Page 21 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“That would be great, thanks so much,” Luke said. “But why am I feeling suddenly light-headed?”
14
“Where are you?”Sol said when he finally picked up the phone.
“Literally no idea.”
“You don’t know where you are?” Had she managed to lose her perfectly considerate and gorgeous Italian British lover in the immensity of Los Angeles? If so, Sol would never forgive herself. There was no chance she’d ever be able to replace him or forget him. And did that make her feel uneasy? Certainly it made her feel less independent and self-sufficient than a few months before.
“Not really.” Did he sound cagey? “But thank gods for technology. I’m requesting an Uber now to go back to Lola’s place. We’re meeting back there, right?”
“I thought we could do something different,” said Sol.
“I think Lola said her husband was going to cook something special for us tonight.”
“You need to stop sounding so reasonable.” Sol’s voice thinned with irritation. “I was hoping we’d spend some time together. Alone.”
“You found us a place?” She relished the enthusiasm and insinuation in his tone.
“I didn’t,” Sol admitted, defeated. “Unless you don’t mind a shared room in an Airbnb by the airport.”
“I think I’d rather stay at Lola’s for another night if that’s the only option and they don’t mind us cramping their living room. But we can’t just disappear. The husband is cooking. Should I get a bottle of wine or two?”
Sol let out an exasperated sigh. “The husband is always cooking! I can’t believe we’re arguing because you’re hungry and think a dinner is a better option than spending some time with me.”
“What are you talking about? I just want to be courteous to your very nice friends, who’ve taken us over and given us a roof,” he said, and he really needed to stop sounding so sensible, or she was going to flip. “I’m not even hungry. I just interviewed the chef who cooked at the awards ceremony, and she fed me a bunch of stuff.”
“You took food from someone who may have poisoned someone else?”
“I mean, when you put it like that. I wasn’t the only one eating. She was also trying all the stuff.”
“Such a relief!” Sol didn’t even try to mask her discontent.
“I guess this isnotthe moment to offer you full disclosure and tell you the chef may have been chatting me up for most of the interview.”
“Seriously?” Sol said, the bite in her remark perfectly audible.
“Would it have been better if I didn’t tell you about it? She didn’t mention that some of the food had hard liquor in it, and I’m a bit pissed right now. Hence the oversharing.”
“Most definitely better if you hadn’t said a single thing,” she said, feigning absolute indifference when all she wanted to ask was whether he’d flirted back. Was he only telling her that because he wanted to make her jealous? He’d most definitely achieved it. “Listen, I need to let you go. Claudia is calling me back. And I’ve been trying to talk to her all day,” Sol said instead of coming clean.
“Right, see you at your friends’?”
“Sure.” She hung up, fuming.
“Claudia, thanks for calling me back,” Sol said when she picked up her former editor’s call. She tried breathing deeply. She needed to relax. The conversation with Luke had spiked her heart rate and angered her to inexplicable levels.
“I only have a couple of minutes before I get into a dreadful planning meeting,” the editor said. “I need awards season to be over!”
“Don’t we all?” Sol commiserated. “Listen, I checked your job offer. It sounds interesting.”
“So you said the other day,” Claudia said, her tone just shy of icy. “Yet somehow I had the impression you couldn’t be lessinterested.”
“It’s not that,” Sol said, and for once she’d have liked to not always be so transparent and direct. “You caught me by surprise.”
“You didn’t want the beau to know you may be leaving him and moving to Los Angeles for the right opportunity, eh?”
Sol remembered how much she disliked her former boss. Claudia always assumed she knew what everyone was thinking and feeling, and she was an absolute busybody.
