I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(41)

“That boy,” Vera said, drawing her white eyebrows together. “He is forever moping. He needs a purpose.”

That sounded familiar. Hadn’t Vera said something similar about Liam when she’d asked me to go with him to his charity ball? Clearly, she’d been exaggerating Liam’s situation then. He certainly wasn’t heartbroken.

Liam pulled his chair out and sat, shooting me a smile before turning back to his grandmother. “He has a lot on his plate. College acceptances will be coming in any day now.”

“Are we hoping for Sonoma State?” Vera asked, raising her eyebrows. “He will at least remain close.”

“He wants to go to USC,” Liam said, shrugging. “I want him to be happy.”

I felt like such an intruder. “Should I leave? I didn’t realize I was encroaching on a family dinner.”

“If anything, I’m the one intruding,” Liam said. His blue eyes focused on me with intent, and I sat back a little in my chair. “I haven’t seen Vera all week, so when she invited me to tag along, I couldn’t resist.”

“Of course,” I said weakly. I felt like I’d been sapped of energy from my conversation with Vera in the art gallery, and now Liam was just siphoning what I had left. What was wrong with me?

Liam opened his menu, his eyes darting about the page. “What do you like here?”

“Enchiladas,” Vera said.

Liam glanced up. “And you, Charlie?”

I swallowed. Why was he watching me so closely? “Their carnitas are amazing. That’s what I would recommend.”

He nodded, returning to peruse the menu. The waitress returned and took our order and left to report it to the kitchen. Vera explained our lack of luck at the galleries, and I did my best to follow along, but my mind kept turning over the question she had asked me earlier: when was the last time I’d picked up a paintbrush?

What would happen if I did it again? Would it be the same as last time?

I hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with Andy the first time, and our relationship had fallen back into the same thing it was. He made me uncomfortable more often than not, and I wasn’t necessarily glad that I’d agreed to give it another chance.

Reality socked me in the gut, and I reached for my Diet Coke, taking a long drink.

Dating Andy again had been a failed experiment, and I knew with sudden certainty that I needed to break things off with him. I’d been kidding myself thinking I could wait a little longer and things would change. They hadn’t changed, and I needed to value myself enough to understand that.

Which stood to reason that if things hadn’t changed in the dating department, they likely hadn’t changed with my painting either.

“Are you okay?” Liam asked, leaning in slightly. His eyes were cloudy, concern marring them, and I got a wave of his cologne as he neared me. I had to work extra hard not to deeply inhale, which would only make me look like a psycho. “You seem so . . .”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Different. Are you sick?”

I shook my head, trying for a bright smile. “Just distracted, sorry. So you were saying Spike hasn’t heard back from colleges yet? Neither has my sister.”

“Your parents must be eager to hear,” Vera said.

I nodded, lifting my glass to my lips again. Maybe if I chugged a couple Diet Cokes, the caffeine would give me an energy boost and I wouldn’t be so melancholy. An impending breakup and a soul-searching conversation could do that to a person. I sipped again when Liam leaned over to say something to his grandmother, and a couple seated at the back wall grabbed my attention.

No, it couldn’t be . . . I narrowed my gaze, waiting for the woman to move her head to the side once more. My breath came in quick, shallow beats.

Liam sat straight in his chair again, blocking the couple, and I stared at the sleeve of his jacket, considering my options.

If I was the jealous type, I would storm to the other side of the restaurant and demand to know why Andy was eating with another woman who was not a member of his family or outrageously old.

But I wasn’t the jealous type. No sense of injustice or betrayal filled my body, and I outlined the stitching on Liam’s jacket with my eyes, trying to come to terms with exactly what that meant. Andy could be cheating on me right now, and I felt nothing. No outrage, no hurt, nothing.

Tipping my head to the side just a little, I could make out Andy’s face smiling at the beautiful blonde, watching the way his eyes sparkled and remained firmly fixed on her face.

Okay, I take it back. I didn’t feel nothing. I might have already decided to break up with him, that my feelings for him had waned, but that hardly softened the blow of witnessing the moron cheat on me. My failed relationship was literally mocking me from across the restaurant right now, and it stung.

The waitress arrived, setting hot plates of food in front of us, and I glanced up, catching Liam’s eye.

His dark-brown eyebrows drew together, and he tilted his head to the side. “What’s going on?”

“Um . . .” I glanced between him and Vera. I wasn’t a scene-maker. I didn’t enjoy having the attention of everyone in the room, and if I mentioned something now, would I be forced to confront Andy here? I’d much rather end things in private.

Vera’s bony, wrinkly hand slid under the table, grasping mine. “It’s my fault,” she said. “I brought up something earlier that Charlie would rather not speak about right now.”