One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,23
was Professor Trumbull’s Wednesday afternoon studio design class,” I say, picturing Lola in her jeans and pink T-shirt with a sparkled skull design on the front, extending a hand. “We were paired up on a project, and that’s when I introduced myself.”
“Yes, and you said, I’m Lucas Xavier from São Paulo.” She gestures for me to speed the story along.
I tap my temple. “And I thought to myself, if she’s half as interesting as she is pretty, then I am going to be so fucked for the rest of the semester.”
She furrows her brow like my answer doesn’t compute. “That’s what you thought?”
I lean closer. “I make no bones about it. I’m a designer, like you, and it’s both my passion and my job to look for beauty. You were and are beautiful. I saw it in you then and was drawn to it.” I say it matter-of-factly because it’s the truth.
I’ve never not been attracted to her. I just didn’t act on it for a long time because we were friends. Because I valued that friendship deeply. But that kind of intel stays in the vault.
These details though? It’s hard to keep them locked up tonight, especially after Baxter kicked that door open. But what’s the harm in her knowing I think she’s stunning?
No harm, no foul.
She parts her lips but doesn’t seem to know what to say. Which is rare for Lola. Soon enough, though, she finds her voice. “Thank you for that interesting answer.”
“Why is it interesting?”
“Because it’s deeper than saying, Hey man, she’s a babe,” she says in a bro voice.
“You’re also a babe. A smoke show. A total fucking fox,” I say, lest she think I’m simply an art aficionado, when I’m definitely still a red-blooded man. “But stop distracting me again. Point being, that’s when we met—in class—but you argued with me incessantly over that point.”
She slams her palm against her forehead. “Oh my God, Lucas! We didn’t meet in that class. We met at the freaking museum. We were both looking at a Jackson Pollock, and we had a long and detailed conversation about whether abstract art could truly represent a real thing.” She crosses her arms in conversational victory. “Don’t try to deny it. We talked about Pollock’s work and the other expressionists and the whole idea of representation. And later we discussed it constantly over study sessions, over lunch in the cafeteria, over coffee, and so on.”
I hold up a finger to make a point, enjoying this trek down memory lane. “I remember meeting you at our favorite café, ordering a black coffee for you, with one packet of sugar. And I vividly recall those torturous study sessions when we had to prep for the brutal exams in our business principles class.”
“I had to poke you to keep you awake in the lounge as we studied,” she says, stretching across the table and stabbing her unpolished fingernail against my arm. The lack of polish shouldn’t affect me one way or the other, but I’ve always liked that Lola’s a low-maintenance kind of gal. She doesn’t doll herself up to an unrecognizable degree.
“I still have the flesh wounds from your efforts.”
“You have the passing grade from my efforts, mister. I saved your ass in business principles, Lucas Xavier,” she says, narrowing her eyes, though her tone is full of jest, full of friendship. Like she was before that weekend. Before I fucked things up. Before I said things I shouldn’t have and didn’t say the things I should.
If I’d been more honest with her the weekend I went away, things might have been different. But when you spend a weekend with a bunch of college guys, you aren’t always thinking straight about how to communicate all the crazy feelings you have for a woman.
And at twenty-one, I hardly knew what to say. Honest affection, open communication—those weren’t classes my parents taught. Hiding, avoiding, denying—that was what I grew up seeing.
That had been familiar, and I’m not sure I’m much better at communication now.
But at least one thing is different nearly ten years later. Even though we’re arguing, we’re having fun as we do it.
And hell, do I ever miss this.
This is what I’ve missed most since our friendship did a Humpty Dumpty all that time ago. There was no putting it back together again, so we splintered into enemy factions, weapons always drawn.
Tonight though? We’re friends again. It’s a one night stand-in, and I’ll take it.