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“I’m saying that he likes you.”
Shaking my head furiously, I disagreed, “He doesn’t. You’re wrong.”
“You should see his face whenever one of us talks about asking you out,” he said with a giant grin.
I realized that I had no idea what went on down at the wharf when I wasn’t there. It never even occurred to me that I might be a topic of conversation between them.
I slapped his leg. “Stop it.”
“I’m not kidding. We all do it. Every one of us.”
“Even Bob?”
Bob was the oldest lobsterman on the water and had been married for fifty years. If he talked about asking me out, then Tony had to know it was a joke.
“Even Bob,” he said before laughing again. “We do it just to mess with him, but he doesn’t get it. He thinks we’re all serious. He gets so worked up about it that we can’t stop now.”
He had my complete attention.
“What does he do? How does he act? You really think he gives a crap about me?”
“I knew you liked him too,” he said, and I realized that I’d basically admitted exactly that with my rapid-fire questioning and hopeful tone.
“I shouldn’t,” I admitted.
“But you do. And it’s okay.” Rory reached for my face and held my chin in his hand.
“You really think he’s interested?” I asked again, wanting to hear it one more time.
“Ava, he wants you so bad; it’s written all over his face. But for some reason, he won’t go there. It has less to do with you and everything to do with him, I think. He won’t tell us shit. We’ve asked. Tried to get to know him, but whatever he did before he came here, he won’t let on.”
“He was married at some point,” I said softly, thinking about the tan line on his ring finger, and Rory nodded his head as he released his hold on my face.
“We’ve all gathered that much. But maybe it was like yours,” he started to say before adding, “and it ended badly or something.”
This all felt wrong somehow, talking about personal things behind Tony’s back. Especially when we didn’t know the truth and were basically gossiping about the man. I knew how crappy it felt to be the focal point when it was the last thing you wanted.
Clearing my throat, I stood up from my seat on top of the cooler. “So, where does this proposition come in?”
Rory stood up as well, his large frame looming over mine. “I’m going to ask you out in front of him, and you’re going to say yes.”
He looked so proud of himself, and I wondered if this was somehow a trick to get me to start dating him without realizing what I’d done.
“What will that do?”
“You’ll see.”
He stepped toward me and planted a kiss on my cheek right as Tony suddenly appeared at the back door, a murderous glare dancing in his eyes.
“You forgot these,” he huffed out before dropping the wrapped oysters on the ground and storming away, cursing to himself as Barley followed in step behind his owner.
Tony had looked downright dangerous.
“Told you,” Rory said with a pleased smile.
“So, now what?”
“We wait for Señor Grumpy Pants to admit his feelings to himself and come get his woman before someone else does,” he said like it was all part of some master plan set in motion that couldn’t be stopped anymore.
