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When he excused himself to go to the bathroom, five sets of irritated eyes turned to me.
“I can’t believe you brought this guy to trivia,” Augustus complained.
“Sorry not sorry,” I muttered. “Safety in numbers.”
“Well, I’mone hundred percent surehe’s bringing down our score,” Augustus sniped.
I winced. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t know he’d be so...” I trailed off, words failing me to describe what Percy had been. Enthusiastically inept? Confidently inaccurate?
Wes leaned in closer to be heard over the chatter and clinking glasses of a full pub. “Please don’t let him come back. I don’t care if it’s true love—”
“It’s not true love,” I said with a shudder.
“Just. Don’t.”
The next question appeared on the television screen: Which president was in office when World War II ended?
Well, that was a no-brainer.
I motioned for Augustus to hand me the answer pad. The Stag Pub was unfortunately low-tech when it came to such things, and we had to pencil in our answer then deliver the sheet to the DJ stand in the back corner near the bar.
“I got this one.”
“I know we joked about Nana setting you up, but I didn’t think you’d really do it,” Augustus said. “Iola is a sweetheart, but it’s not like she knows your type.”
“I don’t have a type,” I said as I wrote down my answer—Harry S Truman—on the trivia pad.
Augustus scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that, but we’ve all seen exactly who is your type, and he is nothing like Percy Helix.”
Heat rose in my cheeks, but I refused to take Augustus’s bait. Yes, I’d crushed not-so-discreetly on Hunter Rhodes. But we all knew nothing would ever happen there—even if he wasn’t now the father of a student.
“Have you looked around?” I joked instead. “Queer men are dropping like flies, and it’s not like Granville has an overabundance to begin with. I have to get while the gettin’s still good.”
“Surely that’s not the real reason.”
I shrugged. “Well, no. Nana is really fired up, and there’s no dissuading her when she’s like that. I figured I owed it to her to try at least once.”
“Good luck keeping it to just once.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know your nana better than me…”
I thought of how insistent she’d been that she’d find a good man for me, and my heart sank. “She’s not going to stop, is she?”
“Not until you’re a lovesick sap like me,” Augustus said. “But look on the bright side. You can arrive at your wedding in a hearse.”
I threw my balled-up napkin at him. “Shut up.”
* * *
HUNTER
Toby trailedme down a darkened sidewalk to The Stag Pub entrance, complaining the whole way.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t have just stayed at Grandma and Grandpa’s a little longer,” he grumbled. “She likes having me there.”
“And you were there all afternoon, Toby.”
