“Are you for real?”
His lips pressed together. “It’s like you don’t care about your old friends anymore and only want these new ones.”
“I still want my old friends.”
“Really? It didn’t feel like that last weekend.”
He was still going on about that? Regrets wrestled with self-righteousness. “I can’t be everywhere.”
“I get it. You’re a popular lady.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “But I gotta admit, lately it’s kind of felt like you’ve tried to ghost me.”
“What do you mean? I invited you here today, didn’t I?”
“And barely talked to me,” he grumbled.
“That’s because you sound offended about everything that’s going on.”
“I’m not offended,” he retorted.
“Really? You could’ve fooled me. What’s your problem?”
“Hey, kids.” Gwen swooped in again. “Everything okay here?”
“It’d be better if I could get the chance to talk to EJ for a minute without someone interrupting,” Jordan snapped.
“Whoa! Okay, I can see I’m not wanted here.”
“Good,” Jordan muttered as she walked away.
EJ, seeing Gwen’s head swivel, hissed, “She heard that!”
“Then maybe she’ll get the message.”
“Jordan, what is wrong with you? You’re acting all huffy and weird.”
“I’m not the one acting weird. You’re the one pretending to like things like caviar, when we both know you hate the stuff. Why do you keep pretending? Why can’t you be real?”
Heat flared in her chest. “You want to talk about real? Why don’t you admit why you’re acting like this?”
His eyes narrowed; then he shook his head and glanced away.
“Yeah, okay, so obviously we have different standards on when we’re supposed to be real. Listen, Jordan, I might not lovecaviar, but I’m being polite. Eric has gone to a lot of trouble to make things nice today—”
“Get real. He paid people to do this. It’s not like he would’ve organised anything himself.”
“That’s not true!” she snapped, even though part of her said it was probably true. Okay, from what Gwen said earlier, it definitely was true. Not that she would give Jordan the satisfaction of saying that. “He’s a very busy man, but he’s gone to some trouble, which is more than some people do.”
His gaze slitted. “I hope that’s not supposed to be a shot at me.”
“No, that’s right. You sent me a happy birthday message. Whoopy do.”
He blinked and paced back. “Wow.”
She took a step forward. “Do you remember what I did for your birthday last year? I got you tickets to see the Sydney Swans play, and you had an awesome time.”
“It was nice,” he mumbled.
“Nice?” she screeched. “Do you know how much those tickets cost? You told me it was one of the best birthday presents ever. And this year you just sent me a happy birthday message?”
