“Sooo,” he started, rubbing his hand evilly together. “Are you ready for tonight?”
Damn it.
“Ready for what?” Hawk interrupted.
“Young Britta here has a date.” He was almost jubilant and I felt sick.
I warned myself not to look, but it was like I didn’t have any control over my eyeballs. I glanced at Hawk who was now sitting, an ankle over one knee, a pen flicking between his fingers. I could tell he was mad because his jaw was twitching uncontrollably.
“You have a date?” he finally asked through clench teeth.
“It’s not my idea,” I said, looking back to Slate for back up. He gave none. Instead, he was casting a curious glance between Hawk and me but failed to piece any of the puzzle together.
“Can’t I cancel?” I asked, hoping to get the answer I wanted.
Slate shook his head. “You certainly can not. You’re in your prime. And just like Mom said, now’s the time to lock in someone, before they realize we’re all batshit crazy and you end up being a lonely spinster with ten cats.”
“But aren’t you seeing someone else?” Hawk asked, a wicked and somewhat challenging glimmer in his eyes.
“Yeah,” Slate interjected on my behalf. “But that’s just for fun. I’m trying to get her tied down like she wants. You know... thinking long-term.”
“Wow,” I said deadpan. “You’re really selling it to me. Tied down... long-term.”
“You know what I mean. Nothing wrong with any of those things.”
“Because you’re living proof of it,” I joked with my brother, but what I was saying was the truth.
“It’s different with me, I don’t have a ticking clock, and this guy might be able to rectify that for you.”
I shook my head in amusement. Slate always got in my business and didn’t care if anything he said could be deemed as crossing the line. I swear, all of them would only be happy if I were married, and pushing out six babies just like our mother.
“A blind date seems a bit extreme,” Hawk offered, locking eyes with mine.
“Well, do you have a better idea?” Slate asked, proposing the challenge.
Hawk winked at me on the side Slate couldn’t see. I smiled, but that didn’t stop the vein in his neck from twitching overtime.
It seemed that Hawk was struggling with his own terms of the agreement.
I gave it a few hours before he would crack.Chapter 16HawkI was feeling a rage like I’d never known before.
Not at her.
At the situation.
She wasn’t mine, I knew that. We agreed to not call this anything except sex between friends. Yet, here I was, feeling an overwhelming urge to knock the guy who was working to earn Britta’s affection. It should be me wining and dining her. But it wasn’t. The situation was fucked.
Eloping sounded like a brilliant idea in my irrational thoughts. That was because we could rule out intervention from any family with a chip on their shoulder.
Why the fuck was I even contemplating marriage?
“I know where she is,” came a voice from behind me.
I spun around to see the receptionist popping her head into my office. “What?” I barked unintentionally. She backed away slightly and second-guessed interrupting me. “Sorry,” I said keeping my tone in check. “Excuse me?”
Smiling slightly, the receptionist returned to her original position. “I know where she is... if you want to know?”
I bit down hard on my bottom lip. If I agreed, I looked like a mad stalker. But I wanted to know more than anything.
She stepped in, dropping a piece of paper onto my desk.
“It’s okay,” she said without judgment. “I think it’s romantic.”
And then she left, leaving me stunned and grateful.
I looked at the neat writing on the slip of paper. It was a restaurant not far from my place.
“Thank you,” I called out when making my way down the hall to the elevator. A pay rise for Sara wasn’t out of the question. It took fifteen minutes to get from work to the address. Pulling up across the road from the restaurant, I looked in to see if she was there. But what I saw was the last thing I expected.
“What the fuck... this better not be some weird group date.”
Rebekah and Roman walked hand in hand like the loved-up couple they weren’t, into the same restaurant Britta was supposedly at.
Britta mentioned she had dinner with her old friend who knew of his infidelities, so why were they here together? It didn’t take me long to get out and walk across the street, following them in. Bypassing the hostess, I spotted Britta on the far side of the busy room. I was there within seconds, pulling a spare chair from the table opposite and sitting next to Britta.
She was startled when she noticed me, clutching her chest from fright.
“Jesus, Hawk! You can’t frighten me like that.”
Her date was watching me as if I was some kind of nutter. He was smaller than me and looked a little scared. He then turned to Britta who offered no explanation.