Page 29 of Until I Found You
Turning to look at Craig, I detect the glint of happiness in his eye and I know he really means it.
“Which one is she?” he asks, taking me completely off guard. I know without asking him to elaborate who he’s referring to. “Wait, don’t tell me, let me guess.”
I laugh, seeing the wide smile on his face.
“She’s the blonde one in the black dress, right?”
It really can’t be too hard to figure it out. He already knows who Brea is, so that’s off the table. There is Ellie, who is standing next to Callum who has his arm permanently glued to her side. Then, there’s Kinsley who’s running through the bachelor/bachelorette party games with Halle seated, looking somewhat relaxed as she laughs with Brannon about something. I grit my teeth watching as Halle brushes her hand against Brannon’s arm, as her eyes flash over to mine. She knows I’m watching her and her obvious display of flirting with my friend.
The sound of glass shattering at the bar next to us has both Craig and I turning our attention to where Lissa is rounding up the order of drinks. Lissa raises her hand to her mouth as she mutters “ouch” repeatedly, spurring Craig and me into action.
“Are you okay?” I mutter, helping clean up the spilled vodka on the bar being careful as I pick up the shards of glass.
“Just great,” she responds. There is a hint of annoyance in her voice.
“You sure about that?” I ask, raising my eyebrow at her not buying it at all.
“Are they, like, together?”
She motions with her head over to the table and it dawns on me that she’s asking about Brannon and Halle. I’m surprised she asks, honestly. The first time she met Brannon was when she was dating her ex-boyfriend, Adam, and he didn’t shy away from hitting on her immediately.
Lissa wasn’t at all interested, or so we thought, at his obvious advances. In fact, she denied him and any attempts of even talking to her every time.
Now here she is asking if he’s dating Halle, not realizing she’s never met Halle or who she is to me.
“If they were, would it bother you?”
“No,” she replies sharply, rolling her eyes as she kneels on the floor to wipe up the mess.
She’s as bothered by their flirting as I am. I want to laugh at how stubborn she can be.
She doesn’t look at me as she continues to busy herself with remaking the spilled drink and lining them all onto her tray.
“Lissa,” I say, interrupting her. She huffs out a breath, blowing a strand of hair in front of her face as she looks up at me. The same moment she does that, we hear another round of laughs behind us, drawing our attention back to Halle and Brannon.
Flexing my jaw, I shake my head wanting to yell at Brannon to lay off when I think about his words from earlier tonight about how it’s my fault she’s on the market anyway. It’s true and I can’t exactly go around telling Halle who she can’t be with.
Turning my attention back to Lissa, she plasters a fake smile on her face as she moves the tray into her hands.
“What’s up?”
“For the record, they aren’t together,” I say, pausing to make sure she hears me. “Remember Halle, the girl from back home I told you about?”
When Lissa and Adam broke up, she was upset. She tried to hide it, she can play it off well, but when I found her broken down in the cooler one night after a text message he had sent her, I opened up to her about the one that got away.
It takes her a minute, but her eyes widen as she remembers who that is as she looks back over at them and then back to me.
“That’s her?”
“Yep,” I say. “If I had to guess, they are both trying to get under our skin. Trust me, I know because even though they keep talking, he hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off you.”
“Of course, he can’t,” she mocks, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “God, he is such a pain in the ass,” she curses, adjusting the tray on her arm as she saunters over to the table.
I want to laugh as Brannon eyes her the entire way over. She knows it, too, as she adds an extra swing to her hips.
Stubborn woman.
