The Cinderella Project (A Comedy of Love, #1) by Stan Crowe

the rhythm of evening traffic. Hopefully, things would look better in the morning. If nothing else, some calm, alone time was required. It was going to take something heavy duty to pull her out of this funk.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    “Hello?”
    “Um, er… ah… Samantha?”
    “Nick?”
    “Maybe?”
    “Hi, Nick. Did you… need something?”
    “Uh, do you… do you wear dresses?”
    “Yes… .”
    “Can you drink punch?”
    “Nick? What’s this all about?”
    “Ah… there’s this… kind of… dance… thingy?”
    “Nick, there really are better ways to ask me to Homecoming you know.”
     
    Morning brought a chance at redemption. The mail was on the table and I absently leafed through the handful of envelopes. The junk mail was tossed without a second glance. Bills were paid immediately, but I cringed as I thought of the bite those bills were taking out of my bank account. When the checks were ready to be mailed, I examined the last two pieces of mail. The first was from Gatekeeper Bridal, a formalwear shop Ella had fallen in love with. Gatekeeper was over an hour away, but it was “her” store now and she had insisted that I rent my tuxedo from them despite the fact that we had several perfectly acceptable options right in our own backyard. Furthermore, she took the old notion of “it’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding” to a new level; she insisted that neither of us see each other in our wedding attire before the ceremony itself. I’d have to take care of my tux entirely without her. That suited me just fine.
    I opened the mailer. It was a cream-colored envelope with a professional looking missive informing me that my fitting appointment needed to be changed and would I please call to confirm? I dialed the number and after some discussion with a saleslady, we settled on the third Monday in August at 3:00 pm. I jotted the new appointment on the mailer, slipped it into my back pocket and entered a reminder into my phone. I promptly forgot about it.
    The final envelope was from the Psychology Department. Upon opening it, the official letterhead and fancy script jumped out at me like Courier John on a caffeine high. Let’s read.
     
    Dear Doctoral Student,
     
    The Department of Psychology is holding a banquet for all graduate students who have reached their final semester-worth of course work. Our records show that you are one of these students. We would be pleased if you would join us from 6:00 pm–9:00 pm, Friday, August 1 st in the Room 103 of the Pendleton Building.
     
    Dress is semi-formal-to-formal and is free of charge. A live band will also be featured and a dance floor will be provided for those interested.
     
    R.S.V.P. no later than 5:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 29 th . You are welcome to bring one guest. Please, no children.
     
    This was perfect—a ready-made date with free food and an excuse for Ella to get really dolled up. Fate had just handed me a slam dunk. The date didn’t even interfere with August’s family reunion. I filed my mail in the wooden box I had for that kind of thing and thought about the best way to broach this subject. Ella didn’t always cool off quickly.
    I may only get one chance to make this right .
    I made some breakfast and pondered my battle plan over a bowl of Cheerios. When I had settled on a strategy, I grabbed my phone and ordered a dozen red roses from a local florist. I wanted to bite a finger off when the florist quoted me a same-day shipping price, but I knew Ella had a weakness for flowers. Unless I wanted to do a covert operation to win her affection, this was probably my only shot at conquest. I took note of when the order was likely to arrive and thanked the girl on the phone. I hung up and prayed my gambit would take.
    In the meantime, I went to campus and logged a few hours of work. I pretended to ignore Moiré’s absence, splitting my attention between work and hoping Ella would warm to my advances. I must have checked my watch two