“Which is not what I said, and you know it.”
I smiled. I kind of liked talking to the man who had always held my father’s strings. “Well, if Lily being miserable, and Lucas actually being a pretty decent guy who loves your daughter, won’t change your mind, then how about…” I waited for emphasis. I hadn’t been raised by the ultimate drama queen for nothing.
“Yes?”
“How about if I agree to stand in Betsy’s wedding?” Ooh, that had him thinking.
“You would do that? Lily said there was no way she could talk you into doing it.”
“She was right. She couldn’t have. But let’s just say I have recently seen…how much Lucas and Lily belong together. And I feel strongly enough about it to make this call and offer myself up as the sacrificial lamb.”
“Standing in a wedding is hardly a huge sacrifice.”
“Don’t kid yourself. It’s going to be hell, and not just on that day, but in the photos that will live on forever.”
There was a pause, and then a deep exhale. I could almost hear his political mind weighing the pros and cons at lightning speed. “If I agree, you have to actually…behaveat the wedding. No all-day pouting, no dramatics. You need to act like you’re happy to be there.”
“I—”
“You don’t have to hang all over the bride and groom with fake happiness or anything like that. But no ‘I can’t believe I have to fucking be here’ faces, either.”
This man knew me well. But that wasn’t news to me.
“Okay. But for the ‘no pouting faces’ I want assurances that when you tell Lily she can see Lucas, you make sure she can do it guilt-free. No ‘I’m still against you seeing him, but if you really must, I won’t stand in your way’ or some such bullshit.”
He laughed. Grayson Spaulding actually laughed.
“I mean it. You tell her that—”
“I think I can manage to make her believe that I changed my mind…Jaybird.”
I smiled. I had gotten his goat, and now he’d gotten mine. I really did kind of like the dick. “Do we have a deal?” I asked.
“Deal.”
“I’ll call my father and tell him I changed my mind about the wedding as soon as Lily and Lucas are back together. And one more thing—I don’t want Lily to know about this call. Let her think you just changed your mind…because youdocare about her happiness.”
“Fine.”
I hung up and went back into our room. Lily was sitting up in bed, banging away on her laptop. So engrossed with what she was doing she didn’t even notice when I placed her phone back on her desk before going to my closet to find something to wear for the night.
Chapter28
Lily
Are you available to talk?And are you alone? (or at least no Lucas),I texted to Stick the Monday after the last swim lesson.
A moment later, he answered yes to both, and I called him.
“Do you know Lucas’s boss, Frank?” I asked him.
“Yeah. He’s from the neighborhood. He’s, like, my dad’s age, so it’s not like we’re buds or anything, but yeah, I know him. Why?”
“Think he’d do a favor for you?”
“Hell no, he hates my guts.”
I was going to ask if Stick had stolen Frank’s car, but decided not to. I needed him. “Think he’d do a favor for Lucas?”
