Page 143 of Sugar

Any trace of my dramatized grudge was gone in an instant. I was too happy about her happiness. “Did she have any idea what it was?”

“Nope.” Her eyes went huge. “Oh. My. God.”

I went alert at her tone. “What? What is it?”

Since Greer was the most even-tempered in our group, I assumed whatever it was had to be bad. Horrific even. But when she looked up from her phone, it wasn’t with terror in her eyes.

It was joy.

“Look at this picture.” She shoved her cell at me, practically smacking me in the face with it.

Almost all of the photos I’d seen were focused on Tripp or angled to capture him and the other celebs farther down the row. As a certified nobody, I had blessedly been cropped out of most of the pictures.

Except a few, like the one Greer was ecstatically showing me.

Tripp was centered in the image, but it was zoomed out enough to see me sitting next to him. I might have been talking to the charming actor, but my body was leaned toward Easton. With his hand possessively on my leg, there was no doubt who my date was for the evening.

Especially when I moved my focus up to his face and lost my breath.

If he hadn’t told me he loved me that night, this picture would’ve done it for him.

A hint of a smile pulled at his mouth as he stared down at me. There was so much intensity in his dark gaze, it made me want to climb through the picture to kiss him.

I checked the time in the upper corner of the screen to see it was barely noon. Easton had two client meetings scheduled for the afternoon before he was taking me to dinner.

Five hours left.

Greer took her phone back and copied the link before texting it to me. Being extra thorough, she also tapped the screen to save the picture. “What? You know how you journalist types swap out the pictures when a new click-baitier one comes along.” She gave a wistful sigh. “Having a camera in my face twenty-four seven sounds like hell. I would hate to have my entire existence documented and analyzed like that. But I can’t deny it would come in handy for capturing moments like this.”

“Really?” I asked drily.

Her brows furrowed. “Why do you say it like that?”

“You wouldn’t like your business documented, but you’re cool to do it to your friends?”

She grimaced. “I didn’t take down that picture from the bar fast enough, did I?”

“You did not.”

“Damn. When you didn’t say anything, I assumed I deleted it before you saw it.”

“Oh, you did. But not before mymothersaw it.” I recapped the conversation, including giving her a belated heads-up about the OGs having finstas.

“Ohnoooo,” she cried, scowling down at the offending object. “I’ll do a thorough vetting of my followers tonight.”

“A little late, Greer Moore. A little late.” I gave her a sad shake of my head before exploiting my fictitious disappointment to grill her. “But you can make it up to me by sharing the latest about Josh.”

She transferred her scowl to me and held it as the server dropped off our food and another round of mimosas. When he walked away, she finally let it go. “Why would you bring him up when we were having such a good time being invasive ofyourpersonal life?”

“Does that mean you haven’t let him snake his way back into your heart like a wily ferret?”

“Wait. Is he a snake or a ferret?”

“That depends. Are you back together with him?” At her head shake, I popped a bite of French toast into my mouth before declaring, “Then he’s a scraggly rat who chews through important wires and rummages around in trash cans to make a mess.”

“I feel like you’re insinuating that my vagina is a trash can.”

“Not if you don’t let him rummage around in it anymore.”