“Sara, hi. Macy and Jason have told me so much about you.” He reached out and pulled me into a hug. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
I forced a smile and nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I hope Macy kept her tales to the good stuff.”
Macy pushed me even closer to Mark and look over her shoulder. “Oh, Jason needs me! You two catch up!”
I dug my nails into my palms, telling myself that I deserved Macy setting me up and so much more. I turned back to Mark and made myself smile again. He could be a friend, I told myself. There was no point in putting up walls to a potentially great person.
“They’ve been talking nonstop about you for the past couple of weeks. I just went through a breakup and I heard you did, too. I guess they finally saw their chance.”
I frowned. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I hope it wasn’t too rough.”
“No, no, it wasn’t a long relationship.” He shrugged. “And it let me be single at a wedding. That’s always a plus.”
I barely kept myself from scowling. “I guess, yeah.”
A hand grazed my back and then took my elbow. “Hey, I’m teaming up with you for cooking. I need all the help I can get.”
Lucas. I looked up at him and fought the smile that threatened to overtake my face. He was saving me from being set up and left with Mark. I laughed easily and shrugged. “The trouble with being a professional, I guess?”
Mark ignored Lucas and reached out to squeeze my shoulder. “I’m in room 18. If you want to get together and talk about the breakups and stuff.”
Lucas didn’t even give me a chance to reply. He twirled me away and kept his big body between Mark and me until we were standing at our station, behind Andrew and a few tables down from Macy. He kept his eyes on the room around us, even as he spoke quietly to me.
“I’m going to send a fucking picnic to room 18, so that asshole can take a hike.”
I couldn’t control the laugh that bubbled out of me. I’d had a range of emotions that day, and seeing Lucas grumpy about someone flirting with me was my breaking point. It was painfully cute and so unexpected that all I could do was laugh. Tears leaked from my eyes, and I had to lean against the work station to keep from falling over.
The table shifted forward with a loud scream of metal on stone, drawing the attention of anyone who hadn’t already been looking our way. I straightened and gestured at the table like I was trying to apologize to it. Embarrassed, but unable to stop giggling, I covered my mouth and faced away from everyone.
“I know that nothing my brother said was that funny!” Macy called out, making other people laugh. “Who spiked Sara’s juice today?”
Shoulders shaking, tears pouring from my eyes, I was a mess of giggles. Andrew wanted to spank me. Lucas was jealous. And Macy was trying to set me up with someone who thought ourbreakups were good bonding material to hook up over. It was ridiculous.
Lucas’s deep laugh from next to me just made it all worse. How was I supposed to control myself when he was laughing, too? I only managed to gather myself when I looked up and saw Macy’s face.
Red and angry, she was watching one of her friends from college, Hannah, touching Andrew’s chest. That look, the anger and disappointment, was one that I knew could easily be directed at me. With that sobering thought, I braced myself on the work station and took in a deep breath. Macy was going to murder me if she found out.
Chapter 9
The cooking class was quiet between Lucas and me, but he didn’t seem upset to have a boring partner. He also didn’t seem to need my help. Andrew and Warren, on the other hand, both seemed to be clueless at their stations. Lucas was comfortable with a knife and with whisking a perfect dressing together. I was impressed but scared of showing too much. I had a stacked hand of cards held to my chest and I was afraid of tipping it.
Dinner was even stranger. I somehow found myself sitting at a large round table, between Mark and Megan. Macy and Jason were across from us, with a few of Jason’s friends sandwiched in with Macy’s. It was rowdy, with Mark telling jokes louder and louder. The more whiskey he downed with his dinner, the raunchier the jokes got.
I wanted to escape, badly, especially when Mark’s jokes came with an arm casually slung around my shoulder and dramatic whispering in my ear. It was awful. He was drunk, and more than once, I’d had to remove his hand from my thigh. I looked longingly at the table next to us where the triplets were seemingly locked in a conversation with some of their older cousins.
I couldn’t enjoy myself. I felt so guilty about what I was doing behind Macy’s back, but I also wanted to keep doing it. I was so torn. I didn’t trust myself to drink, so I just sipped at my water and did my best to laugh along with Mark’s jokes.
As the night dragged on, the triplets joined our table where they could. Andrew ended up next to Macy while Warren and Lucas squeezed in between a couple of Jason’s friends. Mark was plastered and hanging off of me, solely to keep himself upright, I was guessing. He was still insisting on talking, though. Mosteveryone else was drinking, too, so his slurred words didn’t seem to be causing too much of a stir with anyone else.
When the conversation turned to our wildest sexual trysts, I blanched and tried to shrink into my seat. Macy even participated, telling a story about a time that she and Jason got caught in an elevator. Andrew covered his sister’s mouth with his hand and gestured for someone else to go so Macy would shut up. Everyone else laughed, having a great time. Meanwhile, I was cringing so hard that it hurt.
Mark pressed a wet kiss to the side of my head and finally let me go. “That’s nothing. I once had a menage with these two sisters. Not sisters, like sisters. Sorority sisters.”
Jason’s friend Byer held up his glass of whiskey. “Good going, man.”
“Those chicks were freaks.” Mark shuddered like he was recalling something terrible. “That’s my last emnage. Ever. I don’t think it’s good to get a woman turned on and then let her have idle hands...”
I almost laughed at the idea of whatever had happened to Mark, given the idle hands remark, but the topic was too close to home. I just sank even farther into my seat and prayed someone changed the topic.
