“Not compatible, I’m afraid,” Brighton said calmly, her eyes never leaving Charlotte’s. Then she turned and walked off towardthe refreshments table and grabbed a foam cup of hot chocolate before joining Adele and Elle in conversation without another glance in Charlotte’s direction.
The rest of the morningwas nothing short of torture. Charlotte could barely stomach the too-sweet hot chocolate, no doubt made from a packet of powder and water, and Brighton didn’t look her way again.
She didn’t sneak a glance.
Didn’t so much as get within twenty feet of Charlotte as those in the group milled around the fire and chatted about their interests and jobs and just how drunk their uncles would get at the traditional Christmas Eve dinner.
Charlotte should feel relieved.
She should not be sitting on a rough-hewn log around the firepit right now, feeling even more aware of Brighton than she had an hour ago, sneaking her own glances every ten seconds, and using peripheral vision to track her. This was what she’d wanted, after all—for Brighton to leave her alone, to become nothing more than a stranger in a crowd.
So why Charlotte couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Brighton’s exact location, she wasn’t sure.
You just didn’t want to see it. You didn’t want to seeme.
“Fucking ridiculous.”
“What’s ridiculous?” Sloane asked, sitting down on the log next to Charlotte.
“Did I say that out loud?” Charlotte asked.
Sloane nodded.
Charlotte just shook her head, then lifted her foam cup. “Just…this hot chocolate.”
Sloane laughed. “I mean, it’s bad, but I’m not sure iffucking ridiculousis quite accurate.”
Charlotte let herself laugh too, took a few seconds to breathe through the tightness in her chest.
“What happened with Brighton?” Sloane asked. “Didn’t hit it off?”
Charlotte snorted. “You could say that.”
“Why not? I was starting to wonder if all that tension last night at dinner was purely sexual.”
Charlotte nearly choked on her sugar water. “No. Absolutely not. She’s…she’s just not my type, I guess.”
Sloane hummed. “Still, she’s lovely.”
Charlotte snapped her gaze to Sloane, who was watching Brighton—now sitting on the back porch, talking to a woman with short dark hair and wearing Docs—with curiosity. Something foreign and unwelcome rose up in Charlotte’s chest, closing tight fingers around her throat. Suddenly, flashes of Sloane and Brighton together played in high definition behind her eyelids.
Another ridiculous thing.
She should want Brighton with someone else right now. It would get her out of Charlotte’s hair for the rest of this trip, and it wasn’t like Sloane was looking for anything serious anyway. She never was. In all the time Charlotte had known Sloane, she’d never gone beyond a few dates, mostly for the sex. Her words, not Charlotte’s. It’d be the perfect distraction for all of them.
You should go for itformed on Charlotte’s tongue, but she couldn’t quite get the phrase out of her mouth.
“Did you know she was in the Katies?” Sloane asked.
Charlotte blinked as Sloane’s words jumbled into her head, then slowly snapped into the right order. “Wait, what?”
“Founded the band or something like that. Years ago.”
Charlotte didn’t particularly like the Katies, but she’d certainly heard of them. Elle loved them, had even arranged a string piece of their hit song, “Cherry Lipstick,” for the quartet that they had performed at live shows as a crowd-pleaser.
And a crowd-pleaser it was, especially with Elle’s pop-driven style combined with the fluidity of their strings. Even Charlotte enjoyed playing the song, the quick slash of her bow during the chorus.
Still, the Katies’ percussion-driven style wasn’t her favorite for daily listening.
