Chapter 10
The only possible hitch in my plan was River not agreeing to it, but thankfully he does. By Saturday midmorning, his post is live, and it reads exactly as I hoped it would:
“I've stayed out of the personal side of this because I didn't want to add to the noise. But I won't stay quiet about this. Whatever happened between us, using it to question who Bailey is as a person—that's not something I'll let stand.”
It made the post with the old morning show clip irrelevant almost instantly. Which is fine because it wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Luke drafted it and ran it by me before posting. After it went out, I got a text from him.
Jerkwad: You owe me one, Archie.
It honestly made me a little nervous, like I’d made a deal with the devil.
Regardless, I have no choice but to hate him a little less now. The grudge is still there—just slightly smaller than it was this morning.
I’m sure he’ll do something to tick me off again soon. Because he’s Luke.
Tessa is keeping an eye on things, but so far it seems like the social climber video is getting buried under River’s post. Which is exactly where it belongs.
“So, Claire, tell me about yourself,” a man named Todd asks as I sit across from him at a casual but nice Italian place.
That’s right, I’m on another date.
Because the PR stuff had calmed down and Sam was at work, I found myself on the oversize green couch in my apartment with nothing to do but swipe.
I matched with someone; he made me laugh twice in the first five messages, showed no signs of MLM involvement, and asked me out for tonight. I said yes, obviously.
“I grew up in Burbank,” I tell him. I could have started with my job, but the last thing I want to do right now is talk about work. In fact, when he asks, I just might make something up.
“I haven’t spent much time there,” he says, his green eyes bright under the can lights of the restaurant.
Todd is the same age as me, according to his bio, and looks just like his posted picture with a pleasant smile and thick, wavy light-brown hair.
“Most people know us for all the studios, but what they don’t know is that pretty much everyone in Burbank has had a Jay Leno sighting,” I say, giving him one of my well-used lines.
He gives a laugh, and it’s a good one. Deep and rumbly.
“What about you? Where are you from?”
The server, a man in black pants and a blue striped button-up, arrives at the table just then, so Todd doesn’t have a chance to answer.
“Good evening. Can I get you two something to drink while you look at the menus?” he asks, looking at Todd and then me.
“I’d love a Diet Coke,” I tell him.
“I’ll have some water,” says Todd, and then holds up a hand. “But I need it to be room temperature. No ice.”
The look on his face is serious, as if this is of the utmost importance.
“Absolutely,” the server tells him.
“It must be room temperature,” he reiterates.
“Of course.” The server gives him a tight smile. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
He leaves, and Todd rubs his hands together like that whole thing didn’t just happen. “Where were we?”
“Um,” I say, feeling just the slightest bit of unease about the water. Because it was weird, right? Or maybe I’m just sensitive after my MLM date.
Let it go, Claire.
“I was asking you where you’re from,” I say, getting back to the conversation.
“Right.” He gives me another smile. “I grew up in Sacramento.”
“Really? What brought you down south?”
“Work,” he says. “I’m a civil engineer working mostly on water infrastructure for the county.”
“Impressive,” I say, even though I have no idea what that means. What is water infrastructure? Does it have to do with room-temperature water? I’d make the joke, but I don’t think he’d find it funny.
Our conversation moves through the normal first-date stuff—where he lives now (North Hollywood), what he does for fun (swimming, which tracks for someone who thinks about water professionally), and what I do for fun, which I answer with “reading and people watching.” That’s actually more what I do for work, but “trying to break a generational curse” is not usually something I bring up on a first date . . . or ever.
The server brings us our drinks, and Todd takes a big gulp of his water.
“I’m sorry,” he says, closing his eyes as if he’s just swallowed poison. He holds the glass out to the server. “This is way too cold. I asked for room temperature.” He exaggerates the last two words, as if the server hadn’t heard him correctly the first time.
“My apologies,” says the server, taking the cup from him and walking away.
Todd is for sure getting his drink spit in.
I’d do it myself if I could because that was straight-up rude. The first time was a yellow flag, but the flag has now turned red.
“Everything okay?” I ask, wondering if maybe Todd is allergic to cold water and I’m prematurely judging him.
He shakes his head, clearly upset. “Cold water shocks your system,” he says, his words coming out clipped and sharp.
I don’t give him a response because I have nothing to say. It’s not that big a deal. Is he going to go into cardiac arrest because he just drank cold water?
