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She gave him a dazzling smile that held a bite as she went to his side. “I was just telling these ladies that they did a fantastic job with the event,” she told him, lightly stroking her fingers through the short, cognac-brown strands of his hair.
“And we were just thanking her for her compliments,” said Sabrina. “Bye, bye now.”
Grayden swiftly guided Felicity away. He glanced back at me over his shoulder, but I avoided meeting his gaze, uninterested in interacting with him in even the most basic sense.
Sabrina wrung her hands, as if to shake off her anger. “There’s going to come a day when I slap her super hard, and you’d better not try to stop me.”
I lifted another gift from the pile. “So long as you don’t do it during work hours, I don’t care. She’s not worth it, though. Don’t let her rile you.”
“I can’t always help it.”
I added the box to the van.“Understandable. Now, fancy giving me a hand here?”
Together, we transferred the wrapped gifts and pretty bags—and there was alotof them—to the vehicle.
Hearing my phone beep, I fished it out of my pocket. My lips flattened when I saw it was a text from Grayden:I’m sorry, I tried keeping her away from you.
“Why are you making that face?” asked Sabrina.
I showed her the message.
She cursed. “Are you going to respond?”
“No. I never do.”
She did a double-take. “He texts you on the regular?”
“He used to. Now, it’s more like every few weeks. Only ever to say something mundane—he might ask how I am or make a random comment like,Oh, you’ll love the new Trace Lacroix movie, it’s awesome.”
Her eyelid twitched. “In other words, he thinks up excuses to contact you but might as well be saying,Hey, I exist—don’t forget me or move on too fast.”
“Yes. The only reason I haven’t blocked his number is that I want him tofeelmy utter apathy toward this shit.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t lying to Felicity when I said I could see he misses you. Anytime he looked your way, there was so much longing on his face I could almost feel sorry for him. No way has he been able to hide from her that he wishes things were different.”
I scratched my neck. “I feel sorry for his girls.”
“Me, too. On the one hand, they’ll be glad to have him living with them again. But they’ll see he’s unhappy, and they’ll probably take that on; probably think they’re not enough to make him happy. Kids do that.” Sabrina paused. “I noticed the girls very discreetly waved to you earlier.”
“They’re little sweethearts. The entire time I was dating Grayden, Felicity made them feel so torn, wanting them to hate me. They felt guilty that they didn’t.”
“Her son still isn’t your biggest fan, going by the looks I saw him tossing your way today.”
“Hmm, he threw a prawn at me earlier.”
“What?”
“Are you really surprised, given that Blaise is basically a male version of Felicity? He lives for her approval. He takes on her opinions. If she likes someone, so will he. If she loathes him, he will too. If she doesn’t approve of a girl he dates, he’ll dump her immediately just to please Felicity.”
Sabrina grimaced. “Sad, isn’t it?”
“Very.” Again, my cell chimed once. Glancing at the screen, I saw it was yetanothermessage from Grayden:You looked beautiful today, by the way.“Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“It’s Grayden again.” I read the text aloud.
Her mouth went flat. “He’s trying to prod you into talking to him.”
