Chapter 5 #2
“Really? Which one? Was it Glendale High? Is she a Dynamiter?”
“I . . . um . . .” I stammer, trying to think of an answer.
I could throttle Luke. His presence has got me so flustered that I’m making up stories and not paying attention to my very handsome date.
I need him to leave.
I make a snap decision, holding up a finger at Tanner. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “Can you give me a minute?”
“Of course,” he says.
I stand up from my seat. “I’ll be right back.”
I have no plan as I walk to Luke’s table, so I just say whatever comes out of my mouth.
“Hi there,” I say to Luke’s date. “Do you mind if I talk to this guy for a second?” I gesture with my hand at his stupid smug face.
The redheaded woman’s eyes go wide at my interruption. “Is everything okay?” she asks, looking at Luke and then back at me.
“No,” I tell her. “His . . . car is being towed.”
“Towed?” she asks, looking toward the entrance.
“Yes,” I say, grabbing Luke by the arm and yanking on it until he stands. “He’ll be right back.”
I drag him toward the restroom, hoping to find an empty hallway or somewhere we can talk privately. But there isn’t one, so I do the next best thing and march him into one of the unisex bathrooms, locking the door behind us.
“Listen, Archie, if you wanted to get me alone, you could have just asked,” Luke says once the door shuts, his lips pulled up into a smile that says he’s enjoying this far too much.
“Oh, shut up,” I say, suddenly aware that I just locked us in a bathroom. Together.
“What are you doing here?” I ask in pointed low tones. Enough for him to hear me and understand that I’m mad, but not loud enough that someone outside the door would call the police.
He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m on a date.”
“At Marlowe’s?”
“I like their chicken.”
“No one goes to Marlowe’s for the chicken.”
He tucks his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “Well, I do.”
“Who told you we would be here?”
“We?” He looks around the bathroom.
I fold my arms. “Come on, Luke.”
He rubs his jaw. “I have my sources.”
“And so you just thought you could show up here and, what? Try to sabotage the photo op?”
“I just wanted to see what you had up your sleeve with this stunt.”
It’s my turn to shrug. “No stunt here. That’s the kind of thing you do. It’s just dinner with friends.”
This is sort of the truth. But it’s not like I’m going to share my tactics with Luke.
“Sure,” he says, drawing out the word.
He takes a step closer, and I have to look up to meet his gaze. “Why are you here then, Arch? Do you always babysit your clients?”
“I’m on a date,” I say.
“You’re mixing business with pleasure? I thought you didn’t date coworkers,” he says with a chin lift toward the dining room where I left Tanner.
“That’s not my coworker. I’m on a date date,” I say, trying not to show how surprised I am that he remembered that policy of mine.
His brow pinches. “At Marlowe’s?”
“Shut up,” I say. Then, because he feels too close and this room suddenly feels too small, I take a step back.
“Can you just leave?” I ask.
“No. I already ordered the chicken.”
I let out a noise that’s a cross between a harrumph and a growl. “You’re insufferable.”
“I’ve been called worse,” he says, holding his hands up, palms out.
“Just go away,” I say, stalking toward the door, my heels clicking on the black-and-white tile floor.
He starts to follow me out, but I turn back to him. “I’m leaving this bathroom first. Then you count to ten before you leave.”
“Should I untuck my shirt? Muss my hair?”
I scrunch my face. “You wish.”
Then I open the door and walk out. I count to ten in my head as I go back to my table, and just as I hit the last number, I hear the bathroom door open behind me.
At least he can take some instruction.
“Sorry about that,” I say before taking my seat across from my date.
“No problem,” Tanner says, giving me a warm smile. It’s such a contrast to the smug one Luke was just giving me.
I’m not going to waste another minute of this date thinking about that jerk.
Our food comes not long after that, and Tanner and I settle into a nice discussion over dinner, and I keep my focus on him and not freaking Luke Wilder.
And it is a nice discussion. But that’s it.
Just . . . nice. Which is annoying, because from what I’ve seen of Tanner so far, he’s checking all the boxes.
Funny, thoughtful, a great listener, successful.
Someone I could definitely go on date number two with.
But there’s also something that’s just not working.
I can’t put my finger on what it is, exactly, but it’s there.
He knows it too, because after Bailey and crew have left the restaurant, and Luke too—after giving me a lazy salute on his way out the door—Tanner walks me to my car, and I get the feeling that this a one and done for both of us.
