The Chemistry of Love(77)

This was it. It was happening. I did not consider myself to be a violent person, but I was going to throat punch a groom at his preemptive engagement party.

Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. He might have been drunk, and I’d certainly made a fool out of myself the last time I’d been wasted. This was Craig. He was a good guy. I had proof of it. I needed to calm down.

“How is work going?” he asked, probably as a way to smooth over what he’d just said. Which was good. I should give him points for trying to make the situation better.

“I’m actually not working at Minx any longer.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” He was the head of my department. How could he not know?

So much for my grand gesture.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he continued. “You were a valuable member of the team. Maybe you and I can get together later and discuss what happened and ways that we could possibly fix it.”

My heart fluttered a bit at his invitation. Not as much as it would have in the past, but it was there.

“Sure. That would be great.”

My phone buzzed, and I took it out of my purse to look at it. Marco was texting me, asking which of the desserts I could eat. He had included pictures. I shook my head, smiling.

Then I realized that Craig was looking over my shoulder, reading my texts. “Hot Bathroom Guy? Is that what you call my brother? Did you two hook up in a bathroom?”

“No.” Then I remembered the plan. “I mean, yes. And it was hot. And sexy. And not at all unhygienic.” Would that make him jealous?

Craig smirked at me. “Didn’t know Marco had it in him.”

What was I supposed to say to that? Also, he didn’t seem jealous. Marco might have seriously misjudged this situation.

“It sounds like quite the whirlwind romance,” he added. Was he digging? Trying to find out more information? That could potentially be a good thing.

“Yes. It was. Just a whirl of wind.” I pressed my lips together. I sounded dumb.

“There you are.” Leighton came over and gave me a friendly smile, inadvertently rescuing me from saying more stupid things. She looped her arm through Craig’s. “I was missing you.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “I always miss you. This is Anna. She’s Marco’s date.”

Her smile brightened even more. She clearly hadn’t seen me as a threat before and was now apparently happy to have any potential suspicions put to rest. “Good to meet you, Anna.”

She held out her hand, and I shook it. I wanted to hate her but found that I couldn’t be mad at this angelic creature. She seemed really sweet. “You too.”

Now I was having guilt. Should we be trying to break them up? They looked happy together.

Shouldn’t I want that? If I was really in love with Craig, shouldn’t his happiness be the most important thing to me?

“My parents are looking for us,” Leighton said. “Would you excuse us?”

“Sure,” I said.

They walked away, and I glanced over at the food table. Marco was deep in conversation with someone, holding an empty plate. I realized that I hadn’t texted him back what I wanted dessert-wise, so I sent him a response and shoved my phone back into my purse.

I looked for a place to sit down, but all the tables were mostly full. There was one off in the corner with a single person. As I got closer, I realized it was a teenage girl, and she was reading a graphic novel.

I didn’t usually make conversation with strangers, but I was curious about a girl who’d come to a party like this and ignore everyone to read a story called Beastars. “Are you enjoying that?” I asked.

She looked over the top of her manga at me, and it reminded me so much of my grandpa that I almost laughed. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’m sorry, I was just curious. It looks interesting.”

She was blonde with blue eyes and seemed familiar. “It is. I vastly prefer Eastern storytelling.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because they believe in redemption for their villains. And ‘enemies to lovers’ is that—true enemies to lovers. Western audiences want bickering acquaintances to lovers. Give me a situation where a villain has to change his whole world to be with the woman he loves, and I’m there.” She said this with so much conviction that I liked her immediately and wondered whether it would be weird if I asked a teenager if she wanted to be my new best friend.

Not that I was going to replace Catalina, but it would be nice to have someone who loved the same kind of stories I did. I sat down at the table across from her. “Kind of like Han and Leia from Star Wars. They argued, but they were never enemies, and people cite them as enemies to lovers all the time.”

She vigorously nodded. “Exactly. And their son had a real enemies-to-lovers relationship, and they ended that supposed fairy tale with a tragedy because he ‘had to die.’ Can you imagine the Beast dying after Belle confesses her love and kisses him?”

If we weren’t so far apart in age, I might have guessed that we’d been separated at birth. “I’m Anna, by the way.”

“Lindy. I’m Craig’s sister.”

The infamous Lindy who Marco thought I would like. He hadn’t been wrong. “Nice to meet you.”