She rolled her eyes, but grinned. “You should leave a message.”
“You could text.”
Sofia grimaced. “You sound like your brother. He tried to add me to a group chat with your aunts and cousins. It’s an endless live feed of arguments about tax policies and whether you should wash raw chicken. I won’t take part in it.” Her eyes softened and focused somewhere over his shoulder. “Speaking of Joseph…”
Nathan’s stomach dropped. Joe was deep in conversation with Matt and Rachel. Sofia took a step forward, but Nathan stayed rooted to the floor. Why the hell was she here? Standing next to him like everything was fine?
“I need to make a phone call,” Nathan grumbled, avoiding Sofia’s eyes. “I’ll find you after.”
“It’ll only take a minute. Matt is the guest of honor.” She grabbed his arm and started walking in their direction. “It would be rude not to say hello.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Unlike Matt, who constantly sold his charm with the zeal of a used car salesman, Joe Vasquez didn’t have to say anything for people to know he was the most important person in the room. It wasn’t just the imposing figure he struck with his gray-streaked beard and dark suit, or that he was taller than everyone at the luncheon except a retired NBA player running for state senate. It was his indifference to the social posturing surrounding him, as if he were immune to any need for approval. When Joe did look away from his phone long enough to speak, it was often in clipped shorthand, like his time was too valuable to waste on fully formed sentences.
Rachel knew that Joe was one of the few people in Oasis Springs that Matt envied. He would practically strain a muscle attempting to bond during conversations.
“You should join us out on the green one weekend,” Matt said. “The guys at the firm would love to see you.” He took a sip of red wine. Rachel would normally have told him to stick with white. Red stains your lips, and you never knew who would take a photo and post it online. Now she was perfectly happy to let him look like a toddler who had too many suckers while chatting up potential donors.
“Yeah, I don’t golf,” Joe said. “Something about riding around in those little carts. Not a fan of tight spaces.”
Rachel raised an eyebrow. “They don’t have doors.”
Joe shifted his eyes over, a half smile lifting his lips. “Well then, maybe it’s the company I keep.”
Rachel laughed. She didn’t know Joe that well, but he was always polite in an impatient way. Kind enough to give you the opportunity to impress, but not nice enough to stick around if you failed. She’d approached him thinking it would draw Matt’s attention away from her. He’d been shadowing her movements since they got there. When she emptied her wineglass, he offered to bring her water instead. It was a warning. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened at Sofia’s party.
Matt touched the small of her back while he questioned Joe about Vasquez Industries’ federal grant eligibility. For the last hour he’d been leaning close to speak, cupping her elbow to walk through the room. It sent a clear message to everyone watching. They were together. They were partners. After all these years, they were still in love. To Rachel, it felt like revenge. Intimate touches from the man who betrayed you inspired a special kind of revulsion.
“Who’s that woman over there?” Matt stared at someone over Joe’s shoulder. Rachel followed his gaze to see Lyric walking in their direction. “She’s been staring at you since we got here.”
“Lyric Patterson. She’s an old classmate,” Rachel said, and averted her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with Lyric’s ambivalence. But Matt waved her over with a large, welcoming smile.
“Well, hello there.” Matt shook her hand. “I don’t think we’ve met. Lyric, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s nice to finally meet the man behind the trending video. I feel like I should get your autograph or something.”
Matt flushed and dipped his head modestly. “How embarrassing. I was angry and lost my head for a minute. No idea it would take off like that.”
It sounded so sincere. But Rachel was there when Hailey had fed him lines for this exact situation, when someone implied that he was a celebrity. “Remind them it was spontaneous. That feels more authentic.” When Rachel asked how repeating a canned answer a dozen times would “feel authentic,” Matt had laughed. “No one gets their news from multiple sources anymore.”