Flipping His Script: A Loathing to Love Romance

by Sabrina Stark

I was still trying to think of a snappy comeback when she turned to Flynn and said, "So…I'd just love a tour of your mansion."

  Flynn's gaze slid to Preston. "How about you?"

  Before Preston could even think to answer, Mackenzie said, "Oh, never mind him. He hates touring houses." She looked to me and added, "Which reminds me, we went through your old place last week."

  Already, the bread wasn't sitting so great. Or maybe, it was the wine. "Sorry, what?"

  "Your old house," she said. "The one on the river. It's for sale again. Didn't you know?"

  No. I didn't. The truth was, I avoided that part of town whenever I could, which considering that I barely socialized, was pretty much all the time.

  In reply, I shook my head and reached for my glass. As I drank, I reached out with my free hand and fumbled for another slice of bread.

  By the time I was done drinking, the crust was already torn off and sitting on the small plate in front of me. As for the center part, I shoved it into my mouth and chewed like a madwoman while everyone stared.

  Yes, I knew I was making a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t seem to rein it in. I was a nervous eater, and drinker, too.

  Dealing with Flynn on my own was bad enough, but to be stuck having dinner with two people who loathed me – meaning him and Mackenzie – was double the reason to lose my cool.

  Already, I was reaching for a third piece of bread and tearing at the crust.

  Mackenzie's nose wrinkled as she asked, "Why are you doing that?"

  I froze in mid-motion. "Doing what?"

  "Eating it in two pieces like that, first the middle, then the crust."

  I didn't have a good answer. Stupidly, I said, "Doesn't everyone?"

  With a little snicker, Mackenzie turned and gave Flynn a secret smile, as if to say, "Can you believe this chick?" Or even worse, "If you were with me, I'd never do something so uncouth."

  Flynn gave a tight shrug. "That's how they do it in L.A."

  Mackenzie's smile faltered. "Really?"

  Flynn nodded. "Sure." And then, he frowned. "How do you eat it?"

  At that moment, I could've almost kissed him. Of course, I was under no illusion that he was doing it for me. No doubt, he was just trying to avoid looking like an idiot by association.

  Still, I watched with silent amusement as he reached out, grabbed a slice of bread, tore off the crust and popped center portion into his mouth. When he finished, he ate the crust by itself, just like I had.

  Afterward, he reached for the bread basket and held it out toward Mackenzie. "You want a slice?"

  With a little frown, she eyed the basket. "I, um, don't have a plate."

  Just then, the waitress appeared at our table with another basket of bread and two little plates for Mackenzie and Preston. The waitress took their drink orders with only minimal enthusiasm while she ogled Flynn like he was the juiciest steak on the menu.

  If he noticed, he gave no sign, just as he hadn't seemed to notice the sudden hush that had fallen over the whole restaurant upon our arrival.

  Even now, people were staring. Oh sure, they weren't being nearly as obvious as the customers at the waffle place. Here, there were no cell phones pointed in our direction or heads turned away from their own tables, but people were still staring, even if they were trying to be subtle about it.

  When the waitress asked if I needed more wine, I should've said no. But I said yes so fast, it was almost embarrassing. As for Flynn, he ordered another beer and told the waitress that we'd be ready to order in a few minutes.

  I hadn't even looked at the menu. Still, the way I saw it, the sooner we finished with this whole fiasco, the better.

  And yet, I couldn’t help but smile when Mackenzie reached for a slice of bread and ate it in the exact same way that Flynn had just few moments earlier. As for Preston, he skipped the bread entirely and downed his beer within two minutes of the waitress dropping it off.

  Determined to not follow his lead – or my own earlier performance – I took a tiny sip of my second glass of wine and tried to look like I was enjoying myself.

  But even as I did, it suddenly struck me that I didn't feel nearly as nervous now as I had when Mackenzie had first shown up. Some of this, no doubt, was because she was ignoring me entirely while she focused all of her energy on Flynn.

  This meant that both of them were occupied with each other, leaving me to observe from the sidelines.

