Love at The Bluebird

“But this isn’t a work-related phone call,” I reply, not liking the sparkle of mischief I see in his eyes. There’s no way I want to give both of them the opportunity to hound me about Gavin at the same time.

“Was your phone conversation going to be about Gavin?” Before I can tell him no, Willow screams yes so loudly into the phone that I have to hold it away from my ear. Shane hears her response and smiles. “Gavin’s a musician and we’re in the music business, so —” Shane winks. “—it’s a work-related call.”

“That’s complete garbage and you know it! He’s not even signed to our label,” I argue against his ridiculous logic. All Shane wants to do is find out how far I’ve gone with Gavin, and I prefer not to talk about that with my boss, no matter how close we are.

“In my office now, Alyson!” he commands with a serious look on his face before turning on his heel and marching inside his office. I wish he could feel the daggers I’m shooting at his back with my eyes.

“I love that man,” Willow says, and I can’t help but snort at her comment. Willow says she loves anyone who’s willing to be her partner in crime when it pertains to ganging up on me.

“Hold on,” I grumble out to her while I reluctantly walk to his office and shut the door. I take a seat in front of his desk, place my phone down in between us, and turn the speakerphone on.

“There, now you two can gossip with each other in front of me,” I say sarcastically and lean back into the chair, silently praying for some patience in dealing with these two today.

“Okay, Willow, what was she updating you on with Gavin? Because I haven’t gotten an update on the situation since yesterday morning.”

I groan and Shane sticks out his tongue at me while he waits for Willow to respond. I love how my dating life is now called “the situation.”

“I haven’t gotten any updates at all! She never even told me about meeting him.” Shane looks at me in surprise, his mouth open so wide that wasps could use that big hole to make a nest.

“Sounds to me like someone is being a horrible best friend,” Shane tells her while eyeing me in mock disgust. “I’ll fill you in on how they met, since I happened to be there.” He clears his throat and moves closer to the phone in order for her to hear him better.

I lean forward to chime in, so she doesn’t believe all the nonsense I know he’s going to spew. “Let me just warn you, Willow, that this will be a full-blown exaggeration and nothing like the reality of what happened.”

“You hush. I’m telling the story!” Shane waves me off as if I’m some little gnat annoying him. “Now, where do I begin?” He rubs his hands together. “It was industry night at The Bluebird Cafe and Gavin was there performing on behalf of his record label. As soon as he sat down and took one look at our beautiful Miss Aly, he was smitten.” He bats his eyelashes at me.

“Here we go.” I sigh. I seriously think he gets high off of meddling in other people’s lives.

“It’s my story to tell,” he says, and Willow laughs, making him smile even broader. “So as soon as he saw our girl, the air in the room got heated under the intensity of his gaze while he stared at her. Our little Aly apparently felt the same way about him, because for the next ten minutes, they just stared at each other as if they were telepathically having sex.”

I shake my head at him, my lips twitching at hearing Willow’s laughter again. “This is so ridiculous,” I say to myself, since I know neither of them are listening to me.

“When Gavin’s set ends, he hands Aly his card and tells her to call him—in front of everyone! Valerie was with us too, and being the boring, older sister she is, she naturally told Aly not to call him.”

“Hey, that’s not nice. My sister’s not boring!” I cut in, not letting even my boss talk badly about my sister.

“Oh c’mon now, you know I love Valerie, but she’s a CPA for Pete’s sake. They’re boring!” I wouldn’t call Valerie boring, but because she rarely ever comes out with us, Shane considers her an old fuddy-duddy. “Anyway, Aly listened to her intuition and called him that night. It has been thirty-six hours since then, and they’ve seen each other for breakfast and dinner.” Shane pauses and studies me intently, his eyes starting at the top of my head and going all the way down to my feet. “And judging with how she looks right now, he might have eaten her for breakfast this morning.”