He scrubs his face. “Shit. You can’t possibly believe that I’m with her—or that I lied to you all these years.” He pauses and scrubs his face with one hand. “I. Don’t. Lie.”
“You can’t say that when you valiantly came to me asking to organize a wedding.” My tone is calm, very business-like.
“If I was getting married, I’d tell you.” He raises his voice. “I tell you everything. What about you not answering my texts. I’ve been texting you and calling you, and you haven’t answered me.” He waves his phone up in the air.
“Save your explanations.” I draw air quotes. “I don’t give a shit about you anymore, Eros, or whatever your name is, liar.”
“I fucking knew you were upset. She’s not my fiancée. I swear to you, Liv. We never dated. She’s marrying fucking Richard Prince. She wanted to scout the place and you before… Since when did you become a wedding planner?” He shakes his hands. “I’m… I feel like I lost a chunk of your life. Not only that, now you’re banning me from it because of my friend’s insecurities.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but the rest of us would like to have dinner,” one of his sisters interjects. I’m not sure who because Eros and I aren’t breaking eye contact. “Can we have dinner, and then you can solve your issues?”
“Liv, please.” His agonizing tone is breaking through my anger. “I’ve never lied to you. I swear. Give me just a few minutes.”
“Maybe. After dinner.”
The tension in his shoulders disappears. He smiles. He’s about to bend to kiss me, and I stop him. “Don’t,” I order.
He runs a hand through his hair. “Can you at least tell me why you’ve been ignoring my calls and texts?”
“I haven’t heard from you since mid-November,” I say as I head to take a seat. When I look at the table, I realize we’re sitting next to each other.
He pulls out my chair and waits for me to sit. I realize that everyone is staring at us.
The waitress smiles. “My name is Teagan. I’ll be your server for the night. May I offer you something to drink?”
I notice Nyx and Persy are looking at each other. I recall Eros mentioning that a slight glance between the two of them sometimes is an entire conversation.
“Liv, Holly was telling me that you two have known each other since kindergarten,” Persy breaks the awkward silence.
“Preschool,” Eros corrects her. Persy arches an eyebrow.
“Did you live in San Francisco all your life, and you just moved to help with the business?”
“No, I…” I have no idea what to answer. Sure, they are nice, but I don’t know them well enough to tell them the story of my life.
“Leave her alone, Persephone,” Eros growls.
“It’s called social interaction. You try to get to know people by asking them questions and providing answers.”
“I’m aware of how that goes.” He groans. “I need you to keep your inquisition away from her.”
Nyx studies me. “You look familiar. I just can’t remember where I met you, Liv.”
“We haven’t met,” I answer.
“Are you sure? I feel like I’ve seen you before,” she insists.
“Tacoma Airport,” Eros answers. “The time we went to some national park in Washington state.”
Persy snaps her fingers and smiles. “Airport girl.”
I look at Eros. “Airport girl?”
He shrugs. “They come up with nicknames all the time. If I were you, I’d just ignore them.”
“Wow, so we’re not allowed to talk to her?”
“He’s afraid you’ll say something to Misty, his fiancée.”
“Damn it, I’m not with Misty. She’s nothing to me.”
“Funny, because earlier we were having a totally different conversation.” I snort. “You wanted to see if I was good enough to organize the wedding of your dreams—with her. She doesn’t look like your type though.”
“I know what you mean,” Persy says. “We were just telling him to stay away from Misty.” She pauses and glares at her brother. “But he’s obsessed with her. He claims that she’s the woman of his dreams.”
“That puzzles me. I thought he didn’t believe in soulmates and shit,” I add to the conversation.
“He does, but he’s just lonely,” Persy claims, then lowers her voice. “I think someone broke his heart.”
“Misty?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. After someone broke his heart, the Misty obsession began.”
I frown, trying to remember if he has mentioned anyone in the past. I come up with nothing.
“He is here,” Eros claims.
“Why her?”
Persy sets her hands on the table and leans closer to me. “He’s known her for eighteen years. She was in love with him until she met her fiancé. Once he stopped having her attention, boom. All of a sudden, he’s wondering if he missed his chance.”
“Oh my God, it wasn’t a hypothetical question. You were talking about yourself. Well, you know what I think about that.”
“He’s an asshole?” Persy asks.
I nod.
“He’s doing it to fill a void. Maybe the one, the woman of his dreams left,” Nyx adds. “I agree with Persy’s theory.”
“It’s easier to pine for an unavailable friend than to look for someone who might not choose him,” Persy says, and stares at me before she continues, “Unless—”
“Stop analyzing me,” he warns her. It’s funny how she retreats. Almost as if she knows he’s about to snap. “I knew you three should never be in the same room.”
Nyx gives me a questioning look. Thankfully, Teagan is back. “Are you ready to order?”
“Would you mind giving us a couple more minutes? We have been entertained by their conversation,” Nate requests.
“Can we go outside to discuss this?” He looks at me, then points at his sisters. “You know them. They’re not going to let it go.”
“She knows us?” Persy huffs.
I turn to look at them. They’re staring at us, confused. I nod a couple of times. We leave the room. When we’re out of the restaurant, Eros pulls out his phone, taps it a few times, and waits for something.
“We came outside so you could make a call?”
He shows me the phone. “I’m calling you, and you’re not answering.”
I take my own out of my purse and show it to him. “No one is calling me.”
I show him his texts. The last one is a picture of Nova and Leah during Persy’s birthday. Plus, all my unanswered texts. “You ignored me.”
“That’s not my number anymore.” He takes my phone, taps a few keys, and then shows me my list of blocked numbers. “You fucking blocked my number. Why?”
“Who knows. You probably sent something incoherent?”
He looks at his thread, and I see there are a lot of texts. The top one says, “Hey, hottie. Text me.”
“Of course I blocked that. How about, ‘This is Eros, I changed my phone number’?”