“Poor thing,” my mother goes on. “And after all that, Lucy made you climb the steps up here instead of driving you home?”
I whirl around. “Excuse me?”
No, she did not!
“I felt fine after the fall, Mrs. LeBrandt. I was trying to be romantic.”
I groan, digging through my medicine cabinet, one ear on the conversation in my bedroom.
“Romantic?” Mom repeats, and I can hear theinterestin her voice.
Oh no.
No, no, no!
I knock over the ibuprofen bottle in my panic, pills spilling everywhere as I rush to grab three.
“I tried to surprise Lucy,” Harris continues, voice dripping with pure, undiluted theatrics. “Climbing to her balcony, like in the movies.”
Dad snorts. “What movie?Jackass?”
I hear Harris grinning as I shut the cabinet. “I was going forRomeo and Juliet, sir.”
Mom actually swoons. “Oh, how sweet.”
I grip the bottle tighter. “It was not sweet, you guys,” I mumble weakly, already losing control of the narrative, setting the pills into Harris’s open palm.
He shrugs his bare shoulders, looking far too pleased with himself. “I miscalculated.”
Dad raises a brow. “You think?”
Mom is still smiling, like this is the most adorable meet-cute she’s ever heard in her entire life. She loves a good romance novel. “Luce, why didn’t you tell me about Harris?”
I feelallthe blood drain from my face.
Harris—the absolute menace—turns to me, expression one of lazy amusement. “Yeah,Luce. Why didn’t you tell her about me?”
Murder. Cold blood.
Right here.Right now.
I clear my throat, shifting awkwardly on my feet near the doorway. “It never came up because he flies home on Monday.”
A beat of silence follows my words, my mother’s delighted expression falling off her face as she processes this new information. “Monday?” she repeats, her gaze flicking back to Harris. “Where is home?”
“Home is Arizona. I was here with some of my teammates to get a little rest and relaxation.” He stretches, then immediately winces, his face tightening as he drops his hand back to his side. “That part hasn’t worked out so well.”
Dad nods. “That’s what happens when you scale the side of a garage and break half the trellis.”
“I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“What were you thinking?” my mom asks.
“I—”
Before he can finish, the front door swings open with a dramatic crash, and Annabelle’s voice slices through the tension like a chain saw. “Lucy! Harris! I’m here—help is on the way!”
I squeeze my eyes shut.Of courseshe would arrive at this moment, when things couldn’t get any more awkward.
