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No mincing words—I appreciated that.

“Want me to play point?”

Eli glanced over at me, looking almost physically pained. He must have been able to tell I was in a shit mood too, because he gave a wan but grateful smile. “I appreciate that. What’s up with you? You look like you got bad news or something.”

“It’s nothing,” I said. Even if I could say anything to Eli, which I couldn’t, the situation was so complicated I wouldn’t know where to start.

“Do you have sisters?” he asked. We were trailing behind the rest of them and hopefully out of earshot.

I considered Lila a sister, but couldn’t exactly say that. I shook my head. “Brothers.”

“Well, they both suck, sometimes. But sisters… I swear to god Cass hired Reese on purpose. Just to make me suffer.”

I made the mistake of looking toward Cassandra now. She was up at the doors to L’Aubergine, and I happened to get an outrageous view of her perfect, round ass.

And he wanted to talk about suffering.

I looked away as quickly as I could, lest Cass’s brother see me ogling her. Luckily, he was too absorbed in his own shit.

The restaurant was dimly lit, but once we crossed the threshold, I could still see the way Eli scanned the room, as if going into a war zone. “I thought it would be okay,” he said. “Reese is the manager, so it wasn’t like I’d see much of her being in here. But then Cass tells me she’s going to be working our fucking table?”

“They’re short-staffed,” Chelsea said.

I hadn’t noticed her also trailing behind, on Eli’s other side. She held her phone out in front of her. It pinged and buzzed like a damned arcade game. I wondered, briefly, what it was like to have a social life.

“Short-staffed? Who’s fault is that?” Eli said, his voice bitter. He was lashing out, I could see as much.

I cleared my throat, hoping he’d remember he wasn’t just griping to his sister. Not that he seemed to care about expressing his personal shit to me.

“Actually, Reese is selflessly pitching in because the server has some kind of childcare issue on the weekends,” Chelsea said. “So you know, it might not be all about you?”

“See?” Eli said to me. “Sisters.”

Chelsea rolled her eyes and went back to her phone. Once she’d moved far enough ahead, Eli leaned in and said, “I’m getting shit-faced tonight. It’s the only solution.”

Up ahead, Cassandra arrived at a table by the massive plate-glass window. Golden sunlight streaming through the glass lit her up like an angel.

I harrumphed. “Maybe I’ll join you.”

Eli grinned.

It was a terrible idea, of course. Not only because Eli was a client. There was something about me and overdoing it that didn’t mix more than most people—if I drank too much, I remembered nothing the next day. Not a person, not a conversation.

Not a fake wedding proposal.

That’s why I almost never overdid it. But tonight, the thought of obliterating anything resembling feelings or memory was deeply appealing.

I definitely wouldn’t do that at a client dinner, though. I didn’t think.

The table we arrived at was similarly sized to the one in the boardroom we’d sat at last week. I slid in next to Lila, with Eli on my other side. Our backs were to the window while Cassandra, Jude, and Chelsea sat across from us.

“Where’s Griff?” Jude asked.

“He left town,” Cassandra said, sounding annoyed.

So maybe it wasn’t just me pissing her off.

I knew the thought was more hopeful than likely.