Page 120 of Drunk on Love

Avery looked sharply at him.Damn it, he didn’t want her to know there was any friction between Margot and Elliot.

“Elliot doesn’t know about you and Margot, does he?”

Well, okay, that wasn’t quite the topic he would have picked, but at least it wasn’t exposing a secret that wasn’t his to tell.

“No, he doesn’t know,” he said. “Margot felt weird about it, because of the whole she-used-to-be-my-boss thing. No one from the winery knows—at least, I don’t think so.”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Is that weird for you? That she’s keeping it a secret?”

He shook his head.

“It’s not a secret,” he said. Avery just looked at him. “It’s not! Lots of people know. We go out together all the time. She just hasn’t told her brother, that’s all. It’s complicated there.”

Avery put her hand on his shoulder.

“Okay. I’m just worried about you. I saw the way you looked at her today. And I especially saw the way you looked when she backed away from you when Taylor came over.”

He brushed that off.

“I don’t know what you mean. She’s just been so stressedabout this party that it didn’t make sense to deal with anything else until it was over. Plus, I haven’t—”

“Yes, I was just about to say, you’ve let your mom keep believing this ridiculous story about the two of us dating. She came up to me today, and I swear she was about to ask me when the wedding date was!”

Luke laughed.

“Sorry about that. I had no idea she’d be there today. And yeah, I’m going to have to come clean to her soon, I think. About everything.” He sighed. “Especially with this interview next week.”

“Interview? What interview?” Avery asked.

He’d forgotten that he hadn’t told Avery about this yet.

“My old boss is leaving, and Craig—my old mentor there—reached out to me to see if I wanted to interview for the job. They’ve made a bunch of changes there, so I thought it was worth having a conversation. I was kind of suspicious that the whole thing was bullshit, but when I talked to Craig, he talked a lot about how much everyone there liked me, and then Brian’s old boss called to say how great my work had been, and how glad he was that I was interviewing for that job. Granted, it would have been nice if he’d said any of that while I was actually there, but whatever. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic about my chances.” He grinned. “Even a little smug, that after everything, they still want me.”

“When did this all happen?” Avery asked.

“Just earlier this week,” he said. “Everything has moved pretty quickly—I’m heading back down there for an interview on Thursday. It would be a big pay bump, and a level up. And it would be kind of fun to prove something to all of those people who thought I wasn’t good enough.”

He hadn’t told Margot about the interview yet. He’d almosttold her a few times that week, but every time, something had stopped him.

“Oh wow,” Avery said. “Well, congratulations, I guess. Let me know how it goes.”

He nodded.

“I will.”

“And like I said before,” she said. “I’ll keep up this pretense with your mom as long as you need me to, because I’m your friend, but as your friend, I have to tell you: You have to tell her the truth. Interview or no interview. After all, you have a real girlfriend now—that should make her happy.”

He laughed.

“It should, you’re right, but you know you’ve always been her favorite.”

Avery tossed her hair back.

“Well, obviously.” She looked at him sideways. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that you just let me call Margot your girlfriend. You didn’t even try to deny it.”

He actually hadn’t noticed that. He’d try to play that off with most people, but Avery knew him too well for that.

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