The Summer Deal

Eighteen - Have I seen you somewhere before?

"Have I seen you somewhere before?"

All six pairs of eyes landed on me, including Raymond's who suddenly decided that he wanted to join us.

Crap. I didn't think anybody could recognize me this far from home.

I kept my confidence cool and answered, "no."

"Really?" Dennis took off his glasses, wiped them clean from the water droplets, and wore them again. "You just seem... vaguely familiar to me. Are you sure?"

The groom-to-be wasn't sure of himself. That's a good sign. "I know I am, but are you?"

"I..."

"I think I know what Dennis means," Noah said, slicing off the tension between Dennis and me with a clean knife.

"You do?" We both asked together and gave each other a dirty look.

"Yes!" Noah chuckled. "Dennis, you must have seen one of her YouTube conferences I told you about. Remember, Sarah? The manager was going on and on about it that morning." My God. He never listened to the entire conversation that morning, did he? "Sarah's well known for her work in England, and I know she's going to be world-famous when her cancer research becomes successful. She's going to help a lot of people one day."

He was listening to me last night?

He was listening to me last night.

After dinner last night, we decided to ride around the city and get some fresh air. I don't know anything about air, but I did get a massive sugar rush from the ice creams I ate. I couldn't stop blabbering about my work life. I held too much respect in my line of field, so I had a full right to brag about it.

Noah was quiet throughout the entire ride. He either regretted his actions of feeding me sugar and was thinking of ways to dump me in the middle of nowhere in the city, or he was actually listening to me.

So yesterday was a disaster. Today is the aftermath of that disaster, and tomorrow will be the beginning of another disaster. How nice.

"Oh," Dennis mumbled, still not convinced. It was not right of me to judge anyone by their looks again, but Dennis clearly looked like a man who would rather play a video game with an adult living in his mother's basement on the other side of the world, and have a cat as his roommate than watch some interviews about a new virus being discovered in the bottom of a glacier found floating near Greenland. He shrugged. "That must be it then. I'm sorry, but you just seem familiar to me."

"No hard feelings. It's fine."

Of course, it's fine. I just have to make some important calls and steer clear of this man's way. It should be easy considering that I'm going to attend his wedding as his old friend's fake date, and his soon-to-be wife has invited me to a secluded island to enjoy the adult privilege of partying with strippers.

"And it's not like Sarah's hiding from the government or something." Noah joked. "Chill out, mate."

Everybody laughed except me.

"You're right," Dennis agreed, still laughing. "I'm sorry for coming on so strong to you, Sarah. You're here with the guy who helped me pass Basic Math. You're good."

My smile was tight just like my guard around him. Dennis wasn't going to let go of this conversation so easily. Call it a gut feeling. Sooner or later, I had to confront him.

Until then...

"What are you doing here, sitting like a lazy donkey?" I scowled playfully at my fake partner. I was still upset at him for everything despite how sweet he tried to act, and I was going to make him pay for his actions till I found some excuse to get out of here. "Go get me a drink. I'm thirsty."