Liar.
Right now he’s secretly cursing Ash for inviting him here. My shoulder-length hair is light brown, and tonight it’s fixed. My eyes are actually a pretty cool blue most days. It’s like they shift. This is one of the good days, and he’s still not impressed.
Some of my features might be amazing on their own, but all together, they make a girl most guys consider ordinary. I’ve always been completely fine with that until I met Rye.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say quietly, somehow hiding the sigh on the tip of my tongue.
Ash frowns as she looks from me to Rye, but she can’t possibly know anything. I’m doing good at playing fine.
“Sorry about the sundress,” I murmur with a shrug. “I had to get ready quickly.”
Ash starts to say something, but douche boy beats her to it.
“I just found out about this ten minutes ago, and I managed to—”
“So,” Ash interrupts, “Adam, Brin is the assistant to the director at the museum. She’s witty, smart, funny, and completely unpredictable. Brin, Adam is climbing the ladder at Millington Inc. He’s an accountant and... um... new to the area?”
She acts like she knows nothing about him, and she turn
s on her heel to retreat. And what does he mean ten minutes ago? Ash said she had a date for me much earlier than that.
“How long have you been in Sterling Shore?” I ask him as a way of killing the awkward silence.
“Actually, I’ve been here for ten years, so I’m not sure what she meant by that,” he says with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
I don’t like him. In fact, I can tell what a major turd he is right now. With drop-dead gorgeous girls, guys work hard on a façade that could fool royalty. But with girls like me, they barely even try to mask their real selves.
“Ah, so Ash barely knows you.”
He tilts his head, checking out Ash’s ass as she walks away. What a dick.
“I met her the other day. She met with us about maybe changing accounting firms. I thought she was inviting me here for her,” he says while turning back around to meet my eyes.
Of course he did. This guy is just as average as me, so I’m not sure why the hell he’s acting so above my level. He looks a lot like John, and he’d be in the likely pool of datable prospects I could obtain—if he wasn’t such an arrogant prick.
In his mind, he looks like the Sterling men. At least I’m self-aware. There was once a time I sat around laughing at all the beautiful people. I should have stuck to that instead of befriending them. It makes life hard.
“Ash is married to Tag Masters,” I say quickly, wondering how he doesn’t know that if he was going to be on her account. She must have decided early on that she didn’t want this prick to deal with.
So why did she set me up with him?
His eyes scan the scene and widen when they land on the beautiful man who is pulling Ash close for a showy, steamy kiss that almost makes my toes curl. Damn.
Rye is laughing with his date as she giggles beside him. Perfect—she even laughs pretty. My brief window of fantasy seals itself shut right in front of my eyes.
Her immaculately manicured nails are painted hot pink, and I glance down to my short, sad, plain nails. Her long, vibrant, red hair is a sharp contrast to my shorter, duller locks. I should have gotten a different color when I went to get the blue covered up.
Stop. I need to stop. I’m me. That’s never bothered me before, and I refuse to let it bother me now just because I had a crush on a jerk that I thought liked me.
“Should we sit or something?” I ask the guy who is busy drooling over every other girl here.
“Sure,” he says, sighing as though he’s bored out of his mind.
This is going to be a long night.
Chapter 8
RYE