My eyes roll. “Writing isn’t mybusiness. It’s my lifeline.”
“My mistake.” A moment passes while I crawl us up the single-lane gravel road, toward the paved main roads. “What’s this place called? I’d like to look up their menu.”
I tell him, then I monitor whether or not he actually goes to and stays on the website…or if he sneakily attempts to inform his client that he’s had an emergency of some kind and will need to reschedule the call.
He barely spends three minutes deciding what he’d like to eat before he tucks his phone away again. Which is…odd.
Maybe I’m wrong.
I must be wrong, of course.
It doesn’t matter that Ali suspiciously went MIA for the first time ever shortly after Dominic showed up. It doesn’t matter that she’s the only person I’m close to but notcloseto who could possibly fit in thewatches anime and has moneybox.
Ali is agirl.
Because she has to be a girl.
Because we’ve hadgirl talk.
And what kind of storybook magic would really make one of the most interesting and wonderful people I know turn out to be in love with me andexactlymy type?
It’s far too coincidental.
Not to mention improbable.
Unfortunately, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m well on my way to eliminating the impossible, which does suggest that whatever remains must be the truth.
Chapter 21
?
Would you still love me if I were a brunette?
Alister
So. It took this long for August to begin suspecting that I might be Ali Montgomery.
Seated with her outside a Pelican’s with a coffee snowcone, I do everything in my power not to gloat. Because that would be wrong. And probably cruel. And it would undoubtedly ruin all my efforts to keep her from being able to find proof about who I am thus far.
I guess I’ve not given it the most thought before, but now I’m certain I’m a bad, bad person.
It’s just alittletoo much fun to see schemes play out exactly the way I hope. Maybe it’s this same exact rush that breathes life into August when she’s writing. Maybe she thrives in this state of watching it all come together, too…
Still, who would have suspected that the faux appointments I’d planted in my work schedule would come to such obvious fruition like this.
Smiling to myself, I take in the lovely bright colors of the snowcone building in front of the umbrella-shaded table we’ve settled at, then I stick a spoonful of sweet ice in my mouth.
I feel like a mad genius. Once August and I are married and living happily ever after from one story to the next, I wonder if my life might always be full of such innocuous fun.
Dazed, August barely watches me as she nibbles through her Polar Punch ice. The vibrant blue food coloring has all but dyed her lips completely.
“What’s on your mind, lotus?” I murmur.
Her lashes flutter to awareness, and she fixes her attention on me as her plastic spoon hangs out of her mouth. She stares for a good few seconds. Then she says, “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Well…” Her gaze drifts again, then her nose wrinkles. “Ugh.” Flattening her hand, she blocks her face.
