Page 49 of Let’s Make a Scene

The woman herself approaches me next, and while Arjun looks almost exactly the same, her bright red hair is dark now, shoulder-length with a wide gray streak at the front. She’s added a few more tattoos to her arms, but despite the LA heat she’s still wearing black leather trousers. It’s nice to see some things don’t change.

“Hi, gorgeous,” she says, pecking me on the cheek. “You’ve only improved with age.”

I laugh. “I was going to say the same about you, but I don’t want to flirt too hard in front of your husband.” I gesture to Arjun, who wraps his arm around Patty’s waist. “I can’t believe you pulled it off… Wasn’t this basically what you had written down in your dream journal?”

Patty laughs, and Arjun’s own smile widens. “I wore her down.”

“And you guys have a daughter, right?” I ask.

Arjun nods. “Priya. She’s seven and already plotting world domination.”

“And Arjun will be happy to show you a million pictures plus the fifteen physical photographs of her he carries at all times,” Patty puts in, “just in case—and I quote—his phone explodes and the cloud turns out to be the work of our robot overlords.”

“AI, man,” Arjun shakes his head. “It’s coming for us all.”

“And Liam.” I turn to the table, where Liam sits, affectionately rolling his eyes at Arjun. “I can’t believe it; the gang is really all here.”

Liam dimples at me. “Like any of us were going to miss this.” He gets up to give me a hug.

Hannah remains in her seat. “Nice to see you again, Jack,” she says, a touch cool, and I have the distinct impression she’s going to wait and see how this plays out before she decides if she’s actually happy I’m here. Which I guess is fair enough.

That just leaves Cynthie, who has been hovering to the side while I greeted everyone else.

The smile she gives me is rueful, as I take a step toward her and bend down to give her the agreed-upon kiss on the cheek—times have changed since we last did this, now anyone with a phone can be a reporter, and it’s important that we start selling ourselves as a couple.

“No awkward greetings,” Cynthie warned me when we spoke on the phone late last night, her voice curling softly through the darkness of my bedroom. “It’d be just my luck if the first photo of us that leaked was of us banging our foreheads together or doing some awkward high-five.”

“Ruling out my go-to moves, I see,” I replied.

“Let’s say you’ll lean in and kiss my right cheek. Just one kiss on one cheek.”

“Have I not mentioned that I go for the traditional Normandy greeting these days? I’m a minimum of four-cheek-kisses kind of guy now.”

I heard the quiver of laughter she tried to repress when she said sternly, “One kiss, right cheek.”

Now, my lips skim her right cheekbone, a light touch, the first time I’ve touched her in thirteen years. My heart stutters and I can’t resist the temptation to lean into her. Her perfume surrounds me, and it’s different now. No longer the sweet citrus scent she used to wear, but something more grown up, more sultry, like dark, ripe berries. She smells like incredibly sexy jam and I fight the urge to bury my face in her neck and inhale.

Good to know that my body is going to continue its tremendous freak-out every time we’re in the same room, and that our last meeting in the hotel was not the fluke caused by residual weird feelings that I’d hoped it was.

I step back from her, and there’s a flush to her skin that wasn’t there a second ago.

“Hey,” she says softly.

“Hey,” I reply.

She’s dressed casually in jeans, trainers, and a cropped white T-shirt that shows off a tiny sliver of her stomach. A delicate gold chain glints around her neck, and my eyes linger on her clavicle. I don’t know if being turned on by a woman’s bones is a low point, but it certainly feels like it. Her hair is pulled up in a high ponytail, and she has sunglasses perched on top of her head. I’d be willing to bet that despite how effortless she appears there was an entire council of war about her outfit.

As I slip into the seat next to hers at the table, it’s impossible not to notice the interest from other diners at the restaurant. Even in LA, spotting a celebrity like Cynthie Taylor is a big enough deal for most people to shrug off their jaded indifference. There are plenty of eyes turned in our direction, plenty of low conversations being had that are less subtle than their participants might imagine. I even spy a couple of phones being held at weird angles, so it looks like photographs are already being snapped. I wonder how long it will be before we pop up on DeuxMoi.

“So, Jack, how have you been?” Patty asks.

“Not too bad, thanks,” I reply. “Although I guess thirteen years gives us a lot of ground to cover.”

“I can’t believe it’s been thirteen years.” Arjun sounds dazed.

“Surely impossible,” Liam agrees. “When we are fresh-faced little babies.”

The waitress appears, and—establishing that everyone is starving—we order a good percentage of the menu. In no time at all she places an enormous cup of coffee in front of me, and I sigh, content.