Well Matched (Well Met #3)(82)

“Sure,” Daniel said. “But it’s not that far away. Stacey’s parents offered to let us stay, so we don’t have to worry about hotels or camping or any of that.”

“Wait,” Simon said. “?‘Us’? You don’t mean . . .”

“I do.” Daniel’s eyebrows arched in a smile as he picked up his pint of Guinness that had just been delivered. While he took a sip, Stacey finished his thought.

“The whole band is staying at my house,” she said, almost with a straight face. “The guys are in the spare bedrooms, and Daniel and I are in my old place over the garage. Mom offered, and then she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I think she was mesmerized by their kilts.”

“God. Please.” Daniel grimaced and closed his eyes. “These are my cousins you’re talking about. I don’t want to think about your mom looking at them in any way.”

“Anyway,” Stacey giggled. “Lucky for Dex, my parents got rid of my pink canopy bed, and I spent this week cleaning out my old bedroom of any incriminating teenage evidence.”

I snorted and took a sip of cider. “So that means you’re here till when? October?”

Daniel nodded. “And we’ve already been here a month. So Willow Creek is going to be home base for a while. That’s, what . . .” He glanced over at Stacey. “Almost four months in one place? For us that’s practically putting down roots.”

“Okay, fine. I guess this isn’t much of a send-off, then.” Emily pretended to grumble, but the mozzarella sticks had arrived to cheer her up.

I raised my glass. “It’s a plain old Friday night out, then. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah . . .” She looked around the table and a grin crawled over her face. “Look at all of us! It’s like a triple date!”

I choked on my cider as my heart thudded in my chest. I kept my eyes on the baskets of mozzarella sticks and pointedly didn’t look across the table at Mitch. I couldn’t.

“Speaking of . . .” Stacey propped her chin on her hand, twinkling her smile in my direction. “You two have looked awfully cute at Faire lately.”

Goddammit, Stacey. I bit down on my bottom lip to keep from scowling. Mitch laughed, but before he could answer her, I cut in. “Thanks,” I said with a laugh of my own that came out a little too loudly. “I think your grandparents bought it, right?” I looked across the table at Mitch, whose smile faltered a little, but he rallied.

“Oh, I know they did. They were a little put out you didn’t join us for dinner that night, you know.”

“Oh no!” My eyes went wide. “I didn’t know I was supposed to . . .”

He waved a hand, cutting me off. “I told them you had plans with Caitlin. Don’t worry about it.”

“What was all that about, anyway?” Stacey asked. “Were you just pretending for their benefit, or what? I was definitely missing something there.”

I took a deep breath, and my eyes met Mitch’s. He shrugged, as if to say, Go ahead.

“Long story short,” I said, “Mitch helped me out at Caitlin’s graduation when my ex showed up . . .”

“Nooo.” Stacey’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Emily, who nodded in confirmation.

“Yep. And Mitch had mentioned to me once that his folks were giving him trouble for still being single. So when his grandparents came to Faire, I returned the favor. That’s it.” I ended the truncated story with a firm nod, not inviting questions. I’d left out as many details as I could about the original event, because Mitch bringing me to his family’s place wasn’t my story to tell. Hopefully he’d appreciate that. My glance across the table was inconclusive; Mitch was looking at me with a furrowed brow that cleared up when he saw me looking at him.

“Yep,” he said. “That’s it.” There was a hollowness to his tone that gave me pause, but no one else seemed to notice. The pizza came then, and topics changed as plates were passed around and filled. Thankfully, with five other people here I stopped being a topic of conversation, and I could eat pizza, drink cider, and steal the occasional mozzarella stick off Emily’s plate when she wasn’t looking.

But of course it didn’t last.

“April, how’s your house coming along?” Simon asked, right when I popped a mozzarella stick in my mouth, of course.

“Good.” I crunched down on the fried cheese, feeling my arteries hardening but not able to bring myself to care. I chewed and swallowed quick. “I’m about to switch out the cabinet doors in the kitchen, and then I think I’ll be about done.” Across the table, Mitch’s face went stony for a split second before his usual pleasant expression went back on like a mask. I raised my eyebrows at him in a question, but he didn’t meet my eyes.

“I’m impressed,” Emily said. “You’ve gotten so much done.”

I shrugged. “Not just me. I had some help.” I didn’t elaborate, and no one asked me to. My phone buzzed just then with a text from Caitlin—she’d gone out with her friends but was home now, and I smiled with relief.

“All good?” Mitch asked from across the table, and I extended my smile to him.

“Yep.” I waved my phone in illustration. “Cait’s in for the night.” He nodded in understanding, and Emily looked from him to me and back again, that wide, nosy smile on her face.