Page 117 of We Met Like This
She pulled a face. “Really? I wouldn’t even have thought you were related if she didn’t say.”
“Yeah, some people say that too,” I said.
She laughed, picked up a perfectly squared piece of watermelon, and stuck it in her mouth. “Maybe I’ve just seen you on her channel before.”
“No, I haven’t been on that.”
“Huh. It will come to me. Oh! Did you work with Gray at the Lancaster? I feel like we were there all the time when he and Audrey were together.”
“No,” Audrey chimed in. She’d obviously been following the conversation from a distance. She joined us now. “She never went to the Lancaster. But you met Gray, right, Maggie?”
“I don’t think so. I remember you talking about him.”
“That’s because we were friends for a while before we got together. All of us were.”
“How is Ollie these days, anyway?” the other UCLA woman asked. She sat on the edge of the pool and put her feet in. “Has anyone seen him at all in the last eight years?”
“I saw him about five years ago,” Felicity said. “He’s still as nice as ever and such a cutie.”
“Ollie?” I asked. It’s like my body knew what was coming before she said it. My skin felt cold and prickly.
“Gray was his last name,” Audrey said. “Oliver was his first. Oliver Gray.”
“Oliver Gray,” I repeated, because I needed her to say it again.
“Yes,” Audrey said. “Do you know him or something?” She asked that question like it was a rhetorical one. Like the last thing I could say was yes.
Maybe now was not the time, but her reaction prompted me to say, “I matched with him on a dating app.”
Her mouth fell open, but before she could say anything else, a booming voice rang out from the side of the house. “Margot! Are you back here?” And then Rob rounded the corner of the house and scanned the group of people.
I wanted to melt off the edge of the pool and disappear under the water.
“Is that Mr. Bishop?” Dad asked from behind me.
“Did you invite him?” Audrey asked.
“No,” was all I could manage to say.
“You look pale,” Felicity said. “And who’s Mr. Bishop?”
“Her boss,” Audrey said.
“You mean Hot Boss,” Felicity said, wiggling her eyebrows.
“It’s her ex-boss,” Mom added unhelpfully.
This couldn’t happen, whatever was about to happen, in my sister’s backyard in front of my sister’s friends and theirkids, with my family watching on. That thought propelled me up and out of the water and onto shaky legs. I walked as fast as I could without running, straight toward him. He was walking my way as well, but instead of stopping in front of him, I passed and continued straight out the side gate, praying he’d follow.
He did.
I used the walk to summon up all the anger I could, so by the time he joined me I was fuming. “What the actual hell?” Water dripped down my body and legs and onto the grass around my bare feet.
“You’ve been ignoring me, dodging my calls all weekend, and then hung up on me today.”
“This is completely inappropriate and you know it.” I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly very aware that I was standing there in a two-piece soaking wet.
“Kind of like stealing someone’s client. I can sue you and I’m seriously considering it.” I had no idea why he was convinced he was losing Kari, but it had nothing to do with me. Maybe she was taking her business somewhere else because he didn’t support her latest book.