He swipes a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. I’ve been drinking room-temperature water for three years now. It’s the best thing for your body.”
I angle my head to the side. “Even better than vegetables?”
“Oh,” he says, nodding. “It’s way better.”
I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure that’s not true.
“I can send you some articles if you like.”
“Hmm, maybe,” I say, because Not a chance might be too harsh.
He nods at my Diet Coke, the condensation on the glass glistening in the overhead lighting. “You really should drink that at room temperature as well. You’re literally killing yourself with ice.”
“I’m . . . good,” I say.
This man is off his rocker. I should really make up an excuse and leave. And yet—I stay. I sit through the rest of the dinner, through two more glasses of room-temperature water, through a detailed explanation of his morning hydration routine that I definitely didn’t ask for.
When he walks me to my car and asks if he can see me again, I tell him I’ll message him.
Spoiler alert: I will not.
“I take it the date was a flop?” Sam asks after I fall on the couch face-first, barely missing her legs. This was after I had to maneuver around the side to get into the room, so it was less dramatic than I was going for.
“So bad,” I say into the cushion before sitting up and giving her all the details.
“Yikes,” she says when I’ve finished. “I mean, he’s not wrong. Room-temperature drinks are better for you.”
“I wish we hadn’t donated the throw pillows for this couch, because I would totally throw one at you right now.”
She laughs. “How are you ever going to find kiss number fifty?”
“I’m not,” I tell her. “I’m giving up.”
“You can’t give up,” she protests.
“It’s pointless anyway. It’s just an arbitrary number I came up with.” I wave a hand in the air as punctuation.
“No, it’s a perfect round number. You have to try one more time.”
“I can’t even make it to a second date. Maybe the curse has extended to all facets of my life. It’s not just a kiss curse anymore; it’s an everything curse.”
I fall face-forward into the couch once more. I’m pleased to say that it’s much more dramatic than my first attempt.
“I thought work was better,” she says, patting my head like she would a dog.
“Only because Luke Wilder saved me,” I say. “I’m fraternizing with the enemy.”
“Oh, Lu-uke,” she says, in a singsong.
“Please shut up.” I lift my head to tell her.
Even though I’ve made a valiant effort not to talk about him, it’s clear I still am. It’s kind of hard when he’s a big part of my life right now.
“Maybe online dating is your problem. I think I should set you up again.”
My eyes widen. “I’d rather go out with the water guy a second time.”
“Claire,” she says, whining my name. “Colin was a mistake. I own that. But I know plenty of other cute guys I could set you up with that would be perfect for you.”
“You said that about Colin.”
“Please?” she begs.
“No,” I say, definitively.
“I’ll tell my mom to make you some ghorabieh if you give me another chance.”
“Are you bribing me?”
“Yes, I am,” she says.
She knows I’m a sucker for the almond shortbread cookies her mom sells at her bakery. Maybe I should consider . . . No. No more setups.
“It’s not going to work this time.”
She sighs. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I say. “Plenty of people are happy all by themselves.”
“True,” she says. “But I don’t think you would be.”
We stare at each other for a beat, her words hitting their mark.
“Wow,” I finally say. “You let someone go to therapy school for two semesters, and they think they know it all.”
A laugh bubbles out of her. She grabs the remote and points it at the screen. “Are we gonna watch our show?”
“Yes, please,” I say, snuggling back into the couch.
That’s the thing about Sam: she knows just how far to push me.
She presses “Play,” and the opening credits to Kingdom of Flame and Moonlight appear on the screen. We’re watching it a second time because we haven’t been able to find anything else that’s as good, so we just started it over. We’re already halfway through season one.
Sam and I are fangirls now. If I didn’t have to go to FableCon for work, I’d drag her there in costume to join the rest of the crazed fans. But alas, I’ll settle for babysitting the stars instead.
A half hour into the show, my phone beeps from inside my purse. I grab it to see I have a text from Tessa.
Tessa: Thought you might want to see this
She sends a link, and when I click on it, it takes me to a fan page dedicated to Kaelric and Elora.
It’s just a snapshot of the quote from River, and above that it says Are they getting back together?
The post already has twelve thousand likes and nearly two thousand comments. I quickly scroll through, my eyes catching on words like reconciliation and still in love.
I shake my head at my phone. I suppose I should have expected this, even if River’s post didn’t allude to anything romantic. But people will mostly see what they want to see.
I’m sure it will be fine.