The Player Hater (Accidentally in Love 1)

“Um…. I would never throw my best friend under the bus like that.”

“But you’re also not denying it.”

“Listen, she wouldn’t be the first woman in the world to lie about her interests to get a man’s attention.”

I don’t love the sound of that.

When I have no reply, Juliet turns to face me, catching a good glimpse of my face.

“Shit—that is not what I meant. She’s not…Mia isn’t…” Juliet sets her plate on her lap and scoots her chair over, leaning over and lowering her voice. “Listen to me. She is not like that—I can see what you’re thinking by the look on your face and it’s not like that at all. Trust me.”

“Trust you? I know nothing about you and we’ve been sharing a toilet for two days.”

She nods slowly. “You have a good point. Alright—ask me anything you want and I’ll answer it.”

I narrow my eyes but my mouth is smiling. “Is this a trick?”

Juliet laughs. “No. I’m admitting you are right; you don’t know me. I mean—we don’t have to be best friends but I want you to trust my best friend, so if I have to pony up a little information to do that—so be it.” She hesitates, taking her plate up again and forking some pasta salad. “I love a good Q and A.”

Same.

I follow a few Would You Rather pages on Instagram like the giant nerd I am and love asking the questions to Skipper as much as she loves answering them.

“Fine, you have a deal, but first let me grab something to eat because I’m freaking starving.”

Juliet nods and resumes eating while I rise and get some food of my own, heaping baked beans onto the plate that I’ll definitely regret later, a bun filled with pulled pork BBQ, tater tots (which feel like a random addition to the lineup but still welcome), pasta salad, corn on the cob, and not one, but two brownies.

I sit back down.

We eat in silence while everyone else around us chats, and I scan my eyes over at Thad and Mia; she has her hand on his forearm and is caressing it, coy smile on her face that seems to say ‘let’s get out of there and bang in the woods while no one is paying attention to us’.

I shove the sandwich in my mouth and feel the sauce dripping down my chin, remembering too late I didn’t grab a napkin.

Juliet comes to my rescue. “Here. Looks like you need a bib.”

“Thanks,” I mumble with a mouthful. “This is so good—I was starving.”

She nods.

She also seems to be watching me warily, wondering what my first question will be perhaps?

“Where do you live?” I blurt out.

“Are you asking for my address?” She quirks her brow.

“No. I mean what city are you in?” For all I know she’s clear across the United States.

“I live about fifteen minutes from Mia in Libertyville.”

Oh shit.

“Why?” Juliet wants to know.

She’s not far from me.

I shrug. “For a second there I wasn’t sure if you lived in Illinois at all.”

“Ahh. Makes sense.”

“Do you have any pets?”

“No, but not because I don’t love animals—it’s because I live in an apartment and I don’t think it would be fair for an animal to be cooped up.” Juliet pauses. “I’m more of a dog person, so…”

Same.

Juliet munches on her pasta. “What about you? Do you have any pets?”

“I used to have two dogs when I played football but I’d always need a friend to watch them anytime I traveled. My buddy Pete has this huge, fenced in yard where they could run and run—then he and his wife had a few kids, and the dogs freaking loved them and the kids loved the dogs,” I muse as I continue eating my sandwich. “Eventually I felt like an asshole taking them home with me so…now they live with Pete and Shannon.”

“That seems like the humane thing to do,” Juliet tells me approvingly. “I would absolutely love to have a dog, I just don’t have room for the kind of dog that I want. You know, the big retriever type that needs a ton of exercise? I don’t think I could do that without a partner—I know myself well enough to know that I’m not going to walk a dog like that every day or even take it to a dog park.”

She hesitates before adding, “God that makes me sound like such a jerk.”

“That doesn’t make you an asshole or a jerk,” I tell her. “That makes you self-aware. Do you know how many people get animals that they shouldn’t have, and then the animal suffers?” I dig my fork into the pasta salad on my plate. “Drives me nuts and it ends up filling the shelters with dogs that were placed in the wrong homes to begin with.”

There are times of doubt about getting another dog, but I do some traveling, and I would hate to lean on Penelope when I’m gone. It’s not her job to take care of my things, especially living things.