“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?”
“Hell yes, L is Frank’s boy.”
“Great. Here’s what I want to happen…”
I told Stick my plan and gave him exact instructions on day and time for it all to go down.
“I thought your dad made—”
“Things have changed,” I said.
A small pause and then Stick said, “Well, thank Christ. I don’t think I could have stood his melancholy ass too much longer.”
“So, you’re pretty sure he would want to…see me again?”
Stick’s snort of disbelief sounded like Beethoven to my ears. “Uh…that would be a yes.”
“Because I can just leave it alone…” The idea of being able to date Lucas but him already having moved on was devastating. But I knew that, regardless of Stick’s answer, I was going to see my plan through. The “person I am today” was someone who was brave and followed her heart.
