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To Mack’s question, I reply, “Good grief, I hope not.”
Although. . .
“Ooh, what about making you look like a 1950’s pinup girl? Because I actually think you could rock a red lip.”
“You aren’t very sympathetic,” I say.
“Sorry,” she says. “I do feel sorry that you keep getting thrown together with my brother. I wonder if his flavor of the month will get jealous by all this attention on you two.”
I wipe down the espresso machine and will my voice to remain calm. “Oh? Is he dating someone?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure he will be,” she says.
“Is he really like that?” I turn and face her.
She shrugs. “Lindsay did a number on him. I don’t think he’ll ever give the real thing a chance at this point.”
My heart drops a little lower than it should at that. It’s not like I had some grand delusion that Owen and I were headed anywhere, not even after our conversation at the pond. We even broached the subject of my confession of true feelings for him and. . .nothing.
Owen made it clear that we were friends. We are friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be. I might be a hopeless romantic, but I can read between the lines.
“Let’s go get dinner,” Mack says, standing. “I’m in the mood for Italian.”
“You want to go out on a Wednesday night?”
“What do you have against Wednesdays?”
“Nothing. I think Wednesdays get a bad rap. I mean, they’re not Mondays, but you still have to go all the way through a Wednesday just to wake up to a Thursday.”
She chuckles. “You’re so weird.”
I toss the towel on the back counter. “Plus, I just started rewatching the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice.”
“Again? Good grief! Emmy, you know how it ends.”
I pump my eyebrows. “It ends swoony.”
“Oh, come on,” Mack says. “You’ve seen it a million times, plus you can watch it whenever. It’s just dinner. And I’ll have you home at a respectable hour.”
“Okay, okay. DeLucca’s it is.” I grin at her. “Can we get family portions, eat until we have to unbutton our pants, and take the leftovers home?”
She pinches her thumbs and fingers together, Italian-style, and shakes them at me. “Is there any other way?”
DeLucca’s is an Italian restaurant and bar, the kind of local hole-in-the-wall that locals frequent and tourists avoid. Both Mack’s family and my own have a long-standing tradition of eating there at least once a week.
Which is why I shouldn’t be surprised when I walk in and see Owen sitting at the bar.
Some of the other firefighters are at the other end of the counter, but there, beside him, is Lindsay. She’s wearing a tight pencil skirt and a red button-down (she missed the top three buttons). Her dark hair falls loose past her shoulders. She’s sitting close to Owen, and as she shifts, she tosses her shiny hair behind her shoulder, like she’s auditioning for a Pantene commercial.
Heck, I’d cast her. She’s beautiful.
Owen’s free hand is wrapped around a bottle of beer, and when he glances our way, his expression changes.
I look away.
My insides twist at the scene, but when Mack stops short and grabs my arm, I realize my feelings mean nothing in this scenario. She’s going to freak out.
“Are you kidding me?” Mack takes off in the direction of the bar, and I jump to try and follow.
