“Hey!”
“Well, it’s true.”
She sipped her wine and shrugged. “Okay, so we’re a little wild, but I promise you we would never purposely do something like that.” She paused. “Unless he was a complete asshole. Then all bets are off.”
I laughed. “You’re horrible.”
“No, I’m a good friend,” she corrected before taking a sip of her wine.
The doorbell rang again, announcing the arrival of another one of my friends.
“I’ll get it,” Lucy offered. “I’ll give them a heads up not to ask questions about Jordan’s parents.”
“Thank you. I don’t think he minds too much, but I don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable.”
“No problem.”
One by one, my friends arrived and I got busy serving wine and putting out the cheese tray I’d purchased earlier that day.
When Jordan joined us in the living room, my friends fell silent, everyone but Lucy staring at him. Quickly I introduced everyone.
“Jordan, these are my friends Yancy Stevens, Grier Carter, and Chelsea Archer. Girls, this is Jordan Hawke.”
They came forward to shake his hand.
“Whatever you’re cooking smells amazing,” Yancy stated.
Grier was next. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“You’re really hot,” Chelsea announced as she shook his hand.
This time I couldn’t contain my eye roll. Jordan just laughed.
“Thank you, Chelsea.”
I shot her a dark look as she walked back to her seat on the sofa.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“You know what you did,” I answered.
She shrugged. “He is hot and he’s probably looked in the mirror enough to know it.”
“Stop saying he’s hot!”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
Lucy interrupted our juvenile argument before it could get out of hand.
“Jordan, I’m putting together a series of portraits for my next show and I would love it if you would sit for me.”
“See, even Lucy wants to paint him like one of her French girls,” Chelsea pointed out.
Jordan, as always, adapted to the conversation without any outward sign of discomfort or indication that he thought my friends were batshit crazy. “I didn’t realize you were a painter, Lucy,” he commented.
“I’m not,” she replied. “I’m a photographer. Chelsea was just being obnoxious.”
Rather than getting offended, Chelsea grinned, lifting her glass toward Lucy, and I realized then that she was testing Jordan’s mettle. I leaned in closer to her and whispered, “Take it down a notch. Or ten, please.”
