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Looking just as puzzled as I feel, Marcus says wryly, “Everything, I assume.” Then he cocks an eyebrow. “Do you two know each other?”
“No,” Kendall snaps before Ashton can get a word out. Her perfect features are arranged into the closest thing to a scowl I’ve ever seen on her face. With a jerky motion, she flags down our waiter, and when he hurries over, she orders a pitcher of sangria.
“Are you going to share that?” Ashton asks, glancing at her rigid profile. His eyes are gleaming with the same wicked amusement. “Or are you planning to drink the whole thing by yourself?”
I clear my throat. “So, Ashton, how is your business going?” I figure it’s best to step in before Kendall can deck him—because she looks like she really, really wants to. “Any luck slowing down that revenue growth?”
“Afraid not.” He grimaces, shifting his focus away from my fuming friend. “It’s like a snowball rolling down a mountain—just keeps gathering momentum.” His dazzling grin returning, he looks from me to Marcus. “How about you two lovebirds? How’s everything? Is the wedding date already set?”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, yes. It’s tomorrow night at Disney World. Six o’clock. Be there or meet Mickey’s wrath.”
I expect Marcus to join in the fun, but when I glance over at him, there’s zero amusement on his face. Instead, he’s looking at Ashton like he’d like to kill him. Slowly. After a few hours of torture.
Ashton must realize his joke didn’t go over well because he clears his throat and also motions to the waiter, who comes over with the same record-setting speed. “What have you got on tap?” he asks, and the waiter rattles off a list of beer names, most of which I’ve never heard of. Ashton orders one, and Marcus gets one too, leaving me the only one at the table without an alcoholic beverage—or a clue as to why everyone’s so tense.
To my relief, Marcus shakes off whatever mood came over him and takes over the conversation, asking Kendall and Ashton about their Christmas plans—both intend to go home to their families—before skillfully steering the conversation back to my cats and their shenanigans. By the time we’re done telling the story of Queen Elizabeth stealing a piece of steak from under Geoffrey’s nose, all of us are laughing, and most of the tension is gone—at least on the surface. Kendall is still avoiding looking at Ashton, and he seems to derive great enjoyment from her behavior, as if she were a sulky but cute toddler.
They must’ve met before. I can’t think of any other explanation.
When the appetizers come out, Kendall excuses herself to go to the bathroom, and I follow her there, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. But it’s a single stall, so I end up waiting outside, and Kendall avoids my questioning gaze as she comes out and hurries back to the table.
Fine. I’ll have to interrogate her after.
“Any luck?” Marcus murmurs in my ear when I return to the table, and I shake my head with a rueful grin. Clearly, he’s as curious as I am—and has had just as little luck getting answers from his friend.
As the meal proceeds, Marcus and I employ every conversational gambit in our arsenal to keep the tension from returning, and we succeed—mostly because after three glasses of sangria, Kendall seems to forget about the man at her side and becomes her normal friendly, bubbly self. Laughing, she describes the ridiculous errands her boss sends her on before launching into a hilarious story about a recent date gone wrong. “He was determined to show me his ex-girlfriend’s picture,” she says, her hazel eyes sparkling as she cuts into her Eggs Benedict. “No matter what I said.”
Marcus and I are both whooping by this point, but when I look at Ashton, I notice that his smile seems forced, his hand clenched tightly on his fork. It’s not until the conversation shifts to our favorite shows and movies that he relaxes, his easy charm returning as we debate the pros and cons of Avatar and Game of Thrones.
With skill and effort, we manage to keep the conversation flowing until the waiter brings the check, at which point the collective sigh of relief is almost audible. In a typical alpha male fashion, Marcus and Ashton argue over who pays before deciding to split the bill in half, with Marcus effectively paying for me and Ashton for Kendall. I fully expect her to be okay with that—my friend has never had a problem letting men buy her food and drinks—but she whips out her credit card and, glaring at Ashton, plunks it down into the waiter’s hand, instructing him to charge her portion there.
“This isn’t a double date,” she explains tersely when I look at her with eyebrows raised. Then she chugs the rest of her sangria, and as soon as the waiter returns with the credit cards, she grabs her card, signs her check, and, with a rushed goodbye to me and Marcus, runs away.
