“I’m Hazel,” I quickly whisper to the handsome stranger as Brittany walks toward our table.

 

“Liam,” he shoots back just as quietly.

 

He has an Irish accent that matches his name. He also has an eager smile on his face, and is clearly having fun with this. But then he looks down at his wrist and checks his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this won’t take long, right? I have somewhere to be in a bit.”

 

I am close to having a nervous breakdown, so much so that I didn’t even notice the shirt Liam was wearing. A black polo with a hard to miss Starbucks logo in the middle. I’m interrupting a barista’s break so I can have him pretend he’s my boyfriend. Holy hell, how much lower can I sink?

 

Brittany has a more malevolent smile on her face as she nears us. She places one of her devilish hands on our table and cocks her head to the side like some preppy cheerleader from one of those Mean Girls-type high school movies. Her smile grows wider before she finally says something.

 

“Hi, Hazel,” she annoyingly spouts, dragging out every syllable. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? You look…,” she pauses to look me up and down. “Anyway, how have you been?”

 

She doesn’t give me a chance to answer before her head turns over towards Liam and she almost jumps back, obviously shocked at how attractive he is.

 

“Hello there, I’m Brittany,” she says lowering her voice to a much more flirtatious tone. She extends a hand out to have shaken but is ignored.

 

Uninterested, Liam replies with a short, “Cool,” and sips his coffee.

 

Scott joins us with both his and Brittany’s drink orders. Brittany welcomes him into the conversation, referring to me as their dear friend. What a joke. Scott introduces himself, and is given a cold reception by Liam, but this time Liam gives his name.

 

“So, Liam, how do you know our sweet little Hazel?” Brittany asks him.

 

“Y’know, I don’t mean to be rude, but you guys are kind of interrupting. Nice meeting you, though,” Liam replies.

 

Scott backs off immediately, being the spineless slug that he is, but Brittany plants her feet on the floor. She doesn’t look as if she has any plans to leave us, even though Liam is paying full attention to me and not her. In fact, he picks up an imaginary conversation as if we had been right in the middle of it.

 

The worried look on my face dissolves into a beaming smile, one that matches Liam’s. He goes on about a party we went to last weekend and how our friends got too drunk.

 

“Wasn’t it so crazy how everyone there was absolutely smashed, except for us, so we just took videos of all of them and joked about playing them back to them the next morning so they could see the dangers of imbibing too heavily?”
 

“It sure was!” I exclaim, as if I know exactly what he’s talking about.

 

Hearing the story for the first time myself, I am hung up on his every word. Whether it’s because of his thick Irish accent or the conviction with which he relives this made up story, I can’t take my eyes off of his handsome face and gorgeous green eyes.

 

I begin to wish we really had been together last weekend and that this story could actually be true. Instead, I had only binge watched Netflex with Lucy curled in my lap. Liam belts out a very convincing laugh that wanes when he sees that Brittany is still planted next to our table.

 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I hadn’t known you were still there,” Liam says, with disdain in his voice, before turning his attention back to me and saying, “I really think we should rent a movie theater-sized screen for the party, and play it all for them then.”

 

It’s not much longer until Brittany finally leaves us and joins Scott on the other side of the Starbucks, sulking the whole way at the unfairness of being ignored by a man. Liam waits until she’s sitting to look back at her, then to me.

 

“So,” he starts, “how’d I do, eh?”

 

“You are amazing, Liam,” I tell him truthfully.

 

I was so set to just leave the coffee shop as soon as Brittany had her back turned to me, but now I couldn’t help but stay and talk to this man. This attractive man. This charming, hilarious, fast thinking, good looking man.

 

I even catch a glimpse of Brittany looking back at us, clearly jealous that I get to spend my time with Liam, while she’s stuck with pathetic, thumb diddling Scott. It’s obvious that she knows I’m with the better man. Well, not with. Not really.

 

“I’ve never been any good at improv, but I really gotta toot my horn here, I was pretty bloody convincing,” Liam boasts, with his charming Irish brogue.

 

I certainly couldn’t disagree. He almost had me sold that we had gone to a party last weekend.

 

“So, who are they, anyway?” he asks me, his impeccably adorable eyebrows furling together a bit as he looks at me.

 

This isn’t a conversation I’d get into with a stranger, but there’s a very inviting warmth Liam gives off that makes me spill my guts. I tell Liam the miserable story of how I not only found out that my boyfriend was cheating on me with my best friend of many years, but also that the way I found out was by walking into the office and seeing them fucking on my work station. Liam stares at me with a bewildered look in his eyes, and his jaw drops.

 

“Just like that, eh?” he asks me, shaking his head in what could be amusement. “Not worried about the big boss coming in, and ending up canned?”

 

“I guess they figured it would have been worth it,” I say, laughing.

 

It feels good to laugh about it. This whole time, I’ve been angry and stewing, when really, it’s a very funny situation. The situation does call for some degree of at least self-deprecating humor, so, at least talking to Liam is providing me with that much needed perspective.

 

I notice Brittany talking to Scott with a very angered expression on her face. All the muscles on her face had tightened when Liam rejected her handshake and she hasn’t relaxed her face since. She noisily scoots her chair away from her table and makes a beeline back towards us. I warn Liam, who gets excited at the thought of continuing this overall innocent lie.

 

“Aye, well, if you thought I was amazing before, just wait until you see this,” he whispers to me, and punctuates his statement with a suggestive wink.

 

I wink back at him, ready for more laughs, and for whatever else he has in store.