“Thanks for meeting me tonight,” he says as we approach my car and I unlock it with my key fob, the headlights and taillights flashing in response.
“Thanks for asking me out,” I tell him.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks, his eyes on me.
“Sure,” I say.
“Was it me? Or were you distracted at dinner?”
“Oh,” I say, realizing that, along with all the qualities that I like about Tanner, he’s also perceptive. And here I thought I was doing a good job of ignoring Luke. But I guess my wandering eyes were more obvious than I thought.
It’s just like Luke to ruin what could have been a perfectly good date.
“I’ve just got some work stuff on my mind, that’s all.” It’s the truth. Mostly. Well, I can’t say: I’ve just got some other guy on my mind, but don’t worry, it’s not what you’re thinking. I actually hate him.
“I understand,” he says. He takes a few steps away, pulling his car keys from his pocket. “Maybe we can do this again sometime when you’re not so busy with work.”
Translation: Have a nice life, Claire.
“Yeah,” I say. “Definitely.”
I give him a wave, and he turns around and heads to his car, and that will be the last I see of Tanner.
Back at home I’m sprawled out on the green couch, looking at the dinner photos of Bailey and friends on my phone, Sam sitting on the other end. I’ve just given her the whole rundown of dinner. The date that could have been, and Luke showing up and ruining it.
“It’s weird to hear you talk about Luke Wilder again,” she says.
“What?” I ask her, confused.
“You used to all the time. Luke this and Luke that.” She bobs her head back and forth. “And now he’s back in the conversation with the handoff thingy the other day and all the texting and now Marlowe’s tonight.”
“Are you serious? I never talked about him before.”
I’m sure I mentioned him a time or two back when we worked together, and surely when he left. But “all the time” seems like an exaggeration.
“You did,” she says. “I used to tease you.”
I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.”
She contemplates that. “Maybe it was just in my head.”
“How nice,” I say, my tone flat.
“But then you never brought him up again.”
“Well, he left and took my client,” I remind her.
“Yes, but what about the voicemail? Maybe there was more to the story.”
“Well, I deleted that,” I remind her. “So we’ll never know.”
“That’s so annoying.”
It is annoying. Even more annoying is that I can’t figure out what he meant by things he probably shouldn’t have said.
“Are we going to watch this show, or what?” she asks. She points the remote toward the TV, the next episode of Kingdom of Flame and Moonlight pulled up and ready to go, an artsy picture of Kaelric and Elora gazing longingly at each other, frozen on the screen.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Just let me scroll through a couple more posts.”
The pictures of Bailey, looking happy and surrounded by friends, are spreading like wildfire. It’s going exactly how I wanted it to go.
“Do you think it’ll work?” she asks.
I shrug. “There’s no way to know yet, but I’m hopeful.”
“And what are you hoping to get out of this?”
“That the public sees her moving on and happy, and we can bury this whole ‘who did the cheating’ game.”
She props herself up on her elbows so she can see me better. “I still don’t know what the point of all these back-and-forth posts is?”
“Basically, it’s a popularity contest,” I tell her. “Except no one is voting, and instead, people are deciding who they feel sorry for. Because whoever gets the sympathy has the upper hand.”
“It’s so weird that as humans, when we feel sorry for someone, we automatically believe them.”
“I’m sure you would have learned all about that in therapy school.”
She laughs. “It definitely wasn’t covered in the first two semesters.”
My phone beeps, and I see that I have a text . . . from Luke. Fabulous.
Jerkwad: Loved running into you tonight
Running into? More like forced proximity. I send him back a rolling-eyes emoji.
Jerkwad: Nice move with the mass unfollowing. Your idea?
I pull my face back, squinting my eyes at my phone as I reread his words. Mass unfollowing? What is he talking about?
I’m about to message him back when another text comes in, but this time it’s from Tessa.
Tessa: Have you seen this?
She sends me a link, and I click on it. It’s a video from You Oughta Know about the dinner at Marlowe’s.
Her take is that Bailey must have said something damning about River, because afterward four of the five other attendees unfollowed him on social media.
It’s possible the other one did too, but You Oughta Know was unable to identify who it was.
The video has been liked over three thousand times, and it came out only eight minutes ago.
Well, that’s just absolutely fantastic.
This was not part of the plan, and now my “Bailey’s thriving” narrative could be fully undone by what I’m sure was supposed to be a supportive gesture from her friends. Now it’ll look like a move in what’s quickly becoming a game of sympathy chess.
And Luke is definitely going to retaliate.