Truly, Madly, Like Me - Jo Watson Page 0,58

the house and to the car, where Harun was placed carefully in the backseat.

“So, will we see you at quiz night this week, or are you going to chicken out since you’re one person down?” Faizel suddenly asked Mark.

Mark gave a sarcastic chuckle. “Oh, we’ll be there,” he said, in a jokey tone. “Trust me, Risky Quizzness can still take on Beyoncé Know’Alls, even though we’re a player down.”

“Risky Quizzness and Beyoncé what?” I burst out laughing.

Mark shot me a really cute, coy kind of smile and then a shrug.

“Hey, we like Beyoncé,” Samirah piped up.

“We do!” Faizel gave her a high-five.

“Wait, you guys are all in quiz teams and do quiz nights?” I looked at them all.

“Well, I’m not sure that Risky Quizzness can call themselves a team anymore, they’re more like a duo, now that Emma pulled out.” Samirah narrowed her eyes at Mark, a look of meaning passing between them.

“Perhaps if you stopped dating your teammates—” Faizel started, but Mark cut him off.

“I didn’t date her,” he said quickly.

“She had a huge crush on you, though,” Faizel said matter-of-factly.

Samirah nodded. “That she did. Mind you, half the town has a crush on you . . . except me.”

“I should hope not,” Faizel joked, placing a hand over her big baby bump.

“Half the town has a crush on him?” I asked. I hadn’t meant for my voice to take on that skeptical tone and for my eyes to run up and down his body, twice.

Samirah nodded.

“Okay, let’s stop this,” Mark said, closing the door.

“No, this is interesting.” I folded my arms and looked at Samirah.

She smiled at me. “It’s as if he wields some magical power over all the women in this town that no one quite understands.”

“Fascinating.”

“I’ve seen it many times. It usually happens after the second or third time people meet him. Something changes around then.”

Faizel burst out laughing. “That is so true! Remember Sally . . .”

“And Zoe,” Samirah added. “She didn’t even like him when she first met him, and then a week later she kept saying that he looked familiar and she couldn’t take her eyes off him, and then a week after that she was smitten.”

“Okay, that’s really enough.” Mark walked around the car to the front door.

“And you know, he never really dates any of them. Not for any good length of time, anyway.” She looked at me and shook her head, tutting. “So sad!”

“I’m just fine on my own.”

“No one should be on their own,” Faizel said.

Mark stopped and swung around. He glared at Faizel now. “You should stop worrying about me, and start worrying about Risky Quizzness smashing the Beyoncé Know’Alls!”

“Oooh,” Faizel teased and folded his arms. “You hear that, Samirah? Sounds like a challenge.”

“It is a challenge, so bring your game face!”

Faizel swished his hand in front of his face and his expression suddenly changed. His forehead wrinkled and creased and he squinted his eyes. “Already have it on!”

Samirah laughed and I looked around at the three of them. I hadn’t realized they were all friends, but I guess this was a small town. A small town that for some reason seemed to be infatuated with Mark.

CHAPTER 28

I climbed out of Mark’s car; he’d pulled all the way up to my hotel door so we didn’t have to carry Harun too far. He was heavy, and because he was groggy from the operation, he was like a big, floppy dead weight, with a long tongue. Mark hoisted him out the backseat in one swift move, as if he weighed nothing. I was impressed and my eyes drifted down to his arms where I was surprised to see some muscle bulges. I hadn’t noticed any muscles before. Where had they been hiding?

I looked at him again as he walked to the door. I started to ruminate on what Samirah and Faizel had said, about his effect on women in the town. I wasn’t totally sold on it. I mean, I guess I saw it, kind of, just a little. But clearly, I wasn’t smitten with him like everyone else was. A loud angry voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“AHA!” the voice bellowed.

I swung around to find the manager of the hotel standing there, staring at us.

“So you do have a dog,” she said in a very accusatory tone.

Mark stopped walking and turned around, and when he did, her face fell.

“Mark, what are you doing here?” she asked in a hurt-sounding voice. I rolled my eyes.

“Uh . . .