Page 43 of The Wedding Engagement

He lifted a hand to rub his forehead.What’s going on?“That was when we were a couple, Jess. We aren’t anymore.” He closed his eyes briefly in discomfort. Being short wasn’t like him, but she was really testing his patience of late.

“Right.” She paused, and the uncomfortable moment’s silence caused his pulse to spike. “Bye, then.”

“Bye.” He hung up, feeling decidedly nauseated.

Liv’s eyebrows were knitted. “What was that all about?”

Arran let out a slow breath. “I have no idea.” Everyone was looking at him with a mix of sympathy and puzzlement.

“Was she asking you to take Jayce when you’re meant to be away with us?” Sam asked, his tone incredulous.

“Yeah,” he replied, trying to fathom what had been going through Jess’s head. It was an unreasonable request, but what made it worse was her having the audacity to be annoyed when he said no. And yet, he still felt guilty about it.

“For fuck’s sake,” Sam muttered. “Youtoldher about that weekend.”

Liv nudged Arran’s arm. “What else did she say? Before you told her you weren’t a couple anymore?”

He ran a hand over the top of his hair. “She asked me if I’d bought Sam a present from her. Because we always used to get our best friends presents from each other.”

Liv nodded, clearly understanding why he’d answered Jess the way he had. “Do you think she’s okay?” she asked Arran. “I mean, she’s not usually possessive, is she?”

“Possessive” was a good way to describe Jess’s current behavior. “Not since we split. But why would she be? We haven’t been a couple for a year, and she was the one who ended it.”

Liv was nodding, a frown on her face.

“Sounds like she’s insecure, to me,” Elise chimed in.

Liv and Maya were nodding in agreement, and Arran absorbed their sympathetic outlook. Maybe they were right.

The others began to talk among themselves, and Liv leaned in toward Arran. “I hope it’s not me that’s upset Jess.”

He frowned, meeting her gaze. “What do you mean?”

Her eyes were wide with concern. “She was funny the other night on the phone, once she found out I was there. Now she’scalling you when she knows you’re out for our birthday and also trying to stop us being on the same weekend away together.”

He opened his mouth to protest that it couldn’t be the reason, because why would Jess care who he was socializing with? But then he closed it again, realizing that Jess’s keeping tabshadbegun after that day she’d called when Liv was round.

“I wonder,” Liv continued, her head cocked to the side with a cute frown on her face, “whether Rory’s putting pressure on her too.”

Arran raised his eyebrows. “How do you mean?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose. “He’s quite the party animal. Perhaps he’s pressuring her to get you to have Jayce so they can go to all these parties together. It doesn’t sound like he’s the stay-in-and-play-happy-families sort.” She paused. “It must be hard to devote enough time to a new relationship, especially with someone high-maintenance like him.”

Arran hadn’t really taken any time to consider all that from Jess’s point of view before. He’d been distracted by his own hurt and had painted a mental picture of Jess and Rory running off hand in hand into an idyllic existence together.

Maya’s voice brought him out of his ruminations. “Isn’t it your date this weekend, Liv?”

It took a couple of seconds to process what Maya had said, and he snapped his gaze to Liv, his heart rate spiking.What date?

“Yeah,” she said, glancing away. “That’s right.”

“Come on, then,” Maya said, raising her eyebrows. “Give us the deets.”

Liv laughed, but it sounded slightly high-pitched. “Not much to say, really. We’re meeting for a drink.”

“Where?” Elise asked. “Here?”

Liv shook her head. “The new cocktail bar on the high street.”

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