Grabbing one of the plastic forks from a drawer, I pulled out the seat right beside Rip and took it. Popping the top off the container, I lowered my voice as quietly as I could, knocked my knee to the side until it hit Rip’s, and whispered, “There’s someone named Gio outside asking for you. I told him you didn’t work here, but he said he was going to wait out there for another twenty minutes five minutes ago.”
I could feel Rip freeze.
Then I saw him out of my peripheral vision lift his head and give me a funny expression that had his cheek going up that millimeter. “You told him I don’t work here?”
I picked up my fork and speared a piece of beef with it before whispering, “Yup.”
You couldn’t trust anybody these days, hello. Not even your own—Stop.
Rip shook his head before he shoved his chair back and got to his feet. I flashed him a closed-mouth smile that I was pretty sure he recognized as not being totally authentic.
But he lifted his hand up, and before I could even blink, his fingers pinched a loose strand of hair off my cheek and tucked it behind my ear, the pad rubbing against the sensitive skin right behind it.
And just that quickly, his hand dropped. “Watch my food for me, yeah?” he asked.
Had he just tucked my hair behind my ear or was my anger making me delusional?
I managed to get out a nod before he disappeared through the door. I only sat there for maybe five seconds staring after him before I turned my attention back down to my food and stuck a piece of beef in my mouth.
It was just as delicious as the chicken last week had been.
Chapter 20
I knewI’d made a mistake when the guy called me “sweetie” twice in a row.
Because I was pretty sure the man I was on a date with couldn’t remember my name.
If I was going to be honest with myself, the pool of pity and hurt and anger that I had been swimming in for the last few days didn’t help anything either. As much as I told myself to suck it up and handle what I had learned about my sisters—as much as I told myself to forgive them—I hadn’t. Not yet. I hadn’t even been able to tell Lenny about any of it, much less Lily. I was so… just… on edge. I hadn’t said a word to anyone over it.
So that entire situation didn’t help anything at all.
It didn’t change a single thing either, which was why I hadn’t cancelled the date I had been set up on.
Like a whole lot of things in my life, it was turning out to be a giant mistake. A giant freaking mistake.
That knowledge only settled even more in my head when my date kept glancing around the round table we were sitting at, and asked, “You sure you’re not married?”
I only barely held back a frown. “Yes.” I paused. “Why?”
He was taller than me, with dark black hair and a smirk I had thought was okay when I saw it on my phone—Lydia had sent me a sneaky picture of him. Apparently, he was a physical therapist at the same clinic that she worked at. You would have figured that by making his living dealing with people, he would have been warm, but he was just kind of… aggressive and not charming at all.
He’d tried to kiss my cheek the instant he’d come over, and I wasn’t about that life. I liked making people feel comfortable and welcomed, but I didn’t want some stranger putting his saliva on me. If we had been friends, that would have been a different story.
But this guy and I were not.
“Some guy has been staring over here like he wants to kill somebody for the last thirty minutes,” my date answered, still flicking his gaze around Mickey’s.
“I’m not married,” I confirmed, not bothering to tell him that I hadn’t had a boyfriend in years either, so the chances of me having a jealous ex stalking me were slim to none.
The man’s eyes locked on something over my shoulder. “You sure?” he asked for confirmation again, shifting around in his seat. Squirming, he was squirming.
“Yeah.” I almost turned completely around to see who he was talking about but decided not to.
We were only thirty minutes into this date, and I was about ready to get home.
If I was going to be honest with myself, I’d been ready to get home before I’d even left it.
“Huh,” the guy hummed before tearing his gaze back to my direction. “What were we talking about before?”
