“That happened twice. You make it sound like I’m collecting them every week.”
“Did the waitress at Soup and Salad not write her phone number down in front of both Lucy and me last Tuesday?”
“I have no idea if it was a number. It could have been my order,” I lie. It was a number, and she winked at me, too. Lucy glared at both of us and said that we were trying to have lunch not get laid.
I take a huge swallow and let the expensive liquor burn its way down to my stomach. Too bad I can’t scorch my unrequited love like this. Just take a torch to my heart and incinerate it. Wait, that’s what Lucy does every time she turns me down, but my stupid heart just regenerates. Did I really graduate summa cum laude? How can I be so dumb in real life? At some point, my heart will take the hint and move on. Right? RIGHT?
Chapter Two
Lucy
With each name I put on the list, my stomach turns. I should have known this was going to happen. Why did I agree to do this to begin with? It’s as though I’m looking to inflict torture on myself. Or maybe it’s because I figured if Wyatt finds someone to marry then maybe I will be able to move past this crush I have on him.
I should have anticipated it coming to an end. That we wouldn’t be able to stay in the safe bubble we created over the past two years since he came into my life out of nowhere. It felt like it was only yesterday that he acted like a knight in shining armor and saved me from being fired from my job.
I’d barely been with Perfect Event Creations for a few months when I suddenly lost my mom. Dealing with the grief of losing the most important person in my life and trying to keep up with my job had me in way over my head.
Wyatt’s firm had hired us for an event. Our job was to set up and make sure everything ran smoothly. I was in charge of hiring the talent and doing the welcome gifts along with a few other odds and ends. I’d messed up both of the two main things I was told to do by hiring the wrong band and forgetting the gift bags.
My boss had been laying into me, and I swear she was seconds away from kicking me to the curb when Wyatt strolled in. He proceeded to tell her that he had asked me for the change of band and said he canceled the gift bags because the firm had decided they were going to make a donation in each guest's name to a local food bank instead.
I got a small scolding for not telling my boss Meredith about the changes, but she quickly got over it. And the glowing review the firm left about me had me getting a promotion instead of getting canned as I should have been. Since then, Wyatt has been a rock that pushed his way into my life. One I leaned on during one of the hardest times in my life.
“Whatcha doing?” Eden drops down in the chair next to mine, pulling off her barista hat. She’s been working at my local coffee shop The Daily Drip for a few months now. She loves gossip and has slowly pulled the fact that I have a crush on Wyatt out of me.
I swear she’s better than any bartender at getting people to spill stuff. But I know I can trust her. She’s like a vault when it comes to keeping secrets. She may get you to reveal them to her, but she doesn’t go spreading your business to others.
“Making a list.” Her eyes drop down to the paper, where I have some of the names listed.
“Another over-the-top party with the rich and famous?”
“If only.” I’d so rather the list be for that than what it’s actually for. “It is a list of the rich, though.” I was going through our database looking for women who I knew were single and measured up to Wyatt’s family in social class, power, and money. The kind of girl they would be looking for him to marry.
“Tell me more.” She leans in.
“Wyatt needs a wife. Pretty sure he wants one too. He's been acting differently lately.”
“Then he should marry you. Problem solved.” She says it like it’s the obvious choice.
I roll my eyes. “He’s my best friend. Besides, I might work in his world, as the hired help, mind you,” I point out. “But I’m not a part of it. Plus you know how I feel about marriage. Love ruins lives.” I know this firsthand. It ruined my mother’s.
“Not every man is your father.”
I shake my head. Even on her deathbed my mom asked if he was coming. I’d broken down and begged him to come. He finally said he would do it but only if I agreed to have monthly dinners with him. I had. I would’ve done anything for my mom. Even make a deal with the devil. And my dad was pretty close to being just that.