  As she batted her eyelashes up at him, I couldn’t help but recall how titillated she'd been back in high school when Flynn had been dragged off to jail. Now she was titillated again, but in a totally different way.

  As I watched, she leaned toward him and asked, "So, how many mansions do you have?"

  He gave her an inscrutable look. "None."

  She blinked. "But what about the place you just built?"

  "It's a house, not a mansion."

  I almost snorted. Okay, yes, Flynn called it a house, but it was unlike any house I'd ever seen, even back when I'd been running in much wealthier circles. Still, I felt a grudging admiration for the fact that Flynn wasn't lording it over everyone like my stepfather used to do, back in the day.

  Oh well. Gordon wasn't living large anymore, unless I counted Bubba, his cell mate, who yes, was a mountain of a man – at least according to my mom, who'd actually met the guy.

  As I took another sip of my wine, I gave Preston a sideways glance. He was eyeing Mackenzie with obvious concern.

  Cripes, I'd be concerned, too. When her napkin slid off the table, she dove down to get it with a burst of enthusiasm that was more than a little unseemly, especially when she didn't pop right back up again.

  Well, that was odd.

  Chapter 37

  Anna

  Mackenzie was still down there when I gave Flynn a perplexed look. As our gazes locked, I felt myself swallow. He wasn't happy, and it was easy to see why.

  For someone who was supposed to be his girlfriend, I was definitely coming up short. I mean, a normal girlfriend would be livid by now, watching a so-called friend putting the moves on her guy.

  Going for a recovery, I lowered my head and peered under the table. Mackenzie was still down there, holding her cell phone in one hand and her napkin in another. She was eying Flynn's crotch like she was seriously considering going in for a taste. When she saw me looking, she frowned.

  With a frown of my own, I said, "So, do you see anything you like?"

  She gave a little huff. "Yes, in fact. My napkin." As if to drive the point home, she gave the napkin a quick flutter. "See? I just found it."

  Oh, please. Obviously, she was forgetting, I'd dined with her before, plenty of times in the distant past. If her napkin ever hit the floor, she wouldn't be touching it with a ten foot pole.

  Of course, her attention today had been consumed by a totally different kind of pole – and not the one attached to her fiancé.

  When Mackenzie and I reappeared from under the table, both guys were staring – Preston at Mackenzie and Flynn at me.

  Preston's expression was easy to read. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't surprised either.

  Yeah, that made two of us.

  I'd known Mackenzie for a long time. She flitted from guy to guy, always trading up – until something went terribly wrong and she started back down at the bottom.

  As for Flynn's expression, it was nearly unreadable. He wasn't overjoyed. That much was obvious. But other than that, I had no idea what exactly was going through his head.

  Probably, he was wishing that he'd offered the job to Mackenzie instead of me – because one thing was for darn sure, she was showing a lot more initiative than I ever had.

  Ignoring her fiancé's growing unhappiness, Mackenzie spent the next few minutes telling Flynn how much she loved his movies, as if she hadn't said so already.

  By now, I was feeling seriously bad for Preston, who was growing more sullen with every passing moment.

  It was sympathy for him that finally spurred me
to take a more active role in the conversation. I gave him a friendly smile. "So you're in banking, huh?"

  He frowned. "Finance."

  "Oh, right. Sorry." Still, I kept my smile plastered in place. "That must be interesting."

  From the other side of the table, Mackenzie said, "Speaking of interesting…How's your job, Anna?"

  I stiffened. She'd been ignoring our side of the booth for the last several minutes, and now she wanted to have a group conversation? But of course, I knew why. When it came to careers, I was no banker – or financier for that matter.

  I said, "It's fine."

  "Oh, really?" she said. "I heard you were fired."

  Belatedly, I realized which job she meant. The last time I'd seen her, I'd been working in the hospital cafeteria. She was right. I had been fired.

  It wasn't that I was terrible at my job. Rather, it was because the hospital was forty minutes away from our crummy little apartment, and my car kept breaking down at the worst possible times.

