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“Give me the night,” I say, inserting every bit of confidence I don’t feel into my voice. “I’ll talk to Ian, and I’ll give you an answer in the morning.”
Ben nods eagerly. “Of course. Yes. Think it over. You can get back to us in the morning.”
Ben and Gia begin murmuring back and forth, and Ava comes up from her little place in the corner to pat my shoulder. “You sure about this?”
“Doubtful,” Theo huffs.
I shake my head. “Not really. But I have to consider it, right?”
“Fuck that,” Ava says lowly, so that just the three of us can hear. “Don’t let the network pressure you into anything.”
I chew at the inside of my lip, finally taking a deep breath and blowing it out slowly. “I need to talk to Ian.”
Ava looks sympathetic, and I sort of wish I’d never even mentioned my pathetic crush. Theo just looks disgruntled, but that’s sort of his baseline.
I pull out my phone to send off a text to Ian before I can lose my nerve, surprised to find one already waiting for me.
IAN: Can we talk?
So much for one-on-one being off-limits.
I tell Ian to meet me at the same café we went to last time, thinking that the bustle of it will be a nice buffer for the awkward conversation that surely awaits us. Especially now that I apparently have to be looking over my shoulder, worrying about the possibility of someone snapping a photo of us together and analyzing it to death.
Of course, this would be the one day, the one hour, that the place is totally dead.
Ian is already sitting at one of the little tables in the corner when I come in, his head tipping up from where he’d been scrolling on his phone to watch as I step through the door. His thick, red hair is pulled back in a half bun that has no business being so fucking attractive, and I swear to God, when he tucks a piece of it that’s escaped behind his ear just before giving me a little wave—my stomach twists up like a balloon animal.
I summon every bit of confidence I possess as I move across the startlingly empty café to join him at the small table, trying not to greedily take in his bare arms and their shaded grays and sharp-lined blacks. No long sleeves today, because that would just be too easy on my poor nerves—no, Ian has opted for a worn green denim jacket that is slung over the back of his chair. I can tell just by looking at it that it looks amazing on him, that it goes great with his hair. I’m torn between wanting him to put it on so I can see him in it and hoping it stays right where it is.
“Hey,” Ian says, almost shyly, which isn’t like him at all. “Thanks for coming.”
I can’t help it, a laugh tumbles out of me. “ ‘Thanks for coming’? You sound like you’re about to break up with me or something.”
“Fuck,” he says with a chuffed laugh of his own. “This is really weird.”
“Agreed.”
“Did you read any of the, ah, posts?”
“Yep. Loved the one that had a poll on how long it would take you to put a bun in my oven. Very on topic.” Ian’s eyes bulge, and for a second, he looks a little pale, and I laugh harder without meaning to. “If we’re even going to think about agreeing to all this bullshit, we’ll need to learn to laugh about it.”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “Yeah, well, you didn’t just come from a stern discussion with your brother.”
“Oh shit. How did that go?”
“Can you imagine Jack giving anyone the ‘hurt my sister, and I’ll kill you’ talk?”
“He didn’t.”
“He sure as fuck tried.”
My laugh sounds more like a snort now. “He didn’t even do that with Etienne, and he hated that guy.”
“Yeah, well, apparently our history makes the idea of”—he looks lost for a second, frowning, finally gesturing between us vaguely—“this even more wrong.”
I have to will my face not to scrunch up. I love my brother, but he is a total cock block. Granted, he doesn’t know this is a cock I might not want blocked, but still. Not that it matters anyway, since Ian looks like he kind of wants to die just talking about this.
“So I guess you got the same spiel as I did about this being good publicity?”
