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He swallowed hard, lifting his mug to his lips. “No, thank you.”
Liv huffed out a breath. “Why not?”
Arran shook his head, frowning. “This is my responsibility, so I’ll handle it. You’ve got your own life to deal with.”
She shrugged. “I’m not busy.”
“That’s because you’re the only one of us that has their shit together,” he said, shooting her a smile.
“Yeah, right,” she muttered under her breath.
He cocked his head. “Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
They both fell silent, and she willed him to change his mind, wishing she were an actual Jedi with the power to sway people’s intentions. But he just sipped his tea with a determined look on his face.
She sighed. “You’re so stubborn and annoying.”
He grinned. “You love me, really.”
“Hmm,” she said, keeping her eyes on her tea.
“Any plans for tomorrow?” he asked in an obvious effort to change the subject.
She decided it was best to let it go—for now. “Yeah. I’m meeting Elise at Maya and Sam’s house tomorrow afternoon. Sam will be there too.”
“Oh yeah?” he said. “What time? Sam’s meant to be meeting me and Nico at Nico’s sister’s house tomorrow after lunch.” He paused, seeming to ponder for a second. “Sam seemed pretty eager to catch up. When Nico asked for a rain check—because he was babysitting his sister’s kids—Sam said no and that we’d just meet Nico there.”
She frowned. “Not sure what that’s all about. But our thing isn’t until midafternoon, so he must be seeing you guys first, then coming to us.”
Arran arched an eyebrow. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
She smiled. “Yes, indeed. Anyway, we’ll find out what the story is tomorrow.”
“Yep.” He lifted his mug, she clunked hers with his, and as she sipped her drink she reminded herself that no good could come of her attraction to one of her best friends.
Chapter
Two
Finishing off the last flickof the curling iron, Liv paused to check out her efforts. Hair curled—check. Smoky eye and winged eyeliner—check. Little black skater-style dress with best lacy underwear hidden underneath—check.
She purposely hadn’t mentioned her blind date to Arran when she’d dropped Jayce off earlier on, feeling rather self-conscious about the whole thing. Luckily, he’d only asked what she was doing the next day, not that evening, so she hadn’t needed to make something up. She sucked at lying and loathed doing it.
At first she’d resisted the idea when her friend Maya had told her about the new blind-date app—BlindLove—but then her resolve had crumbled when she’d pondered how long it had been since she’d been on a date. It would be fun to find something casual again, and it didn’t need to progress to anything serious.
She’d admitted to Maya and their other best friend, Elise, that she was going on the date but had asked them not to mention it to anyone because she couldn’t be bothered with the inevitable pressure to pursue a serious relationship. People really were obsessed with converting single women’s relationship status to “coupled up.”
Her phone buzzed, signaling that her taxi was approaching, so she hurried down the stairs to put on her black heels and biker-style jacket before heading out to the waiting car.
On the way to the bar, she opened the BlindLove app again. The app’s algorithm wasn’t based on information such as job status or hobbies, but matched people anonymously using themes such as values, character traits, and life goals. Her date’s profile indicated that he liked physical/slapstick and wordplay-type humor (tick), liked kids (tick), and was just getting into dating again and not looking for anything serious (big tick). He valued honesty, integrity, family, and friends above any monetary or materialistic possessions. He also shared her dreams of taking some time to travel before coming back to Glenavie to settle down. Both felt that this town of theirs carried a central, special place in their hearts.
Her date’s handle was GlenavieTimelord and she wouldn’t discover his real name until they met in person.
Liv scanned the rest of their messages. Careful not to reveal any details that would unblind them, they’d discussed their mutual love ofDoctor Whoand eighties movies.
Liv popped the phone into her handbag, peering through the windshield to see if they were nearly there.
