“So you’re the one.”
“Um—”
“Oh, don’t worry.” She waves a hand. “Everyone’s already talking about you, it’s quite sweet. Arkane, like all of Joy and Aldrich’s sons, is very sought after, you know.”
Her friend, who’s materialized on the other side, nods. “Very sought after.”
Nod, nod, nod from a third woman who’s come up behind us.
“But it’s fine, my dear.” The cream-blouse woman pats my arm. “He’s no womanizer. I believe he’s only had one ex-girlfriend—”
“Oh, hush, don’t gossip.”
The third woman swats at her elbow, and cream-blouse puts her teacup down with a small huff.
And here’s the thing.
My mind knows gossip is wrong. My mind knows the right move is to smile politely and change the subject and be above this, the way a billionaire’s girlfriend is probably supposed to be above this. My mind knows all of that.
My heart, on the other hand, is screaming internally:keep going, keep going, keep going—what was her name, why did they break up, do you have a picture.
I bite the inside of my lip so hard I can taste it.
I do not, for the record, get to hear anything else about her, because the third woman has successfully steered the conversation onto safer ground—something about the weather, I think, I’m not really processing—and the ex-girlfriend vaporizes back into the unknown where she came from.
One.
Just one.
One is better than many. One is worse than none. That’s all I’ve got.
“You have such anopenface, dear.”
This from yet another woman, who’s arrived at my elbow the way these women seem to arrive—with a fresh cup of tea and a bright smile.
“Um—thank you?”
“It’s the perfect complement to Arkane’s.”
I blink. “His...face?”
“Mm.” She sips her tea. “His is so closed, you know. Always has been, even as a boy. And yours—yours is all weather. I could tell from across the room exactly what you were thinking about those pastries.”
I was, in fact, thinking about the pastries. There’s a tiny one with raspberry on top that I’ve been plotting a route toward for the last fifteen minutes.
The women around her laugh.
And because I don’t know what to do with any of this—an older woman telling me my face and Arkane’s are a matching set, after a month of trying to figure out what his face is doing at any given moment—I fall back on default.
Smile, smile, smile.
And what do you know, they have their own default, too.
Laugh, laugh, laugh.
And surprisingly, none of us is faking it.
The luncheon lasts well into early afternoon. Joy’s friends are all in their late forties and fifties, but honestly, they all have so much energy talking about their next plans for this orphanage and that shelter, their fundraising goals for this account and that—I feel overwhelmed just listening to them, and it just makes me start thinking...