Page 83 of Alive At Night

“I’m not acting,” he said when our eyes met.

And then he didn’t look away. It must have been an illusion caused by the lighting, but his eyes were an unusual deep shade of blue, midnight sparkling in them. They warmed as he held my gaze.

Iwarmed.

I wanted to ask him more about what that meant. Exactlywhichpart of this weekend hadn’t he been acting for? But then the DJ announced for everyone to take their seats, and we were interrupted by Grayson and Nessa scooting in beside us. Grayson said something to Julian about football, and their conversation quickly directed into something I easily tuned out.

Dinner was a plated affair. Decadent and delicious, but I was finding it difficult to stomach anything at the moment. I spent more time pushing it around my plate than eating it. Julian noticed; he kept shooting looks my way. Thankfully, he kept his mouth shut, though.

Once the plates were cleared and the speeches finished, I excused myself to go to the bathroom for a few moments alone and away from Julian’s scrutinizing gaze. But I didn’t make it more than thirty seconds before I heard my name being called.

Even while standing under unfavorable bathroom lighting, Nessa Elez-Everett was an extraordinarily stunning woman. It was downright intimidating.

Except her expression was…not. It was warm and full of concern.

“Hey, is everything okay?”

“Oh, I—” Biting my tongue, I questioned how to answer that. Was everything okay? “I’m just a little overwhelmed. I apologize if my silence during dinner was rude.”

“It wasn’t.” She looked appalled that I would even think that. “Julian was worried about you.”

Worried? That was a stretch. Although, Julian undoubtedly thought of me as his responsibility this weekend, and he did get a little strung up over his responsibilities.

“Look, about Julian…” I sighed. “He’s not… we’re not dating. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.”

She blinked twice. “I don’t think I have the wrong impression.”

“Noah was going to be my date this weekend,” I said, hoping to explain that, yes, she did have the wrong impression.

Nessa tucked her brown, shoulder-length hair behind her ear, cocking her head to the side in apparent confusion. “Noah London?”

I nodded. “Something came up at the last minute, though. Julian offered to take me so I wouldn’t have to come alone.”

I decided to leave it at that, not wanting to go into how I asked him to pretend that we were in a relationship, how everything she thought she saw was a huge misrepresentation. It was fake, all of it. Telling her that would have helped her understand the truth, but this was embarrassing enough as it was.

Nessa walked toward the sink, pulling lipstick out of her bag. Then she leaned against the countertop while looking at me sideways in the mirror, seeming unconvinced. “Well, he’s worried.”

“He’s overprotective sometimes,” I reasoned. “He’s like that about everyone.”

Nessa considered that. She knew I was right; I could see it in her expression. Julianwaslike that with everyone.

“I had to stop him from coming into the bathroom after you,” Nessa said, shocking me.

“What?”

After reapplying her dark red lip color, Nessa grinned into the mirror before turning to face me again. She rubbed her slight baby bump, smoothing a hand over her short dress, which she’d paired with black, shimmery tights.

“He’s waiting on the other side of the door,” she said.

She appeared delighted by this fact, even though I thought it was a little mortifying. Her smile grew, and there was a touch of something in that smile I didn’t understand. Without another word, Nessa walked back out of the bathroom.

It took me another minute to follow her, needing to prepare myself for whatever was on the other side of that door.

Julian—I needed to prepare myself for Julian.

But all the preparation in the world couldn’t have readied me to see his expression as soon as I stepped back into the wedding reception.

Relief. He was relieved to see me. Possibly because he was tired of waiting, of lurking by the restroom, but possibly not. I didn’t detect any of his usual irritation as he leaned against the wall, hands in his pockets.

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