  In fact, this was one of the reasons that I'd taken the job at the waffle place. It was only a five-minute drive – or a fifteen minute walk if something went wrong with my car, which it did quite frequently.

  But none of this was Mackenzie's business, so I tossed out a question of my own. "How about your job?"

  "What about it?" she asked.

  In truth, I had no idea what she did. In high school, she'd wanted to be a poet. How that translated to a career, I had no idea.

  I said, "Where are you working?"

  With a breezy wave of her hand, she replied, "Oh, I do this and that." She turned and gave Flynn a flirty smile. "These days, I'm more about personal expression."

  From the gleam in her eyes, she'd like to express herself personally all right – and not to the guy she'd arrived with.

  My left hand was resting in my lap. Under the table, I extended my middle finger in my own personal expression of what I thought of Mackenzie and her attempts to make me feel like a loser.

  Still, I had to ask myself, how was this even possible?

  Supposedly, I was dating one of the hottest guys in the whole world. Knowing Mackenzie, she'd kill to take my place. I took an embarrassing amount of satisfaction from this idea for like thirty whole seconds before concluding that none of it counted if it wasn't real.

  And besides, that wasn't how I valued my self-worth, anyway.

  I mean, even if I were dating Flynn, that wouldn't make me a better person. It would just make me luckier in the eyes of the world.

  And now Mackenzie was smirking – not at Flynn, but at me. "Funny story. I heard you were working at that waffle place. You know, that pink one on Fifth Street." She said "pink" like it was a medical condition that required a lot of time in the bathroom.

  Well, at least we agreed on that.

  Still, it was sad in a way. Until working at Pinkie's, pink had been one of my favorite colors. Not anymore, that's for sure.

  When I made no reply, Mackenzie said with a little laugh, "I hope you're not as clumsy there as you were at the hospital."

  I felt my fingers clench. The last time I'd seen her, I'd been delivering a tray of coffee and creamers to a table of hospital administrators. I'd tripped halfway there, sending everything crashing to the floor.

  It wasn't until the next day that I started to wonder at the fact that Mackenzie had been sitting at table directly along my path. I'd been so busy that I hadn't noticed her at all, well not until I heard the snickering, that is.

  Unfortunately, that wasn't even the worst of it. Afterward, Mackenzie and I had gotten into a raging argument in the ladies room after she'd made one too many snide comments about my family's fall from grace.

  She'd left in laughter. I'd left in tears.

  I felt my jaw clench. Not again.

  Back then, the change in my family's station had been fresher, harsher, and a whole lot stranger. Now, I'd been poor for so long, I was mostly used to it.

  In reply to her dig about my so-called clumsiness, I forced a smile and said, "Let's hope not." I lifted my glass in a mock toast. "Unless you want a face full of wine."

  As far as a comeback, it was incredibly stupid. I wasn't even sure it made sense.

  And yet, her lips pursed. "Well, someone sure is snitty."

  Yes. Someone was. But it wasn't me.

  Mackenzie looked to Preston and said, "Don't you have something to say?"

  "Yeah," he muttered. "I need another beer."

  Mackenzie frowned. "That's not what I meant."

  As they went back and forth, I snuck a quick glance at Flynn. He was giving me that look again, the one that I couldn’t quite make out.

  Unfortunately, he looked obnoxiously good doing it, and my glance turned into a look, which turned into a long, lingering stare.

  I was still staring when the waitress appeared to take our order. Thank God. Anything to break the spell.

  Quickly, I scanned the menu and ordered a chicken dish that was apparently a house specialty. I didn't care. After that whole scene with the bread, I doubted I'd be eating much, anyway.

  But I definitely needed a moment alone.

  When the waitress left, I looked to Preston and said, "Would you excuse me? I think I'll freshen up before the food arrives."

  By freshen up, I mostly meant catch my breath and come up with a game plan – because one thing was for darn sure. This wasn't going well.

  It was such a happy thought, the idea of getting away for a minute or two. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, because surprise, surprise, when I left the booth, Mackenzie insisted on joining me – like a shark after a swimmer.

