Her grin only intensifies. “Yeah, like sewer water and champagne.”
I arch a brow.
“They’re both liquids yetvastlydifferent, wouldn’t you say, Fi?”
“Vastly.”
I fold my arms with more force. “He’s Fi’s date. Not mine.”
Fiona sighs. “If that boy weren’t head over heels for you, Elle, I’d have kept him for myself.”
“Lucky for you, he’s not head over anything for me.”
“He faceplanted in our foyer vase the first time he saw you,” Calanthe adds unhelpfully.
“He tripped. Not my fault.”
“So oblivious,” she murmurs affectionately.
“Just you two wait till he gets a dose of my personality,” I mutter. “He’ll be tripping right out of here.”
Calanthe picks a piece of lint off the low-waisted, black velvet pants that match my top. “He’ll just grow more enamored.”
I shoot her a droll look, expecting her to break into a chuckle. But she doesn’t. She only smiles like she means what she just said.
Before Malachi found me a decade ago, my world was nothing but an addict of a mother who saw me as a source of revenue. Now I’m in possession of a loud, eclectic, extraordinary family that meddles as hard as it loves.
“What are we drinking?” Calanthe glances at the highball glass sweating beside my elbow.
“Palomas,” Fiona replies, draining hers.
“Ooh. I love those,” Calanthe croons.
I nod to my glass. “Help yourself.”
“No.” Fiona orders a new one from the bartender. “Elle needs it.”
“Fi, here, thinks I’m wound tight.”
“You do seem wound a little tighter than usual,” Calanthe says before swapping the paloma for a Virgin Mary.
“She’s nervous about her blind date,” Fiona says.
Iamnervous, but not about my blind date.
“Ah, here he is!” Fiona proclaims, her palms coming together in giddiness.
My heart snaps as though her arthritic hands had clapped the muscle in my chest instead of the air in front of her.
I’m expecting golden hair and cerulean eyes. Instead, I’m hit with a washed-out version of those colors—light-brown locks that don’t seem to have gotten acquainted with a comb in recent weeks and irises that could be blue, like they could be brown. It’s impossible to tell beyond the thick, clear lenses that screen them off.
I let my gaze drag down my date’s body. At least he’s nicely-muscled. Then again, he works at a gym, so physical fitness must be a prerequisite. When I reach his shoes, I cock an eyebrow—white high-tops full of doodles. There’s a bleeding red heart on the toecap of one shoe, a four-leaf clover on the other, and words made of so many loops they resemble battery coils.
My gaze journeys back up the length of him—up his long legs clad in black slacks, over the black dress shirt that gapes so low I can spot a necklace.
I grimace, because there’s something about male jewelry that sets my teeth on edge. Could be because my mother’s last boyfriend used to wear a chain that would rattle every time he strode into our house for a fix.
When I finally stop inspecting the man Fiona is trying to set me up with, I realize that she and Calanthe have deserted me.
