She tilted her head at me, assessing. “Aren’t you?”
“No,” I said with more vehemence. “Screw it, I don’t need to hear your secrets if you don’t trust me,” I said, walking past her into the building, taking a right and heading down the hallway to the lecture room.
“Okay, okay,” Jane said when she sat down next to me in our regular seats. Syd was already there, her earbuds still in, though she nodded to me when I sat beside her.
Of course Montrose was late.
“He wants me to be a bridesmaid in Betsy’s wedding at Christmastime.”
“What the fuck?” Syd said, having heard only that as she took out her earbuds and turned her phone off.
“Exactly,” Jane said to Syd, then looked at me with almost a challenge, like I’d be on her dad’s side.
“How is that possible?” I asked. “I mean, forget that Betsy hates you—no offense.”
She shrugged. “None taken.”
“But you have to plan those things several months in advance. And I’m sure her wedding is probably going to be a big one.”
“Monster.”
“Then she’d have her bridesmaids asked and committed months ago.” A look of guilt in Jane’s eyes made me ask, “When exactly did Betsy ask you?”
“Oh, Betsy never asked me. Still hasn’t. We don’t speak. She totally hates me. But my dad’s been bugging me about it for months.”
“But Betsy must know, right? I mean, she can’t just have an extra bridesmaid show up on the day of the wedding. Can she?”
I knew what magic tricks my father was capable of, and if he was anywhere near this—and now I had the sneaking suspicion he definitely was—then really, anything was possible.
“Who the hell knows? Between my father and yours, I’m thinking poor Betsy doesn’t stand a chance of getting anything she wants—and that might include the groom.”
“But to what end? I mean, what are they even up to after all these years? And what is having you being a bridesmaid going to achieve, other than being fodder for gossip?”
“I don’t know. I can’t figure that part out. Not evil-minded enough to think like those two Machiavellian fucks—”
“Good to hear you know your Florentine literature, Ms. Winters,” Montrose said as he entered the room, throwing his messenger bag on the desk and moving to the lectern. “But I don’t recall ‘fucks’ being part of Machiavelli’sThe Prince. Of course, if he were writing today, he might…No, he was never a lazy writer. Machiavelli? He’d come up with something better.”
“Oh, come on,” Jane said, leaning forward in her seat. “Surely there’s always a place for a good fuck…in literature.”
“An interesting theory. Maybe it should be the subject of your paper.” He had already moved on from Jane, and she sat back in her seat.
The dark cloud around her only grew with Montrose not rising to her bait, and I knew that with her mood, and Lucas not calling, it was going to feel like an eternity before I saw Lucas at Andy’s swim lesson tomorrow afternoon.
If he showed.
* * *
He showed.
He sat in the tile bleachers during the lesson, watching Andy. Each time I tried to meet his glance, he was looking at his brother, or one of the other kids, or somewhere else altogether.
It was one short week ago that I first saw him. When I was in this pool giving lessons and had felt like I was spiraling out of control just looking at him.
Now I had a feeling of absolute dread that I had lost him before I ever even had him.
I wasn’t even sure anybody could ever “have” Lucas Kade. That he would ever give his whole self to any girl. And from the way he wouldn’t meet my eye, it seemed I wouldn’t even get the chance to try.
He was wearing jeans, and this time it was a black Bribury T-shirt, not a polo. And, God, he was gorgeous.
