Page 2 of Love Me Like It's Real
Trey is frowning, staring at us, which only confirms my suspicions about him. He’s been playing with Bryan’s feelings all this time.
Well…it was time to play with his.
Hook, line and sinker.
* * *
“And it worked?” Jason throws a dart and we both follow its trajectory toward the board before I answer.
“Seriously? When has it ever failed?” I raise an eyebrow at my best friend.
He groans and takes a generous gulp of his maple beer.
“You’re a magician. That’s it,” Jason says.
I shrug. “I’m not. I’m just a good reader.”
“What does reading have to do with anything?”
“Because I can read everyone like an open book,” I say.
Jason chuckles and points at the dart on the table, so I get up and take my turn at the board.
“One day you’re going to read the wrong book and you’re going to get into trouble.”
“Seriously? How bad can a book be?” I smirk.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
I roll my eyes and hand Jason another dart. “Yeah, yeah. I’m not stupid. But trust me. Even the couples I help get together will break up eventually. I’d say I’m a very good reader even if it takes everyone else a while to catch up to my review.”
“That metaphor is slipping away from you, dude. I’d be careful.”
I chuckle and raise my hand to order two more beers from Conall, the barman at The Striped Maple, who nods at me and gets to work on our order.
“Don’t tell me you’re turning on me, old friend. I thought you knew love is a bunch of bullshit.”
Jason puts his hands up and backs away. “Hey! Sure I do. Just because I said you’ll run yourself into trouble one of these days doesn’t mean I’m in love or something.”
“Good man.” I wink at him.
If there’s anyone who understands what it’s like to have your heart squeezed, twisted and discarded like leftovers you feed to a dog, it’s Jason.
I don’t know what I’d do if he all of a sudden decides to forget the lesson he learned early on and decides to…give love a chance.
God, there’s that sick again.
“Season of Love is coming up,” he mutters when Conall hands us our beers.
“You don’t need to remind me. I can already feel it in the air,” I answer, doing my best not to barf.
“So I’m guessing you’ll be doing your usual?—”
“Ourusual, my friend. You’re a member of the club too.”
Jason sighs and drinks his beer.
“I’ve already checked the festival schedule. As usual those old biddies are doing the same, headache-inducing crap,” I say.
