“Fascinating.”
“I’ve seen it many times. It usually happens after the second or third time people meet him. Something changes around then.”
Faizel burst out laughing. “That is so true! Remember Sally . . .”
“And Zoe,” Samirah added. “She didn’t even like him when she first met him, and then a week later she kept saying that he looked familiar and she couldn’t take her eyes off him, and then a week after that she was smitten.”
“Okay, that’s really enough.” Mark walked around the car to the front door.
“And you know, he never really dates any of them. Not for any good length of time, anyway.” She looked at me and shook her head, tutting. “So sad!”
“I’m just fine on my own.”
“No one should be on their own,” Faizel said.
Mark stopped and swung around. He glared at Faizel now. “You should stop worrying about me, and start worrying about Risky Quizzness smashing the Beyoncé Know’Alls!”
“Oooh,” Faizel teased and folded his arms. “You hear that, Samirah? Sounds like a challenge.”
“It is a challenge, so bring your game face!”
Faizel swished his hand in front of his face and his expression suddenly changed. His forehead wrinkled and creased and he squinted his eyes. “Already have it on!”
Samirah laughed and I looked around at the three of them. I hadn’t realized they were all friends, but I guess this was a small town. A small town that for some reason seemed to be infatuated with Mark.
CHAPTER 28
I climbed out of Mark’s car; he’d pulled all the way up to my hotel door so we didn’t have to carry Harun too far. He was heavy, and because he was groggy from the operation, he was like a big, floppy dead weight, with a long tongue. Mark hoisted him out the backseat in one swift move, as if he weighed nothing. I was impressed and my eyes drifted down to his arms where I was surprised to see some muscle bulges. I hadn’t noticed any muscles before.Where had they been hiding?
I looked at him again as he walked to the door. I started to ruminate on what Samirah and Faizel had said, about his effect on women in the town. I wasn’t totally sold on it. I mean, I guess I saw it, kind of, just a little. But clearly, I wasn’t smitten with him like everyone else was. A loud angry voice snapped me out of my thoughts.
“AHA!” the voice bellowed.
I swung around to find the manager of the hotel standing there, staring at us.
“So youdohave a dog,” she said in a very accusatory tone.
Mark stopped walking and turned around, and when he did, her face fell.
“Mark, what are you doing here?” she asked in a hurt-sounding voice. I rolled my eyes.
“Uh . . . Hi, Selma.” He sounded sheepish AF. The same sheepish he’d sounded last night with that woman from the movies.
“Why are you carrying that dog?” she demanded.
“Do you guys know each other?” I asked.
Selma whipped her head around and glared at me. Angry eyes. Angry eyes that had nothing to do with bringing a dog to her hotel. Her angry eyes were way too icy for that.
“You could say that,” she said snappily, now turning her glacial eyes on Mark.
Mark averted his gaze. I looked from him to her and back again.
“I mean . . . I thought we might know each other better but I guess that can’t happen when the guy avoids you after what I thought was a nice date,” she said, sarcasm cascading off that sentence like a waterfall over rocks. “And what with it being such a small town, you really have to put a lot of effort into avoiding someone, you know.”
I tried to hold back a smile. This was interesting. This was the second woman in two days who was pissed off with Mark. And after what Samirah and Faizel had said, this magical power he seemed to wield, it was becoming clear that Mark was Springdorp’s most eligible (yet reluctant) bachelor.
Mark looked up at Selma and met her gaze for a second, and then gave an apologetic look.
