“Then, what was it like?” Celeste asked, pausing as she took a tray out of the oven with tiny firefly-print oven mitts.
Goo-filled pink floral Pyrex never looked less appealing as my stomach churned.
“He was in my spot,” I said, exasperated.
It had been my mistake, telling him where I was going when I was pretty sure at the time he was going to root himself in the cemetery, like the living dead, but he was the one who had sought me out.
Not the other way around.
“What are you talking about?” Ana raised an eyebrow, clearly lost in this conversation.
Faith waved her hand, as if it was ridiculous. “She sits in the same spot in the library every day.”
“And this boy, he was in your spot?” Gertie rephrased for us all once more, as if I hadn’t said it clear enough.
“Yes.”
Gertie and Celeste looked between themselves with renewed interest.
I needed to put a stop to whatever those looks were. I never liked that look, especially not on them. “No, stop it right now. It isn’t like that. I was helping him with an essay. He’d basically guilted me into it.”
“All night?” Celeste questioned.
“He’s … terribly wordy.”
Faith snorted. “I bet he is.”
“Stop,” I warned.
The women put up their hands in surrender, but it wouldn’t last for long. It never lasted long enough.
“Do we know the guy’s name?”
“Ana!” I scolded. I figured that at least she, out of all of them, with her consistent relationship drama, would have the decency and understanding to stay out of it.
Faith only grinned, looking at everyone like she’d struck gold. “His name is Ryan.”
“Ryan,” Gertrude repeated with a terse tilt of her chin. “A kingly name. Strong. Even keeled.”
“Since when has there ever been a king named Ryan?” I snapped.
They were beyond listening to me as they went on, debating as if he were standing there in front of them right now.
“He has the funniest strawberry-blond hair,” Faith continued to describe. “He was the star of the football team.”
“Faith!” I scolded, knowing it was all too late at this point, but trying nonetheless to stop this.
“Was?”
“He got the stuffing knocked out of him a month or so ago,” Faith further informed everyone.
“A jock?” Celeste asked, making a tiny sound. “I don’t think I’ve ever pictured you with someone like that, Lu. You should’ve brought him along for the evening.”
I would not be bringing him to Gertie’s for any meeting. There was no reason to.
Nothing had happened.
I’d tried not to feel oddly confused by that fact after he looked down and leaned into my lips—
