“Jake? Oh, Jake.” Jake was Tom’s best friend from college, but Rose and I were sure he only stayed friends with Tom to be close to Violet. She was blind to it though.
“He is so hot. He reminds me of Alcide fromTrue Blood. Don’t you miss that show?” She kept rambling as the doorbing-bongedJake’s presence in the store.
He smiled when he saw us. “Lily, darlin’, I heard you were back in town. Good to see you. Hey, Rose. Is Violet around?” I sighed and blushed as I smiled at him like a simpleton. Rose and I had been drooling over Jake since we were tweens.
“Hey, Jake. She’s in the kitchen. You can go on back,” she answered sweetly. Rose was hardly ever sweet, and hearing her use that tone made me laugh. After he was out of earshot, she smacked my arm. “He saw you first. You got the ‘darlin’. Ugh, not fair.” Jake had been our ideal man for a long time. And it seemed as if he was still the barometer for Rose. Being around my twin made me feel like a teenager again.
She grabbed my arm again. “Look across the parking lot. It’s Luke.” He was headed into his office, his cell phone glued to his ear. “You should go over there and say hi.”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to bother him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a wimp. You know you want to go over there. The kids are with Mom. If you go over therenow, you can be alone with him.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
“I don’t want to be alone with him. It’s hard enough not to swoon like a fool when there are people around.” I poured myself a cup of Violet’s mediocre decaf. It was the best decaf coffee I had ever tasted, but it still sucked. I added a liberal amount of Violet’s vanilla bean syrup and some cream and iced it. Yum-ish. I wanted a real coffee. I pouted comically at Rose, and she laughed.
“So, swoon, then. Faint and fall over. Luke will catch you. Have you talked everything out yet?” Rose grabbed a sponge and the purple bottle of spray cleaner and started wiping down the counters. I should probably help, but I didn’t want to.
I shook my head and sipped my drink. “No, we haven’t really talked. He said he wants to be friends again. I didn’t want to make him talk about painful things and upset him.”
“You mean you didn’t want him to upsetyou.” She scoffed and shook her head. “You sure do like to bury your head in the sand. If you knew how hard it was for him to stay away from you and why he did it, you’d take him back in a hot second.”
“He hurt me, Rose.” I had to try to defend myself, even though I knew I was being a coward.
“I know he did.Heknows he did. Let him explain. Even if you don’t want him back, you should at least talk about it.” She shrugged. “For Dylan’s sake.”
I took another sponge and spray bottle and moved from behind the counter to help her clean up. “I will. Eventually.”
“You’ll never get over it if you don’t hear him out. You only have one life, and you’re putting it in park.”
I looked out the window at Luke’s office building. I just couldn’t bring myself to go over there. Maybetomorrow.
I ended up not seeing Luke all day—again. Now it was early evening, and I was getting ready to leave for Violet’s book club.
I carefully lowered Calla into her crib, then headed downstairs.
Dylan was on the couch with my dad, eating popcorn and watchingFinding Dory.“Are you sure you’ll be okay with them?” I asked him again.
Dad sighed. “Lily, I have eight kids. You’re all still alive, aren’t you? I think I can manage to take care of yours while you go to Violet’s.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Give me a kiss goodbye, Dylan.” He stood up on the couch, and I hugged him and kissed his soft cheek. “I’ll be back when you’re asleep. Have sweet dreams.”
“Bye, Mommy,” he said and sat back down and cuddled up to my dad.
“Bye, Dyl. Later, Dad.”
I stepped onto the porch just as Cade pulled up in his old Ford Bronco. He beeped the horn, and I rushed to get in. “Jeez, you saw me on the porch. No need to honk at me, butthead.” Sometimes our kid-speak came out. It was unavoidable.
“You were walking too slow,” he shouted out his window. “Mom made her buffalo chicken dip, and I want to get some before Rose eats it all. And now you’re here, so I have to get to it before you do too. I should have made you walk,” he teased.
My mouth started to water at the thought of buffalo chicken dip. I hurriedly climbed inside and buckled up. “So, what’s the book?” I asked him. I wasn’t worried; I read everything. I mean, there was a reason I’d become a librarian. Cade and I geeked out over books all the time.
“Storm of Swords. I can’t wait.” He turned down the street to Violet’s shop and pulled in.
I got excited and smacked his arm. “That’s my favorite one of the series! So, um, does Luke ever go to book club?” I wastrying to be nonchalant. But I’d failed. Miserably. I was totally chalant.
Cade chuckled. “He came once. It was supposed to be Stephen King night. We were supposed to discussIt.Remember when we all read it together when we were kids? You slept on my bedroom floor for weeks. Then you got sick of sleeping on the floor and paid me five dollars a week to have me sleep on your floor.” He had stopped chuckling and was just outright laughing at me. “Anyway, they ended up talking aboutOutlander,which is a good fucking book. But all they were doing was drooling all over the actor that plays Jamie on the show. I don’t need to hear that shit. I have zero desire to hear my mother and sisters talking about what’s under some guy’s kilt. Luke and I left. We went to Holloway’s and had a few beers. So, I guess he hasn’t really been to a book club meeting.”
My Auntie Delphine, Mom’s only sibling, owned Holloway’s, a pub up the street from Violet’s shop. My late Uncle Pat had opened it years ago when they first got married, and keeping it up and running was now a family affair. After Cade’s explanation, I had no idea whether to expect to see Luke tonight. I was thinking not.
