“They’re both adults, Daisy,” Mason said with an affable smile, while his cold eyes promised instant retribution to the next person who upset his fiancée. Whoa. It was the first glimpse Daff had had of lethal Special Ops Mason, and she gulped a bit. “I’m sure they’ll be able to work through their differences.” The silent or else tacked on to the end of that sentence was clear as a bell.
“No problem here,” Spencer said with an easy shrug, his unfathomable scrutiny raking over Daff with frigid indifference. And she struggled to achieve a similar expression on her face.
“Yeah, none whatsoever.” Daff hoped her smile looked sincere, even though it felt unnatural. She ducked her head and went back to her salad, signaling an end to the discussion. The rest went back to discussing the previous night’s party, while both Spencer and Daff remained silent.
Daff continued to poke at her salad, not even pretending to eat it now, and when she caught Spencer’s critical gaze on her again, she exhaled sharply and, heartily fed up with his judgmental crap, excused herself before escaping to the bathroom.
It was a unisex bathroom, nothing fancy, just a single room with four stalls. And it was blessedly empty now that the lunchtime crowd was thinning. She rinsed her face with cool water and swore softly when she reached for the paper towel dispenser, only to find it empty.
“Typical,” she muttered beneath her breath before slamming into one of the cubicles and dragging some toilet paper off the roll. It was the horribly cheap, soft paper that broke when you so much as folded it. She crumpled a handful and dabbed her face with it, cringing when she felt bits sticking to her damp skin.
The door opened, letting in the noise from the restaurant, and light footsteps came all the way to her cubicle. Daff looked up, a resigned sigh escaping when she saw Lia leaning against the cubicle door, arms folded over her chest.
“So, seriously, what’s up with you and Spencer?” Lia asked without preamble, and Daff sucked in an irritated breath.
“Absolutely nothing. You know Spencer and I have been amicable enemies for years now.”
“I know no such thing.” Daff was so focused on her sister that she only dimly registered the noise level increasing when the restroom door opened again. “You never seemed to actively dislike the guy, and he definitely didn’t dislike you. Whatever is going on now seems different.”
“It’s not. I’m just not used to seeing so much of him. He’s better in small doses, right?”
“Spencer’s a nice guy.”
“He’s okay. Just not very interesting. I mean, the guy is good-looking, if you go for the big, hulking types, but that’s about it. He has the personality of a mushroom. Bland, boring, insipid. And yes, I know those words all mean the same thing, but, I mean, can you say boring? How can so much hotness house so much blahness?” Daff felt nasty saying the words, but it was better than letting on how she really felt. Or how uncomfortable she felt around him lately and how much she wished she had cultivated a different relationship with him. One that didn’t make her always seem like a rampant bitch. She hadn’t been kind or fair to Spencer Carlisle, she knew that, and the childish interactions of her youth had somehow bled into her adult relationship with him. Well, if it could be called a relationship.
She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she barely noticed Lia’s gasp and horrified step back. It was only when Lia swore—something the younger woman never, ever did—that she tuned back in to the present and to the unpleasant reality that Spencer Carlisle was standing behind Lia. He was glaring down at Daff with an expression on his face that was shocked, pissed off, and hurt all at the same time. It was the latter—quickly disguised—that hit her right in the gut, and she lifted a shaking hand to her mouth as she tried to formulate the apology that he deserved.
She didn’t get so much as a squeak out before his lips compressed and he swiveled on his heel to leave the restroom.
“Shit,” Daff whispered, and Lia was staring at her with eyes so huge they practically swallowed her face.
“How could you say all those terrible things about him?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“Look there’s no need for you to get all uptight about it, okay? I’ll apologize to him and fix it. He’s a guy, he’s probably shrugged it off already. Water off a duck’s back and all that.”
Lia didn’t look very convinced, and, truthfully, Daff felt like a complete jerk, but for God’s sake, why the hell did he feel the need to eavesdrop on them in the first place? Didn’t he know that eavesdroppers never heard good things about themselves? Okay, so maybe he’d been coming to use the bathroom, but couldn’t he have waited until they had returned to the table? He knew it was a unisex bathroom; it was super awkward—and a little creepy—to come in while she and Lia were using it.