Page 20 of The Arrangement (Executive Suite Secrets #3)

ROME ASHbrIDGE

The cooking class date left me with mixed feelings.

I blamed the pasta for softening my heart toward the Great Betrayer.

Pasta possessed a magic few understood. All I knew was that it was delicious and lowered all my defenses.

Which was why I shouldn’t have shown interest in the ravioli-making class.

But, come on! It was ravioli. The perfect pocket pasta holding tasty surprises while being bathed in a delicious sauce. How was I supposed to turn that down?

Still, it was looking like Liam had grown from his homophobic past and crawled out from the dangerous influence of his mother.

Maybe not full acceptance, but at least “tolerance”—which I used very tongue in cheek.

Much like I “tolerated” the existence of creepy spiders so long as they weren’t in my house.

I hoped I was wrong.

I hoped I was wrong about a lot of things with Liam.

He might have hurt me, but I couldn’t shake off all those years that we’d been friends. Part of me wanted that old friend back, but I was terrified to trust him.

So, I did the only thing I could think of to bridge that gap. I decided to annoy him.

Thank God for smartphones and texting.

Rome: Congrats! I heard scientists uncovered a new, incredibly smart dinosaur.

Rome: It’s called a thesaurus.

Rome: What’s a dinosaur’s favorite beverage?

Rome: A cup of Tea-Rex!

Rome: [Image: Dinosaur sitting playing a video game as a meteor rushes toward the earth. Caption: Just one more game]

Rome: Look! It’s a Procrastinator Rex!

Rome: What did they name the dinosaur with only one eye?

Rome: An EYE-Saur.

Liam: If you send me one more bad dinosaur joke, I’m going to kill you.

I snickered and shifted my joke search to terrible dad jokes. That wouldn’t be breaking his rule at all.

His frustration was palpable through the phone, which meant that I needed to fire them off as quickly as possible once I lined them up.

Rome: How do cows stay up to date? They read the Moo-spaper.

Rome: Which days are the strongest? Saturday and Sunday. The rest are weekdays.

Rome: What do you call a werewolf with a YouTube account? Lycan Subscribe!

Rome: What do you call it when an animal is invisible in the desert? Camelflage

Liam: Holy fuck! Don’t you have to work or something?

Liam: Please give your phone a rest. Some of us have important things they need to get done.

Rome: Send me a joke and I’ll stop.

I waited, eager to see if he would play along. As kids, Liam would cackle at the very worst, lamest pun jokes in the world. I refused to believe he’d lost that sense of humor. If he had, I was going to give up on him completely. It was too sad to think the grumpy man had lost the ability to laugh.

Liam: I don’t mean to boast about my finances. However, my credit card company calls me all the time to tell me my balance is outstanding!

“Yes!” I hissed, pumping my fist into the air the second I saw Liam’s text.

That was just as bad as I remembered them being.

I lounged on my sofa and prepared to search the internet for yet another bad dad joke.

It was tempting to return to the dinosaur ones because he was a paleontologist. Or maybe I should look up some about rocks.

He’d studied geology as an undergrad. He’d appreciate some bad rock jokes.

Liam: No more jokes. I’m serious, Rome. I’ve got to get back to work, and I don’t like turning off my phone during the day.

Ugh . Reality. That sucked. I had the day off, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. My first thought had been to irritate the fuck out of Liam, but I didn’t want to pay to save his job only to have him lose it because I was texting too much. That was annoying.

Rome: Fine. But do you have our next date planned? Just three to go!

Liam: Not yet. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since our last one, and some of us haven’t lived in the area long. It takes time to research stuff.

Rome: [eye-roll emoji]?? Scientists and their research.

Liam: [GIF of woman flipping off screen]

I snickered. He could bitch all he wanted, but I knew in my bones he was enjoying this shit. He wouldn’t be so quick to respond to my texts if he weren’t.

Rome: So…a friend of mine recently started playing with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He has his first official performance this weekend. Would you be interested in going with me? I’ve already got the tickets. I’d be willing to count it toward your required dates if you did.

Liam: Seriously?

My heart jumped into my throat, and I had to wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans before I typed a response. Why the fuck was I getting so nervous about this? It wasn’t a big deal.

Rome: It’s okay if you’re not interested in classical music.

Liam: No! I love the symphony! I caught part of their performance at the museum. Your friend is the new guest violinist, right?

Rome: Yep. Simon Miller.

Liam: I can’t believe you know someone so talented.

I rolled my eyes at my phone, but I couldn’t stop the smile that had formed on my lips.

Yeah, so I might have been a little proud of Simon.

The man was stupidly talented. It was only a matter of time before he’d be flitting around the world, playing with all the best orchestras and getting even more famous.

We had to enjoy having him close while we could.

Rome: Is that a yes or do you want to rip on me some more?

Liam: Can’t I do both?

Rome: Asshole.

Liam: I learned it from you.

Liam: Date and time? Do you want me to pick you up since you’ve handled the tickets?

Rome: Saturday. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.

Rome: We’ll be close to a lot of interesting restaurants, so we can stop off afterward for a late-night snack, if you want.

Liam: Sounds good. Thanks!

After Liam’s last message, I tossed my phone aside and paced to the kitchen, trying to will my pounding heart to slow.

This was stupid. Why did this feel like a real date?

It wasn’t a date. I’d sent almost the exact same text to Sebastian, Declan, and Pierce at least two dozen times in the past, and those never felt like dates.

Was this what I was putting Liam through every time he had to invite me out?

If so, I was a bit of a psychopath. This was crazy.

It wasn’t a date. Only two friends hanging out. Nothing more. Same as when I went out with Pierce.

Shit!

Sebastian, Declan, Pierce, and the new boyfriends were all supposed to be attending Simon’s first performance. There was no way I could avoid introducing Liam to them. It would be rude and undoubtedly obvious that I was ducking them.

Not that I was afraid of Liam being rude. He was always the picture of politeness, no matter where we went or what we did. He saved all his rudeness for me.

No, I was more afraid of Sebastian or Pierce saying something.

This could be bad.

But I couldn’t change plans on Liam now. He was excited about the performance. He was even fanboying over Simon. Canceling on him would crush what goodwill we’d been able to cultivate between us.

I had to pray that my darling friends could behave and didn’t choose to pay me back for the hundreds of really stupid comments I’d made during the past several years.

Yeah, this could get really ugly.