All Summer on a Date: Three Romantic Comedy Short Stories by Geralyn Corcillo Page A

to make this your best year yet. Love ya. Bye!”
    Summer tossed the phone aside and slipped off the dress. Wearing just the one boot, she flopped back onto her unmade bed.
     Best year yet? What about the year she'd gotten arrested and put in the same police car as Martin Sheen? That had been a pretty cool year. They had all been pretty cool years before—
    Before—
    Summer shut her eyes tight.
    No, she had to face it. She had to. It was time to move on with her life.
    Summer opened her eyes. Before last year, when Arturo died.
    She could still smell the paints and feel the warm sun beating down on her as she'd looked over just in time to see him drop. It had all been so stupid! So senseless! No damn health insurance, no medication for years. Summer hadn't know a thing about it until it was game over. And Arturo had loved life so damn much. He'd been as passionate as ever—they'd just started the project in Guatemala, he'd just found Gary ...
    Summer clenched her teeth, rapidly blinking away tears. Arturo was gone and she couldn't bring him back. But at least she had learned one last lesson from him. Summer vowed not to end up stranded and helpless, dead far too soon, all for lack of a safety net. So, she'd taken steps. She'd molted into The New Summer.
    The New Summer had a good job. The New Summer wore all the right clothes from all the right places. The New Summer made her monthly payments on time.
    She was toeing the line and reaping the benefits. Didn't her date to kick off The New Year prove that she'd turned a corner? Prove that her New Life was coming together, the personal and the professional converging deftly, smooth as porcelain? After all, as The New Summer, she'd gotten the chance to go head to head with the impossibly gorgeous marketing director. And she'd won.
    Jackpot.
     
    “You do realize that this is just for one issue.” Two days earlier, Kyle had followed Summer into her office, insisting on making his point. “It doesn't mean we go with your ideas from now on.”
    Summer had sailed across the room, smiling at the IT guy working at her computer. “Hi, Jeff,” she'd said to him, just before she'd turned on a dime to face Kyle. Leaning her butt against her desk, she'd effectively kept the marauding Kyle Hunter, God's Gift to Marketing, from surging any further into her territory.
    “Kyle, you're the marketing director and I'm the art director. We're equals. Neither one of us makes the final decisions.” Summer had picked up some mail off her desk and started rifling through it. “Callie's the editor, and she calls the shots. This time, she liked my concept better.” Summer had looked up then. “Why are we still talking about this?”
    Kyle had opened his mouth, then closed it, working the muscles in that chiseled jaw of his. “I just want to make it clear,” he'd said, standing at his full six feet plus, “that you don't know everything.”
    “I concur.” Summer had tossed aside the mail. “But I know a lot.” She'd kept her voice light, brushing him aside with a smile. “Now get out of my office.”
    “I'm sure you do know a lot,” he'd conceded, raising his brows in pure nonchalance. “Like who caught The Catch.”
    Summer had blinked up at him. Was he actually quizzing her? About the NFL? To one-up her?
    “If you don't know ...” Kyle hadn't even tried to hide his smug grin.
    “Dwight Clark.”
    Summer's softly spoken answer had made Kyle's mouth drop open, pulling the arrogance right out of his features.
    She'd let out a soft trill of laughter. “Now seriously, go away.” With a flick of her wrist, she'd shooed him out.
    Summer had turned to find the IT guy shaking his head as he smiled. His fingers had been flying over the computer keys, his eyes never leaving the screen in front of him.
    “What?” she'd asked.
    “He never would have asked you that if he knew your password.”
    Summer had laughed. “You mean my old password.”
    “ LTversusJaws. You clearly know your