Page 35 of Get Lost

Chapter Thirteen

First, he’d shown off his connections by having the chef send off-menu items to Kelsey’s table—looking like a smug bastard when he did it, no less. He may as well have just stood there name-dropping, the smug jerkface.

But then…thenhe’d had the nerve to pay for their meal. Kelsey was hot with indignation. “I’m not letting him pay for the meal,” she told the server. She looked around at her friends. “You guys agree, right? I mean, that’s so ridiculous. Who does that?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s already done. He paid, like, an hour ago.”

Shaking her head, Kelsey looked around at the girls again, then back at the server because they were clearly no help at all. “Did he at least tip you well?”

She nodded fervently. “Yes, definitely.”

“Fine. Then he’s a pompous ass who tips well.” With a huff she hoped Alexander could hear all the way down on his perch in Hell,Kelsey plopped back into her seat.

The girls watched her with eyebrows raised. Like she was overreacting.

Her eyes widened. “You guys are okay with this?”

Brea waved her hands. “A free meal is a free meal.”

“We can afford our own meals,” she growled.

“Of course we can, babe, but your boyfriend wanted to—”

Kelsey’s glare stopped Brea’s words dead in their tracks. She slammed her mouth shut, her lips twitching. These assholes were actually getting a kick out of this, weren’t they?

Hmph. Kelsey opened her Venmo app and searched for Alexander Arroyo because he probably wasn’t listed asPompous Jerkface. She couldn’t believe he’d paid for the girls’ entire brunch. She couldn’t find him right away, so she searched instead forAlex Arroyo. His Venmo profile popped up a few rows down, looking annoyingly handsome in his chef’s coat in the tiny profile photo. She tried to use her fingers to make it bigger, then flushed with shame because that doesn’t work with Venmo profile pics.Stupid.And it didn’t matter anyway because she didn’t think he was handsome. Nope. Alexander was annoying. Irritating. Immature. Childish.

But definitely not handsome.

No way.

And now she could addpompousto the list of his attributes.

It’s just that… well, you see… the problem was… Kelsey found chefs incredibly sexy. So that must have been the only reason she’d thought something as silly asAlexanderandhandsomein the same sentence.

She clicked on his name and entered a dollar amount she figured would cover the brunch he had no right to pay for.

“God, no wonder he’d been so smug when he left,” she mumbled more to herself than the other girls. “Walking out of here thinking he’d won…”

“Won what, exactly?” Brea asked.

Kelsey looked up at her friend sitting to her right. “Huh?”

“You said he walked out of here thinking he’d won. What did you mean?”

“You know.” Kelsey waved her hand in the air. “This, like, battle or whatever. He’s been baiting me since we were kids.”

“I think he’s trying towinsomething, all right.”

Kelsey swiveled her head to face Nessa on the other side of her, irritation prickling the hairs on the back of her neck. “Dare I ask what you mean by that?”

Nessa grinned. “Your heart, Kels. Obviously.”

“Aw,” Brynn said, swooning.

What kind of wacko swoons about Alexander Arroyo?“You guys are the worst.” Kelsey focused her attention on her phone, staring at the app because she was stuck. In the section where Venmo asks what you’re paying for, Kelsey had nothing clever to say.

This was Alexander, which meant she couldn’t just saybrunch,or evenwe can pay for our own damn bottomless mimosas, ortake your money and shove it up your firm—

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