Marek and the man who Giselle called Anders are animatedly chatting in the corner when Tinley stops right in front of them. Both are bent over fiddling with the laptop, no doubt adding more songs to the evening’s playlist.

Marek’s eyes light up as she stops in front of them and he comes over for a quick kiss. “Hey babe, are you enjoying your party?”

She contemplates how to answer that question and with a shrug, she responds, “It’s been interesting, that’s for sure.”

“Interesting good? Or interesting bad?”

His sister stands in her peripheral and she half expects her to come charging over her. She did say she was sorry for before, but it’s still strange how she’s watching them right now. Tinley tries to ignore her and attempts to fully focus on Marek. Which isn’t exactly easy with the entire party going on around them. She slides her hands down the front of her dress and plasters a fake smile on her face. “You tell me. Giselle just came over and apologized to me.”

“For what?”

“For leading me to believe that she was your girlfriend and potentially Luna’s mother.”

The mystery man standing behind them chokes as he takes a pull from his beer. Fortunately, he doesn’t spit anything out, but from where Tinley’s standing it looks like he’s struggling to hold everything in.

Marek glares at his friend and turns back to Tinley. “I’m glad she apologized, but I’m scared to ask you if that’s all you were referring to or if something else interesting happened in the last five minutes since I left your side.”

“The Wedding March?”

He points to the guy standing behind them. “The idiot standing behind us is my business partner Anders.”

A lightbulb goes off for Tinley and she says, “Oh! You’re the one who owns Big House Book Store.”

Anders has a boyish grin on his face as he raises his hand and says, “That would be me.”

Tinley looks past Marek still focused on his best friend. He’s got wavy sandy blond hair and a little bit of scruff on his face. He’s got at least four inches on Marek, but he’s also about twenty pounds lighter. He’s definitely on the leaner side and funnily enough Dakota’s type completely. Especially with his form fighting slacks and suspenders. She ignores the twinge of pain in the center of her chest with her best friend missing and asks, “So, care to explain your interesting music choice?”

With his thumb, he motions to Marek and says, “My buddy Marek here told me that this was a funeral-themed birthday party. That you were all depressed about turning thirty, which is ridiculous by the way because my thirties have been way better than my twenties. But anyway, I figured what’s more fitting of a funeral theme song than the one everyone uses when signing the rest of your single life away to be stuck with the same person for the rest of your life?”

“That’s rather cynical don’t you think? Do you have a problem with love?”

Marek groans beside her and speaks before Anders has a chance to respond to her question, “Don’t even get him started on this topic babe. All it will do is depress you.”

“Now you’re just making up stories Marek. Don’t lie to the poor girl. There’s no juicy story to tell.”

Tinley doesn’t believe a word of it but she chooses not to press him further. “I don’t know you well enough to interrogate you on this one, but I definitely feel like there’s something there. Trust me when I tell you I’ll get to the bottom of your broken heart story Anders, you can guarantee it.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

In the words of one of her favorite TV show characters, she simply replies with, “Challenge accepted.”

He just grins and doesn’t say a word, but that has her thinking. “So, your love life aside. What’s the story between you and Giselle. Why does she hate you so much?”

Anders chokes on the beer he was just drinking, and part of his beverage dribbles out of his mouth and onto his chin. He continues coughing unable to stop and Marek yet again speaks for him. “Honestly, my sister is bat shit crazy. She had a crush on him way back in the day and he never reciprocated her feelings. So now she holds it against him and thinks he’s an asshole. But he knows I would chop off his balls and dick if he ever touched her. She’s just trying to start drama, like always.”

Tinley looks past her boyfriend toward his best friend and his eyes go a little wide on that last comment. Other than that, he doesn’t show any signs of the conversation affecting him. Interesting. There is definitely a lot more to this story than either one of them are letting on and Marek doesn’t even know the half of it. She doesn’t think anything has actually happened between the two of them, but there’s definitely some insane sexual tension between them and it’s bound to explode at some point.

Finally, able to contain his almost death by hops, Anders says, “Yeah. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I would never go there.”

He completely avoids eye contact with Tinley as he says that last part which makes her wonder if he already has which would make her first assumption very wrong. She continues watching him as he fiddles around with the laptop and finally looks up at her, no doubt feeling her eyes on him. They go wide, and he looks over at Marek and back at her again shaking his head. He quickly looks away and she leaves it at that. No reason to bring up any unnecessary drama. Besides, they’re all grown adults. If Giselle and Anders want to have a relationship, they shouldn’t let Marek stand in the way of that.

She leaves the conversation at that, gives Marek a quick peck on the lips, and moves along to mingle with the rest of the guests. Plastering a fake smile on her face, she forces herself to have a good night even though she’s distracted with thoughts of Dakota still in the back of her mind.