeah, I have that one in tangerine.'”
    Summer laughed. “You have what that's tangerine?'”
    “When I was in college, there was this awesomely cute girl checking out an iBook in the campus store, so I go up to her. But all I manage to say is, 'Yeah, I have that one in tangerine.'”
    “Well … I wasn't exactly Don Juan in college either,” Summer offered.
    “Yeah, but ten years later, I'm not much better.”
    “Not true.” Summer reached into the fridge for the milk. “You've never had any trouble talking to me .” She turned back to look at him, setting the milk on the counter. “Not at Consequence , not tonight. Never.”
    “That's different.”
    “Why?”
    “You talk to me like a normal person,” he answered. “You have from the beginning.”
    Summer scrunched her face. “I do what?”
    “The first day we met,” he explained, “I walked into your office. You jumped up from your desk and said, 'You must be the man who's here to help me.' Summer, nobody ever refers to me like that.”
    “As someone who helps them?”
    “As a man ,” he countered. “You came up to