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He was still tall and handsome—so handsome the mere sight of him sent a pleasurable shiver through her body. Same eyes, same high cheekbones and strong jaw, same dark hair—though he wore it shorter now than in college. But his lean frame had filled out with more hard-hewn muscles, his eyes sparked with more cynicism, and he possessed a self-assurance one only gained with age.
With his camel coat, black dress shirt, and hard expression, Sammy couldn’t have looked more different from the good-natured, math-pun-loving, lived-in-a-T-shirt college boy she once knew. He was all man now, and not one that had any love lost for her.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia demanded. He hadn’t responded to her sarcasm dig, and the silence was bugging her. She almost wished Wesley were here so she’d have a buffer. What was taking him so long, anyway? Did he fall in the toilet?
Then again, Olivia had holed herself in the restroom for a good twenty minutes talking to Farrah, so she couldn’t throw stones.
Sammy’s eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “This is a restaurant. I’m here for dinner, same as the rest of the patrons. What areyoudoing here?”
“Uh, you answered your own question. Dinner.” The “duh”was implied.
“You don’t live in San Francisco.”
“I do this summer. I’m working at the SF branch of my company instead of going back to New York.” Olivia wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this. They weren’t friends anymore. Unfortunately, they had tons of mutual friends from their college study abroad program, and they were constantly forced into the same space thanks to said friends. Farrah’s wedding, Kris’s upcoming nuptials, group trips, and reunions...things Olivia couldn’t back out of because of either loyalty or a strong sense of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Sammy’s thoughts must’ve run along the same lines, because he showed up at almost every event, too.
As a result, they’d settled into an uneasy, somewhat civil truce that consisted of them ignoring each other and parking themselves on opposite sides of whatever room or table they found themselves in.
“Hmm.” Sammy appeared displeased by the revelation that she would be in San Francisco for the summer. Thanks to Farrah, he knew she was working on her MBA at Stanford—Olivia had almost killed her for letting that piece of info slip, to which Farrah merely responded, “Why? Are you afraid he’ll show up on campus and you’ll have hot, sweaty makeup sex?”
Ha! As if. Eight years was a little too late for makeup sex.
As for Sammy’s displeasure, too bad. He didn’t own the city. She couldmovehere if she wanted (she didn’t, but shecould).
“Olivia? Is that you?”
Olivia stiffened when a familiar blonde sidled up next to Sammy. Golden hair that fell past her shoulders in shiny waves, red lipstick that matched her Ted Baker sheath dress perfectly, a face that would make a supermodel weep.
Jessica.
“It is you!” Sammy’s girlfriend grinned. “Sam didn’t tell me you were in San Francisco.”
She called him Sam?No onecalled him Sam.
But Sammy didn’t so much as blink an eye at the moniker.
“I’m here for the summer.” Olivia forced a smile and repeated her explanation. “I just finished my first year of business school at Stanford, and I’m working at my company’s SF branch until classes start again.”
“I didn’t know she was in the city until we ran into each other here.” Sammy slid an arm around Jessica’s waist, and Olivia fought the urge to upchuck. She’d only met Jessica twice before—once at Sammy’s Fourth of July barbecue in New York three summers ago, and once at Farrah and Blake’s wedding. Funnily enough, she’d wanted to upchuck both those times, too. “She was just leaving. She has to go before her date comes back.” A tiny smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Olivia glared at him; he stared back with one infuriatingly arched brow.
Jessica, to her credit, didn’t press on why Olivia was leaving her date high and dry. Instead, her smile widened. “We should all have dinner sometime. There’s a bunch of great restaurants in the city I’m sure you’ll love.”
Ugh. Why did she have to be sonice?It would be easier to hate her if she were a total witch. Not that Olivia had a reason to hate her ex’s current girlfriend or anything. She didn’t even like Sammy anymore.
“I’m sure Olivia’s busy.” Sammy’s voice contained a note of warning.
“Too busy for dinner?” Jessica shot her boyfriend a look Olivia couldn’t decipher.
“Thanks for the invite. And yeah, let’s grab dinner sometime.” Olivia would rather roll around in a puddle of sewer water than eat dinner with Jessica and Sammy, but this was the twenty-first century. People made vague plans with no follow-up all the time. “Listen, I have to go. There’s an emergency at my apartment.”
She needed to get out of here. Wesley was going to be back any minute, Sammy was sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and Jessica...well, Jessica was making her stomach churn.
Not because the blonde was mean or had said anything wrong, but because she was there. With him. Olivia hated seeing them together, and she hated herself for hating it.
Jessica’s brows dipped. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. I just have to go check on...stuff.”
