I glared at Davide. “Not. Helping.”
“Your boss?” she asked, her voice pitched an octave higher.
I put a hand on my hip, which made Davide smirk. “I’m sorry. Who was Chris before he became your boyfriend?”
“That’s totally different. He didn’t make a move until I gave him my notice.”
“But you were still working with him when your whole thing started.”
She opened her mouth to continue arguing but stopped when I lifted a hand.
“It’s not up for discussion, Lucy.”
She didn’t give up. “You know it’s a bad idea, right?”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest but didn’t respond.
“When did this start, anyway?”
I couldn’t help it. I tensed at her question. And, of course, being Lucy, she saw it.
“Oh. My. God. He’s the guy!” she yelled. She scowled at Elijah. It was a good thing her eyes couldn’t shoot laser beams because he would have been dead.
“The guy?” Eli asked.
“You hurt her,” Lucy said, stomping forward, her hands fisted at her side.
“Hey, chill out.” I lifted my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Let’s get a cup of coffee, and we can have a civil?—”
“I know. I screwed up with Gigi.”
“How did you screw up with Gigi?” Lucy asked. She squinted at him and used air quotes when she asked the question. “And you call her Gigi?” Her voice shot up an octave, cracking as she repeated the nickname he gave me.
“That is enough!” I snapped.
Lucy stopped short, rocking back on her heels at the anger in my voice.
I crossed the room to her. “I really appreciate that you’re protective of me, Lucy, but you don’t get to ask Eli those questions. If I’d wanted you to know all the details of what happened between us when we stopped spending time together, I would have told you and the other girls when I told you things ended.”
“You mean like you told me that it was Eli you were seeing rather than letting me assume it was some random dude you met on a dating app?” She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked out a hip. Every inch of her body screamed her attitude.
“I didn’t tell you I was seeing Eli because it was between the two of us, and we didn’t want things to be awkward in the group if it didn’t work out.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but I shook my head.
“This isn’t up for discussion, Lucy. I made the best decision for myself at the time, and it’s not cool for you to try to make me feel badly about it.”
The fire seemed to fade out of her. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I know you care, and that’s why you were so upset. But things aren’t always simple. In this situation, until I knew if it was going to be more than a few dates, I didn’t want to go through the whole thing until I was ready.”
Lucy nodded.
“I’ll give you a couple of minutes,” Eli said, drawing our attention to him.
I turned my head to look over my shoulder at him. He gave me a kiss on the cheek and headed toward the door, hustling Davide out as he left.
“Hey! I’m friends with both of them. I should be in on the gossip!”
