Written in the Stars(17)
Elle’s hand flopped down against the couch, her phone bouncing gently. “You’re sorry. Sorry for what exactly?”
“For whatever has you all”—she waved her hand in Elle’s general direction—“vexed.”
Elle’s shoulders shook with slow-building laughter. She leaned forward and dropped her head into her hands before letting out an aggrieved, muffled shriek. “Vexed.” She lifted her head, face flushed pink. “God. Do you insert that stick up your ass every morning, or is it more like an IUD that lasts you five years?”
Her jaw dropped. “You know what—”
“No.” Elle stood and sidestepped the coffee table, stalking toward Darcy. “I’m not finished. You want to know what has me all vexed? Let’s see, maybe you’re sorry for being rude last night? Poo-pooing what matters to me like my job? Ordering a fifty-six-dollar glass of wine? Talking smack about me to whoever the hell it was on the phone when you don’t know me?” Elle took another step forward, fingers lifted as she aired her grievances. “Or maybe lying to your brother, huh? Telling him we hit it off when we obviously didn’t? You put me in the position of having to choose between going along with your lie, a lie I can’t for the life of me understand, or owning up to last night’s disaster all on my own. So I don’t know. Take your pick, Darcy.”
Heat flooded Darcy’s veins, creeping up her chest and neck, shame making her dizzy. Contradictory and ill-timed, a tendril of heat spread lower, settling beneath Darcy’s belly button because anger turned the blue of Elle’s irises into something fierce like a sea during a storm. Color settled high on her cheeks and her messy bun had come undone, strands of hair framing her heart-shaped face. For a moment, Darcy wondered what Elle would look like, sweat dripping down that bare expanse of neck, her back bowing against Darcy’s sheets. The temperature in Darcy’s apartment climbed, her shirt sticking to sweat dotting the small of her back.
“I’m sorry.” Darcy met Elle’s glare, the ferocity of which was softened by a glossy dampness that replaced her urge to see Elle tangled up in sheets with the desire to wrap her up in something soft, a blanket, or Darcy’s favorite duvet. How . . . utterly bizarre. Darcy cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean— It wasn’t my intention to be rude.” Or upset her.
Elle sniffed loudly and crossed her arms, gaze sharpening once more. “Yeah. Well, you were, so . . .”
Her voice trailed off. An unspoken question. Why?
This was the part Darcy had been dreading down to her bones: explaining herself. Her behavior on the date. Why she’d led Brendon to believe she had any intention of seeing Elle again.
Part of Darcy was tempted not to bother. Wasn’t an apology, a sincere one, enough?
Except if Darcy had any hope of salvaging her plan to get Brendon off her back, she’d have to share with Elle. Without an explanation, Elle had no reason not to go directly to Brendon and blab. Or at the very least, inadvertently contradict the carefully crafted picture Darcy had painted.
“Look.” Darcy took a step closer and uncrossed her arms, posture relaxing from the defensive stance she’d adopted during Elle’s outburst. “My brother is— I love him. But when he gets an idea in his head, he’s like a dog with a bone. And he has this idea, misconstrued as it is, that I should be looking for love. That”—Darcy puffed out her cheeks, weighing the best words, the one’s with the lowest probability of raising Elle’s hackles—“I need to find my special someone. When a serious relationship is not on my radar. At the moment.”
When it would be on her radar, if, Darcy wasn’t sure.
Elle cocked her head, brow furrowing. “Why not?”
Something in her gut said Elle wouldn’t be appeased with a simple because. Darcy sighed. “I’m busy? I’m studying for my final FSA exam. Once I pass, I’ll have reached the highest designation awarded to actuaries by the governing body. The exams are rigorous and the pass rate is only forty percent. Studying takes up my scant amount of free time.”
“So you’re too busy right now? Tell him that.”
As if she hadn’t? “Brendon believes I should have a better work-life balance and he acts like it’s his calling in life to make sure I do.”
Elle shrugged. “He has a point.”
Darcy knew how it sounded—too busy for dating, for friends, for any semblance of a social life. Yes, it was true she didn’t have any friends in Seattle yet, but she was operating according to her schedule, not Brendon’s. “I don’t tell him how to run his business.”
“Tell him you’re just not interested.”
If only it were that easy. Darcy had tried and it never worked. Brendon knew her too well, knew exactly what buttons to press to get his way. Darcy didn’t feel like spilling to Elle that the reason Brendon pushed so hard was because he knew that once upon a time, she had wanted a relationship, marriage, family, the whole nine yards. Having the rug yanked out from under her wasn’t something she’d been able to control, but how she chose to move on with the rest of her life was.
Darcy waved it off with a roll of her eyes and a scoff. “Easier said than done. You’ve met Brendon; he’s a romantic, obsessed with happily-ever-after. He keeps setting me up on these dates, and when I try to back out, he acts wounded, like I’m giving up too easily. Last night had less to do with you and more to do with me finally reaching the end of my rope. I had a headache and all I wanted was to go home. You were a . . . casualty. Wrong place at the wrong time.”