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The building manager can do whatever he wants.
“There,” he says, perching on the barstool again. “Pretty girls don’t go drink-less around these parts. Not on my watch.”
I smile. “Thanks, Oli.”
He takes a quick sip from his own bottle. “Hey, are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I touch the bottle in front of me and a cool shock tingles my fingertips. “Why?”
“You just seem a little... off. That’s all.”
“Had a long weekend,” I answer, keeping it vague.
“Graham keeping you busy?”
“Strangely, no. He gave me the weekend off.”
He nods. “So, are these the downturn eyes of a girl who had too much fun or not enough?”
I look at him, instantly pulled in by his bright, blue gaze. I didn’t come to the bar to make chit-chat, but he procured me a drink. Might as well make some conversation.
“Not enough,” I answer. “My boyfriend dumped me.”
His head tilts with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”
“We weren’t together for very long. A few months. Or weeks, maybe…” I sigh. It’s telling that I’m not sure. No one to blame but myself for that one. “I’m starting to see a pattern here.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, you know. You meet somebody, you open yourself up, and then…”
I mime a few explosion motions with my hands.
Oliver nods. “So, you get dumped, come back here, and immediately see a big ole’ wedding party in the lobby, huh?”
“Wound, meet salt.”
“That’s rough.”
“No, that’s coarse. Add in Graham eloping and dragging his new ex-wife-bride along with us for the next while for a constant show of lawfully wedded bliss, and you’ve got rough.”
“Graham eloped?” His jaw drops. “Again?”
I nod. “Apparently.”
“When?”
“Just now. I saw them in the lobby.”
Oliver’s face screws up as he twists on his stool and pats the shoulder on his other side. “Hey, Hayden. Did Graham elope again?”
Hayden, Graham’s younger brother and the second heir to the Botsford crown, turns to look at us.
“Yeah,” he answers nonchalantly.
“When?”
“Like, just now.”