  And somehow, I just knew I was about to get munched.

  Chapter 38

  Flynn

  It was fucking killing me. I wasn't the kind of guy to sit back and let things go to hell while I watched – or to let someone I cared about be treated like shit.

  But this was Anna Burke – and I didn't care. Or at least that's what I'd been telling myself for the past half-hour.

  By now, I'd recalled where I'd seen that Mackenzie chick before. Her nose was different, but her personality was the same. She'd come onto me hot and heavy one night in the high school bleachers, offering up things that would've made me blush if I were the blushing type.

  I'd turned her down flat – and not because she wasn't hot.

  She was trouble, and not the kind I could afford, especially back then.

  Now, I could afford plenty, but that didn't mean I was interested. I frowned at the sight of her following Anna toward the restroom. What the hell was she doing?

  Across from me, Preston said, "You know…if you want her, you can have her."

  I was still frowning. "What?"

  "She's into that." He cleared his throat. "I mean, we're into that."

  I was only half listening. "Into what?"

  "You know," he said. "Group stuff."

  Oh, for fuck's sake. I gave him a long, disgusted look. "Yeah, well good luck with that."

  The guy was full of it. Yeah, Mackenzie might like to get her freak on with multiple men, but Preston? He was lying – if not to me then surely to himself.

  But hell if I'd be his therapist.

  Now, he was saying, "Hey, everyone wants an adventurous wife, right?" He laughed like the joke wasn't on him. "I mean, who wants boring?"

  He was right about one thing. Watching your wife – or in this case, fiancée – fuck another man wouldn't be boring, that's for damn sure. As for myself, I could think of plenty other ways to keep sex interesting without swapping partners.

  More to the point, I didn't share.

  And the fact that he did?

  What a cuck.

  But like I said, I was no one's therapist, so I replied, "Hey, it's your life. Do what you want."

  He nodded. "Yeah. Sure. I do." He reached up to tug at his tie. "Anna, she's pretty hot, huh? I bet she's a real spitfire."

  I froze. "What?"

  Again, the guy cl
eared his throat. "I'm just saying, if you like Mackenzie…" He shrugged as if the rest should be self-explanatory.

  It was.

  And I didn't like it.

  Without breaking eye contact, I reached out and lifted my beer. I drained the rest of it and slowly returned the empty bottle to the table.

  And then, I smiled.

  It wasn't a happy smile or a warm smile. I knew this, because the jackass across from me gave a hard swallow and said, "But hey, if you're not into that sort of thing—"

  "I'm not." Looking to drive the point home, I leaned forward and said, nice and slow so the idiot would understand, "And neither is she."

  He leaned back. "Oh. Right. I wasn't suggesting anything. I was just saying…" With a nervous laugh, he turned and looked toward the restrooms. "I wonder what's taking so long."

  It the smartest thing he'd said all night, because I was wondering the same thing.

  They hadn't been gone that long, but it was long enough for me to know that sitting on my ass wasn't the way to go.

  I slid out of the booth and stood.

  Preston asked, "Where you are going?"

  "Wait here."

  "But if you're going…"

  "You're not."

  "What?"

  "Save our seats." I didn't give two shits about our seats. But I did care what was going on with Anna.

  And when I found out, I wasn't happy.

  Chapter 39

  Anna

  As soon as Mackenzie and I entered the restroom, she grabbed my elbow and hissed, "You are so full of it."

  If she meant annoyance, she was absolutely correct. There was no one else around, not even in the stalls, and I would be blissfully alone if only she hadn't followed after me.

  I yanked my elbow out of her grip. "Oh yeah? Full of what?"

  "You are not dating Flynn Archer."

  It was a funny thing to say considering that we were in the middle of yes, an actual date, or more accurately a double date, thanks to her and Preston barging in.

  I crossed my arms. "Is that so?"

  "Definitely."

  "And you know this, how?"

  She smirked. "He doesn't even like you."

  The comment hit a little too close to home. Mackenzie was right. He didn't like me. In fact, I was almost certain that he hated me.