Luna narrows her eyes. “As long as you’re sure.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?” Harper quips.
Luna grins. “Because it is.”
Bri snorts, and Kailey buries a smile. Meanwhile, Faye does her best to engage Shannon in conversation.
And I’m embarrassed to say it doesn’t go well.
“Ugh, no,” Shannon says right after finding out Faye is a romance author. “I think reading is a waste of time.”
“Oh,” Faye says, her eyes flicking toward Gray’s, something silent passing between them.
Silent.
But disapproving.
“Shannon,” I begin.
Her phone rings and she reaches into her purse, snags it. “I have to take this. If she comes back”—a sneer toward the kitchen—“I’m done.”
I glance down at her practically untouched plate and smother a sigh.
“Dude,” Sawyer mutters when she’s gone.
“I know,” I mutter back. “I’m going to break up with her, I just…it’s her birthday and I didn’t want to cancel last-minute on Harper?—”
“Just saying, it doesn’t much seem like Shannon cares about anything except that purse you got her.” A shrug. “My guess is you could have dropped the soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend portion of the evening and still kept the dinner part.”
I sigh, rub the throb in my temple. “You’re not wrong.”
“Shit happens.” Another shrug as he reaches forward, snags Shannon’s uneaten plate, and starts hoovering in her uneaten pasta. “Either way, I’m so here for this pasta,” he says through a giant bite of the garlicky, buttery dish.
I scoop up another forkful, nearly groan in pleasure. Sawyer’s not wrong about the pasta either.
Because, fuck, Harper can cook.
“You’re done with her?”
I lift my brows in surprise. “Absolutely, but I don’t think you want to deal with the mess that’s Shannon either, man.”
“I don’t mean Shannon. I mean Harper.”
I whip toward him with a glare. “What the fuck?”
“Hey,” he says, lifting one palm in surrender, but the other is still holding the fork, still shoveling food into his mouth. “You made it pretty clear you didn’t want anything serious with her.” He sets the empty plate back at Shannon’s place setting. “But a woman like Harper isn’t anything but serious. Her body. Her personality. Her chops in the kitchen. Fuck man, you put a ring on a woman like Harper, not just have her for one night.”
The food is delicious—Harper made it, so of course it is.
But right now, it tastes like fucking dirt.
“So yeah, if you’re cool with it, I’m going to ask her out?—”
I spin in my chair, grab the front of his shirt. “You touch her and I will fucking kill you.”
The conversation stutters to a halt, silence descending on the room.
Sawyer just calmly peels my hand free.
