Page 6 of The Wedding Hoax

The woman from the coffee shop was standing right next to me.

When our eyes locked, she suddenly looked away like she was nervous. I was taken aback by her response.

After our run-in this morning, she didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d ever back down first.

“Sorry,” she started. “I didn’t know you were going to—Taylor didn’t tell me—”

“That we were having drinks with the boss? Absolutely not,” Taylor replied. “If I did, you never would’ve agreed to come out with us.”

“The boss?” My eyes went wide. “Wait. You work for me?”

“Yep. Simone Didier. New staff writer at LA Now. Pleasure to meet you.” She awkwardly held out her hand.

And I completely ignored the gesture. “Why are you acting like this is our first time meeting each other?”

“Oh. Have we met before?”

“You weren’t the crazy lady talking about the fall of society in the coffee shop this morning?”

“Doesn’t sound like me.” Her face was stone.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You really are something else, aren’t you?”

“Something like that, yeah.” She nodded along with her words. “Anyway, I’m actually feeling really tired. Long first day, you know? I think I might head out—”

“Nope. Can’t leave yet,” Taylor interrupted. “Paul and I need to go say hi to a few of our other friends, and then we’ll circle back.”

“Gotta make the rounds,” Paul added, falling in line behind Taylor as they headed away from the bar. “Especially if we’re trying to firm up our team for bar trivia next weekend.”

“You work the girls, I’ll work the boys?” Taylor asked.

“Sounds like a plan,” Paul said.

I watched as they both walked away, leaving me alone with her.

Simone.

I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as she fidgeted with a napkin.

The awkward silence stretched out between us. I craned my neck to see Taylor and Paul working the room, toasting and living it up with various people in every corner of the bar. It was pretty impressive, even if it was also pretty annoying, watching them work their extrovert magic.

“I’m not sorry.”

“What was that? I could barely hear you.”

“I’m not sorry,” Simone repeated, jutting her chin out. “About what happened at the coffee shop.”

“Oh? So, now you remember meeting me back at the coffee shop?”

“It was Taylor’s idea to pretend like it never happened,” she confessed. “She was worried you were going to fire me.”

“I don’t fire people over such small slights.”

“It wasn’t a slight, though, was it? You were trying to cut in front of me. I was there first.”

“Sure, but I offered to buy your drink. I had a morning meeting to get to—”

“You’re not more important than other people.”

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