Right Number, Wrong Girl

My small smile became a grin.

“Either way, I suspect your mother is off to find your brother now.”

I picked my phone back up. “Well, good luck to him.”

Dad chuckled. “Indeed. Although I do think he and Amelia would make a fine couple.”

He had a point.

***

“What do you mean your mother thinks you’re seeing someone?” Sophie’s jaw clenched, and there was a flash of something in her eyes that was eerily reminiscent of last night when I’d said my mother was trying to set me up with someone again.

The irrational side of me said it was a hint of jealousy, but what did she have to be jealous about?

“My mother thinks I’m seeing someone,” I said, sitting down on the sofa.

She looked at me with incredulity in her eyes. “Hugo!”

“What?” I leaned back. “She wouldn’t get off my back about escorting someone to the party. She got herself all worked up and I had to tell her something.”

“And you thought that was the best thing to tell her?”

“At the time. She said she’d be more inclined to leave me alone. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

She pressed her fingertips against her temples and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “And who does she think you’re seeing?”

“She doesn’t know. I’m not that stupid.”

“Oh, as long as you’re not that stupid, it’s perfectly all right.”

“You’re overreacting a little bit.”

She stilled.

Never mind.

I was that stupid.

What kind of a bellend told a woman she was overreacting?

Me. I was the fucking bellend.

“Or not,” I said quickly, sitting up straight.

“Overreacting?” Sophie said, shooting daggers at me.

Honestly, if her eyes were lasers, I’d have been eviscerated several seconds ago.

“I am here under duress, pretending to be someone else, trying to keep the truth from too many people, trying to keep the fact we are apparently sleeping together on a regular basis between the two of us, and you tell your mother, who hates me, that you’re seeing someone while you come to my cottage.” Each of the points were said with increasing frustration and volume.

“Shouting isn’t going to change any of that.”

“You are a bloody idiot!” She grabbed a cushion and threw it at me.

I snatched it out of the air and dropped it on the sofa. “Will you stop doing that?”

“I will not!” She picked it back up and advanced on me, using the cushion as a weapon.