“And yet everyone falls for it,” Gabe said, looking at Jocelyn.
She gave her brother a nudge with her elbow.
“What am I missing?” Chance asked.
He hated being left in the dark and that was happening more in his life than he cared to admit.
“Are you going to tell him?” Gabe asked. “You’re not going to be able to hide it here.”
He was losing his patience. “Tell me what?”
“I can’t believe you don’t know what the Fierces do,” she said. “Not once have you heard?”
“They are engineers,” he said.
There was laughter from the group to that response.
“Engineers of matchmaking,” Elise said. “That’s what they like to do. Set people up. Everyone in this room has been set up or at least on their radar.”
“I did it on my own,” Gabe said. “But I knew what they were doing.”
“I expected it,” Elise said. “I knew they had their hand in putting Royce and Chloe together.”
“I knew what they had planned,” Chloe said. “And got a jump start on it.”
“Why would they do that?” he asked.
“Because they are nosy,” Jocelyn said.
“It’s a hobby for them in their retirement,” Gabe said. “At least for the women. The men enjoy doing it just as much, don’t let them kid you. My father got in the middle of this with Richard Kennedy with Elise and I.”
Chance turned his head to look at Jocelyn. “Do they want to set you up with someone? Is that why you pushed for me to come today?”
“I pushed because we’ve been dating for three months and I had to be here and Maverick is at daycare. You’re going to the pub in an hour. There was no reason you couldn’t join me to say hi.”
He did it because it was her friends and family and she asked.
That she wanted him around her in front of those people helped ease him always feeling as if he didn’t belong.
“I just want to make sure I don’t have to run into someone else who wants you,” he said, closing one eye at her.
“Someone else?” Gabe asked. “Like who?”
“Hey,” she said, pinching his arm. “That was supposed to be between us.”
“Don’t tell me I have to track down one of your exes again,” Gabe said.
“I took care of it,” he said.
She slipped her arm through his. “He let me take care of it, but Victor was shaking in his boots in front of Chance too.”
“Might have gone back crying for his mother.”
She coughed at that statement that no one else knew about.
“Don’t be bad,” she said.
“I’m not sure what she saw in him,” Gabe said. “Jayce and I couldn’t stand him.”
