AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Poor me, poor me, my dads are sending me photos of hot guys,” Inaya mocked, jiggling her head from side to side, making her crimson red hair bob. I wasn’t sure I’d have liked the black and purple streaks on anyone else, but she rocked them.
Briar’s back snapped straight. “Hey!” It was more of a whine than an admonishment.
“I’m failing to see the downside here.” Inaya ate her grape, giving an aloof shrug. “A few pretty visuals never hurt anyone. And don’t even try to tell me that you don’t look at those pictures while twittering your clit, I won’t believe you.”
Izzy snorted a laugh, pushing aside her empty plate. “Inaya, don’t ever change. Please. Not ever.” The only Brit in our group, the photographer had recently decided to relocate to Redwater and, like Briar, came from a celebrity family.
“Don’t encourage the little witch, Iz.” Briar sniffed and then took a swig of her soda. “I’m not even going to respond to the twittering your clit thing—”
“You just did,” said Inaya.
“—but I will say that, as it happens, I don’t mind the pictures.” Briar set down her can. “My problem is the matchmaking element of the situation. Cananyof you tell me that you’d like it much if your parents tried playing Cupid?”
Izzy pulled a face. “It would be weird and awkward and embarrassing.”
“Totallyembarrassing,” stressed Briar. “Like I can’t find a man all on my own. Which I could. If I wanted one. Which I don’t.” She ate the last cube of cheese from her plate, chewing harder than necessary.
“Okay, I get why this is annoying you.” Inaya used her fork to pluck a strawberry out of her pot. “But they’re only doing this because they love you, Briar.”
Her dadsdidadore Briar—she was, in their words, their treasure. Which was good, because her famous and narcissistic actress of a mother was a shit parent. Ansel and Troy more than cushioned that blow.
“My father wouldn’t care if I spontaneously combusted right there in front of him,” Inaya added. “He’d just hoover up my ashes and get on with his day.”
It was sad because it was true. The guy genuinely gave no fuck about Inaya—which I couldn’t understand, because the incredibly successful rock artist was an honest to God’s delight. But she never made such comments about him with bitterness. She’d long ago ceased being bothered by what he did or didn’t do.
“Your dads care enough about you to matchmake like they’re born for it. I personally find that awesome.” Inaya ate her strawberry. “And just a suggestion—you could probably get them to back off merely by ending things with Grover.”
Izzy nodded, slipping a hand beneath her gorgeous curtain of brown curls to scratch at her neck. “Yeah, I don’t think they’d be so invested in this if you weren’t tied to someone who they feel doesn’t deserve you, Briar. That’s what started this whole thing, right?”
“Yes, but it’s … I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” the costume designer declared, flicking her pink, ruler-straight locks over her shoulder. “In fact, I think we should talk about Cat and how uncharacteristically quiet she’s been.”
Three sets of eyes then zeroed in on me.
I sighed. “Nice deflecting, Briar.”
She only gave me a bright smile.
“Youhavebeen uber quiet,” Inaya observed, watching me carefully with those Nordic blue eyes. “Did something happen?”
Lowering my fork to my plate of half-eaten pasta, I felt my shoulders slump. “I broke things off with Danton last night.” The girls exchanged looks but said nothing. “None of you seem surprised.”
Izzy shrugged. “We suspected it was coming. Are you okay?”
“Yes and no. I mean, I made the right decision. It was the smart thing to do. But it wasn’t easy.” I propped my elbows on the table—a striking rustic oak, it perfectly matched thekitchen cabinets. “I stupidly got a little too attached. Something I really didn’t see coming. Danton’s about as cuddly as a slab of concrete.”
But he was comforting in a whole other way in that he was strong and solid and fearless. I hadn’t anticipated just how appealing I’d find it. Not just appealing, butsteadying.
“For a short while, I told myself it didn’t matter that he’s not on the same page as me, since I don’t want a relationship anyway,” I added. “But, regardless of that, it soon came to matter a lot.”
“So you cut your losses,” Briar surmised, her slanted blue-green eyes glinting with sympathy.
“Weak as it may make me, I couldn’t quite find the will to do it,” I reluctantly admitted. “But then Jorge asked something of me—I’m not going into specifics, so don’t push for any—that would violate the conditions of my arrangement with Danton. I can’t turn Jorge down for obvious reasons, so …”
“How did Danton react?” asked Izzy.
“Not in the way I expected.” I exhaled heavily, scratching my cheek. “I mean, I figured he’d get all frowny and demand an explanation, so that part was no surprise. But I didn’t think he’d pick apart my ‘we need to end it’ case, insist I tell Jorge to shove it, and then declare he’d see me at the Vault tonight.”
Inaya absently played with her little fork. “I’m personally not surprised. You made it clear that Danton isallabout control. He’s hardly going to let others dictate how things in his life will go. Also, the dude is seriously possessive of you. And not in an impersonal way.”
