“Thenwhydid you follow Franco here?” Her voice was threatening to crack.
He pushed his hair out of his eyes. Struggling, again, for words.
“I guess my instinct was just... from the moment I saw you, Britt, right here at the Misty Cat... to fight off all other contenders. And to just... be wherever you are.”
He began to blur before her eyes. Because she was about to cry.
“Britt...” he said urgently, softly. Stepping toward her. “Sweet—”
“Don’tcall me sweetheart.” She swiped viciously at her traitorous eyes.
He went still. As if she’d shoved a knife right in.
And she saw something hard and resolute pass over his features.
Before they went carefully neutral.
“I’m leaving for Napa for Nicasio’s wedding this afternoon. I’ll be gone for a few days.”
“I know,” she said. “Back to your world.”
She could have sworn he was counting to ten silently in his head before he spoke.
“There’s only one world, Britt. Some of us live in all of it instead of one tiny corner of it.”
That was quite the swipe.
“The three of you should have awonderfultime,” she said with a sort of savage sweetness. “I have to go, J. T.”
“For a run?” he said brutally.
She growled and whipped around again and stalked back to the grill.
CHAPTER19
An hour later Britt was hurling her purse onto her sofa and plopping herself down in front of her laptop. She glared at the wall for a moment, and absently bent to pet Phillip for a while.
And then she almost reflexively called her sister.
Laine answered right away. Her familiar face filled the screen.
“Are you okay, Bip? Shouldn’t you be working right now?”
“Glenn sent me home.”
“Yikes. Because of your eye infection?”
“What the—myeyeinfection?”
“Remember when you used that five-year-old mascara when you shouldn’t have and got an infection and your eye swelled shut and was all oozy? That’s kind of what you look like right now.”
Maybe she should have looked in the mirror before she called Laine.
Glenn had sent her home out of pity and told her to sleep the rest of the day. She could pick up a night shift to make up the hours.
“Wow. That’s pretty bad. I haven’t looked in the mirror yet today. ”
And then a lightbulb appeared to go on in Laine’s head. Her eyes went wide.