“Yeah. Go eat. I’ll meet up with you guys later at The Sandbar.”
“Okay.” Gabe smiled. “See ya later.”
I turned, made my way to the boardwalk, and started toward Kabuki.A lunch date. I shook my head with a laugh.He thinks he’s being slick. Wes taking this woman to lunch instead of dinner was his attempt to throw me off to make it seem more casual to him. But I knew better. He may not be looking for anything serious, but if he took the time to take a woman out foranykind of meal, he was trying to charm her because he wanted her insomecapacity. How big or how small didn’t matter to me.
Ever since Wes’s little stunt with that singing telegram, sabotaging had become our thing. We’d grown smarter and more strategic over time, but it was never smart or strategic enough. And we didn’t do it every time; we had to keep the other on their toes so they didn’t know when to expect it.
And after each sabotage, we always ended up in bed together; it was like an unspoken reward for the sabotager to claim their victory.
I couldn’t care less about Wes or his dating life and the flings he had. And I sure as hell knew there was no merit to that stupid pact we’d made—that was ludicrous. So why participate in this childish game? Because it was just…what we did. And it’s not as if we didn’t get anything out of it. Sure, I had no semblance of a dating life at all anymore—Wes made sure of that—but I still had my needs taken care of in the end, so I couldn’t complain too much. And I knew he would back off if I ever wanted to end the game. I’d back off, too, if he wanted to end it, but let’s be real, this was Wesley Callahan. There was no way in hell he would ever want to settle down.
There seemed to be a shift in our dynamic over the last few months as well. And, dare I say…it was a good one. We were still the same when it came to our silly disputes, staying on brand with our verbal sparring matches and the way we would aggravate each other. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary to anyone else, but for us, the disdain that once seeped into every interaction we’d ever had seemed to have slowly dissipated over time.
No one else knew what the two of us had been up to for the last several months. Having that secret between us connected us in a way only the two of us understood and offered a certain level of amity we’d never had with one another before.
I walked into Kabuki and looked around the inside dining area of the restaurant. It wasn’t until I glanced through the floor-to-ceiling window that made up the back wall that I spotted the back of Wes’s head. He was seated across from a beautiful strawberry-blonde woman at a small table on the terrace overlooking the water.
The lunch hour didn’t seemtoobusy, but plenty of others were around where I could blend in. And luckily, there was an open table on the terrace away from his that looked as though it would give me a good enough view.
“May I help you?”
I glanced over at the hostess and smiled. “Can I take that table out there on the terrace? I want to take advantage of the nice weather.”
“Of course.” The woman smiled. “Can I bring you a drink?”
“A cucumber Collins with some hard seltzer would be great.”The woman nodded and gestured for me to go ahead, telling me she’d send someone out to me.
I made my way out to the terrace and the open table. When I sat, I smiled as I slung my bags over the back of the chair; as I suspected, the seat offered me a good view of Wes’s table, keeping me within earshot while also relatively hidden from view.
After my drink was delivered, I kept my eyes on Wes, catching pieces of his casual conversation while I drummed my fingers against the table in thought. The downside of learning about these dates at the last minute was coming up with a disruption on the fly.
My thought process was interrupted when a young girl approached my table; she looked ten, maybe eleven. I glanced over and smiled, seeing her holding a box of candy bars. “Would you like to buy some chocolate?”
“What’s it for?”
“For my gymnastics team to get my new competition leotard.”
Before I could respond, the waiter rushed over. “I’m so sorry. She asked if she could leave the box at the front with the hostess until the end of the day, and when she came back from checking with our manager, she was gone.”
I smiled…and then an idea struck. A low-down, dirty idea. “No worries.” I waved him off. “She’s not bothering me. I’ll send her inside once I get some chocolate.” The man nodded, and when he disappeared back inside, I looked at the girl and smiled. “Where are your parents?”
“My mom is working at the salon next door. She’s friends with the owner here, and he told her I could come over to try to sell some of my candy.”
“How much are they?”
She grinned. “One dollar a bar.”
“And how many bars do you have in the box right now?”
“Seventy-five. I already sold twenty-five.”
“I’ll tell you what…” I reached back, dipping my hand inside my purse and pulling out my wallet. “If you can help me play a fun little joke on someone, I’ll buy thatwholebox.”
The girl’s eyes lit up with a grin. “Okay!”
“Awesome.” I smiled. “Now, tell me…how good are you at fake crying?”
Ten minutes later, after running through a game plan, I watched the girl walk toward Wes and his lunch date. The woman was speaking to him animatedly about something, but I saw her trail off as her eyes drifted over to the girl when she approached.
