Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
W arren was halfway across the car park when he rooted in his pockets for his keys.
He pulled out his phone and the slip of paper from the waitress, then had a mild panic that he’d lost his keys before remembering he’d asked Anna to stash them in her bag.
Turning, he shivered in the freezing air and took the front steps two at a time.
Anna and her friends were no longer sitting at the table and his eyes scanned the room, looking for them. He stopped short when he spotted Anna dancing with Hayden.
Internally, he grumbled about how it hadn’t taken Hayden long to take Warren’s place beside Anna. The creep had his hand very low on her back, too.
After taking a few steps, Warren stopped again. Anna looked pretty comfortable with her face touching Hayden’s. Warren’s chest tightened at the sight.
If she’d brought him to make her ex jealous, it seemed to have done the trick. He felt the muscles in his jaw tense as he watched them sway together.
He caught the moment Hayden looked his way and saw the flash of guilt in his features. Not that the idiot seemed overly concerned.
Warren crossed the dance floor and had almost reached them when Anna spotted him. Her surprise at the sight of him was quickly replaced by irritation.
“What are you doing?” she hissed quietly. “I thought you were leaving.”
“Clearly.” Pointedly, he looked at her fingers, which were entwined with her ex-boyfriend’s.
Hayden stepped in front of Anna. “It’s probably best if you do leave,” he said, his quiet tone not disguising the hint of a threat.
Frowning in confusion, Warren looked to Anna.
“Please just go,” she said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He wanted to point out that he didn’t have his keys, but somehow that felt irrelevant. What on earth had happened in the last three minutes?
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Hayden took another step between them. “She’s upset. Just leave it for now.”
“Why are you upset?” He kept his eyes on Anna and resisted the urge to physically move Hayden out of his way.
“It’s okay.” Anna put a hand on Hayden’s arm as she stepped around him. “Just give us a minute.” She pulled on Warren’s elbow and led him off the dance floor.
“What’s going on?” he asked before they’d got far.
She spoke out of the corner of her mouth. “They saw you with the waitress.”
“So?” At the edge of the dance floor, he turned to face her.
“So you took her number,” she snapped at about the same time he noticed her friends had followed them.
“Are you okay?” Kylie asked, moving to stand beside Anna.
When Frannie took up position at her other side, Warren couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or amused by how protective they were.
“I didn’t take her number,” he said, taking a step towards Anna.
He could just about feel her male friends breathing down his neck.
“We all saw you,” one of them said. He didn’t bother turning to see who it was. Partly because he couldn’t drag his eyes from Anna, who looked genuinely upset.
In fairness, the whole point of him being there was so they didn’t feel sorry for her being alone. Having her supposed new boyfriend chatting up a waitress in front of them probably wasn’t helpful.
With his eyes locked on hers, he fumbled in his pocket and drew out the paper.
“It’s not her number,” he said, holding it out. “I was asking about the sauce with the duck. She said she didn’t dare ask the chef because he was so busy, but she gave me the details of his YouTube channel.”
Anna looked at the paper, then angled it to show her friends.
“He does have a YouTube channel,” Frannie said, wincing. “It’s really good.”
“Great,” Warren said through gritted teeth. “Can you all stop looking at me as though I’m the devil?”
“Sorry,” Jake said, moving to his side and clapping him on the back. “We may have jumped to conclusions there.”
“Obviously.” He could see how it had looked dodgy. It genuinely hadn’t entered his head that anyone would think that, though. “Why on earth would I flirt with the waitress?” he said, looking Anna up and down and not caring about the way she squirmed under his scrutiny.
“Sorry,” Frannie said, grimacing as she ushered the rest of them away .
“Oh my god,” Anna whispered, covering her face with her hand. “That was so awkward.”
“Awkward how fast your ex made a move,” Warren muttered.
“He didn’t make a move,” she said, but didn’t look as though she even believed it herself. “He was just concerned.”
“Was that the plan all along?” Warren asked, trying to keep his voice level. “To make him jealous?”
“No.” She shook her head but looked unsure of herself.
“It doesn’t matter either way,” he said. “It just would’ve been nice to know.”
“I wasn’t trying to make him jealous. I didn’t really think that would be possible.” Her eyes flicked across to her group of friends. She swallowed hard when her attention shifted back to Warren. “How come you came back?”
“You have my car key.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, and she took her handbag from her shoulder. “Yeah, I do.”
“Couldn’t get far without that,” he said, shoving it into his pocket. “It’s a good job I came back, anyway. Did you really think I’d taken the waitress’s phone number?”
Slowly, she nodded. “Obviously, you’re free to chat up whoever you want. It would just be better if you didn’t do it in front of my friends, since they really believe you’re my boyfriend.”
He blew out a breath. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. I should never have lied to my friends. This whole charade is ridiculous.”
“I think we did an excellent job of convincing them,” he said, smiling at her.
“A bit too good. It might have been better if you had taken the waitress’s number. At least that would save me from having to make up an excuse about why we broke up.”
“You could just wait a couple of weeks and then tell them you had to dump me because the sex was too good… claim you couldn’t focus on anything else and it was messing up your life.”
She snorted a laugh and called him an idiot.
“So am I forgiven for speaking to the waitress?”
“I wasn’t annoyed with you for speaking to her,” she protested. “Just for making me look even more pathetic in front of my friends.”
“I don’t think any of them think you’re pathetic,” he said and meant it.
“Sorry they all turned on you.”
“You’re smirking,” he said. “Which makes me think you’re not really sorry at all.”
“It was just quite funny now that I think about it.”
He rolled his eyes, then shrugged his coat off and slung it over the back of the nearest chair.
“I thought you were leaving,” Anna said, but thankfully didn’t look concerned that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I can’t leave now.” He slipped his fingers into hers. “Your friends think I upset you. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t stay and make it up to you?”
“They know it was a misunderstanding,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow. “Are you going to dance with me or not?”
A slow smile spread over her face. “Go on, then.”