Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,105
what that warm feeling he’d been calling “rightness” was. Still, he wasn’t so clueless he couldn’t recognize what things weren’t. “We have sex. That’s why she was at my place this morning.”
Except that wasn’t true, was it? They hadn’t had sex last night. She’d fallen asleep on him—he’d encouraged her to—and they’d cuddled.
So whatever, they’d had one interlude with no sex. That didn’t mean anything.
“Convenience. Sex,” Sawyer said, echoing Law’s words back to him.
Law tried not to visibly wince. “There’s no love in this equation, is my point.”
“How do you know?” Sawyer asked.
“You’re supposed to hear choruses of angels, right? Like, the earth moves and you get all shaky.” To be fair, he did get shaky when Maya was around, but it was from anger. Or…it used to be.
“Well,” Jake said, “you get choruses of Gorgons. Close enough.”
Holy shit, was it? Was it possible that…No. He couldn’t even think it. It made him…Well, it made him shaky. No. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. She hates me.” Maybe. “Dislikes me.” Sort of. “She’s never going to want to actually be with me.”
They stopped harassing him in favor of sharing a silent look between them that was more annoying than continued harassment would have been. “What?”
“Should we tell him?” Sawyer asked Jake.
“Tell me what?”
Sawyer turned. “You can tell yourself whatever you want, dude. But Maya told Eve that she’s into you. Like, for real.”
“What?” He shot to his feet and had to grab the steering wheel so as not to fall in the water. “What did she say? What words did she use?”
Sawyer chuckled. “I don’t know. Eve mentioned it in passing, I didn’t pay it much mind because I thought you’d be indifferent.” He looked at the sky. “Wow, it’s really a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Maya’s pajama hack totally worked, because as she sneaked out of the bar after Law, she ran into her brother, who didn’t suspect anything was amiss.
“Hey, kid.”
“What are you doing downtown so early?”
“I’m doing the store today. I told Mom and Dad to take the day off.”
“Well, aren’t you the model child?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, I’m kind of bored. I’ve never not worked. Not since I was fourteen.” It was true. Her brother had always had part-time jobs. “Hey, come in with me for a sec, will you? I just got some amazing news.”
“Sure.” She felt a little bad that she hadn’t seen more of Rohan since he’d arrived. Her Herculean efforts to get the play into shape had meant long days. And the…other stuff she had going on had meant long nights. “What’s up?”
“Don’t freak out,” he said as he unlocked the shop, “but the theater critic for the Globe and Mail is coming to the play on Saturday afternoon.”
She blinked about a thousand times, running his words through her brain again to make sure she’d heard them correctly. “Are you kidding?”
“It’s wild, right? But no! I got in touch with both the theater critic and the food critic and made this—semibullshit—case for Moonflower Bay as an up-and-coming cultural and culinary spot. I included the link to the story they ran about Law’s pizza, and links to some local coverage of the Mermaid Parade, and the theater guy emailed back. He’s coming to see the play and the parade on Saturday.”
All she could do was blink. She had never even dreamed something like this was possible. The exposure it would give her would be…like another Holden. Without having to actually deal with Holden.
“I know the timing sucks in the sense that Saturday is the second-to-last show,” Rohan said as he booted up the computer. “So it’s not like the article will drive ticket sales in any meaningful way, but…” He shrugged. “Maybe people will see it and want to come to some shows next season?”
“Ahhh!” She ran around behind the counter and threw her arms around her brother. “This is amazing! Thank you so much!” Rohan was such a natural entrepreneur. He should come up with an idea on the fly and apply for the grant.
Except not. Because that grant was hers.
Unless it was Ben’s. Which would make her mad.
Kind of.
She needed to work on her application some more. “I gotta go.”
“Oh, hey,” Rohan said as she was on her way out. “I forgot to tell you that I was talking to Jenna the other day, and she told me that Eve told her that Law is into you.”
“What?” Maya ground to a halt halfway out the door.
He chuckled. “That sounds like junior high, doesn’t it?”