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Laurie smiled. “I was happy to do it. And really, Beck, you look so much happier.”
“Not too much happier, I hope,” I muttered as Calista put a fresh beer in front of me, not even needing to take my order after weekly trivia nights for the past three years. “I can’t afford to advertise this.”
“We’re all friends here,” Laurie said. “They’d understand. Everyone loves you. Wes too.”
If he kept this up, I was gonna get freaking weepy. Thankfully my phone rang, and I picked it up to escape the mush. Unfortunately, Iola was on the other end of the line.
“Beckett, good news! I’ve got a match for you.”
My heart went into freefall.Shit. How did I get out of this one? As I retook my seat, Wes edged his chair closer, and I noticed Hunter and Bobbi watching us with a little too much attention. Maybe we hadn’t played it as cool as we thought.
“That’s great news, Iola!” I said loudly, so everyone would hear. “I can’t wait to meet my date.”
“Wonderful!” she said. “I’ve matched you with Anna Patterson, and I just know you two are going to be so, so happy.”
My stomach did a precarious flip.
“Anna, huh?”
Wes and I had joked about Iola picking Anna, but I hadn’t really thought she’d do it.
“I know you two have tried dating before,” Iola said. Of course she did. Everyone knew all the gossip in a town this size. “But that was two years ago, dear, and you’ve both grown as people. You really are so compatible I think it’s worth trying again, don’t you? Sometimes all we need is the right timing for love.”
Unless you’re stepbrothers. There’s no right timing then, is there?
“All right, Iola. I’ll trust in your process.”
“That’s the spirit!”
As I hit disconnect, I had every one of my friends’ attention.
“You let Iola matchmake you?” Hunter asked, sounding astonished. “Did you not learn anything from Clark’s experience last winter?”
“Well…” I hedged. “You know Iola. I was sort of cornered.”
Clark winced. “Sorry. If you want me to get my nana to back off, I can try.”
I snorted. “And it worked so well for you that you had to fake a relationship.”
“True story,” Hunter said. Then grinned. “But hey, it all worked out, so maybe this will too.”
“But isn’t Anna one of your ex-girlfriends?” Tucker asked.
“A second chance at love didn’t steer us wrong,” Laurie replied, though his eyes were sending me the message,what the fuck?No wonder, since we’d just been talking about my happy relations with Wes. I attempted to convey with a look, I don’t know! I panicked!But judging by the confusion on his face, I’d only managed,I have no idea what I’m doing!Which was also true.
Bobbi pouted playfully. “If you really wanted a date, I’m right here.”
“Sorry, Bobbi. You’d have to take it up with the matchmaker,” I joked.
But among all the chatter, my full focus was on the one person not talking. Wes was scarily silent beside me. When I chanced a peek in his direction, he was gazing into his beer, doing a shit job of hiding the scowl twisting his handsome face.
His hand, which had returned to my thigh the instant I sat down beside him, tightened almost painfully. And when the conversation moved on to the trivia answer—which we’d gotten wrong, because it was freaking Montana, with the mottooro y plata—he leaned over and whispered, “You are in so much trouble when we get home.”
A shiver went down my spine.
Andi was sure to be there. Wes couldn’t do too much to me in her presence. And yet…goose bumps erupted in anticipation of just how he intended to make me pay for agreeing to that date.
Because even if he must know I’d done it to maintain our cover, there was no mistaking the undertone of jealousy in his voice or the smoldering promise in his eyes. Wes had reached the end of his patience, and I was about to pay the price.
