Even better. Now I’m really searching the area. I don’t see Lucy anywhere. “What? Is she going to steal the truck?”
“Probably. But not necessarily in abadway.”
I stop craning my neck looking around and stare at Ian. “What the hell does that mean? How is there a good way to steal someone else’s stuff?”
“She always returns it. After she has added her own personal touch. With rhinestones. Lots and lots of rhinestones.”
That makes me laugh out loud. Whatever I thought he was going to say, it wasn’t that. “You have a town bedazzler? Holy shit, I’m going toloveit here.”
The grimace on his face makes it clear he has been personally victimized by rhinestones.
“You’ve been rhinestoned, haven’t you?” I ask sympathetically as we step into the truck.
“Yes,” he says. “It was a rhinestoning.” He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and holds it up to show me.
I clap my hand over my mouth but a laugh slips out anyway. Ian’s leather wallet looks a little worse for the wear. Like he’s had it for a decade. And right smack in the middle of the brown square is an elaborate cursive “L” in purple rhinestones.
“That’s…special,” I tell him, amused. “Why purple, I wonder?”
“She didn’t like the pink with the brown.” He shoves the wallet back in his pocket.
“Fair enough. Why did you keep it?” That’s an even better question.
He winces again. “I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Lucy’s feelings. Her son passed away at around my age a couple of years ago and she always says that I remind her of him.”
Well, well. Ian Lennox is a softie. I forgive his uptightness immediately.
I also feel ooey and gooey in places I have no business feeling that warm.
“You are stuck now, aren’t you?” I give him a smile. I gesture to the street. “My truck is still here though so I think I’m safe.”
The back of the box truck opens and Lucy pops out, holding one of my tabletop lamps in her hand.
“I turned the truck off,” she says, cheerfully. “Keys are still in the ignition.”
She offers no explanation for why she has my lamp as she sits down on the truck bed then jumps onto the street. With a wave, she strolls off down Whiskey Way.
“Does that lamp hold sentimental value for you?” Ian asks. “Because I’ll go after her if it does.”
That was chivalrous of him but I couldn’t ruin Lucy’s fun. “No. It’s from a big box store and I paid thirty dollars for it. I like it but I’m also very curious to see what she’ll do to it so I’m willing to roll the dice.”
That’s how I live my life. Just roll with it.
That always drove my ex insane. At first he thought it was cute. For about two weeks. Then he thought it was annoying and unserious.
Which was fine because at first I thought he was charming and stable. Then I realized he was just a patronizing jerk.
So it all worked out in the end.
I’m not going to be pushed into a box just to fit someone else’s idea of how a life should be lived.
Much like Lucy McIntyre, apparently.
Ian pulls the door to the truck closed again. “Then I guess you’ll fit in here just fine,” he says.
To me, that’s a compliment. Even though I don’t know Ian at all, he sounds like he means it as a compliment. He also sounds…envious?
“How long have you lived here?” I ask.
