One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,39

jumping through higher hoops.

Lucas: Me too. But I also think he imagines himself as some sort of gamemaster.

Lola: Perhaps he runs escape rooms.

Lucas: Or a live-action puppet show.

Lola: The Delightful Sadist Puppeteer. Which means we’re his marionettes.

Lucas: Yes. We are. And I weirdly enjoyed his puppet theater.

Lola: So did I. Perhaps I’ve secretly wanted to be a sock puppet my whole life.

Lucas: Dreams do come true. Also, props on making that seamless transition in the email chain from serious to playing along.

Lola: I’m quick on my feet.

Lucas: And with your tongue and your lips. Incidentally, your mouth is both divine and decadent.

Lola: I wouldn’t know how yours is.

Lucas: That needs to change.

15

Lola

“I had three hundred and fifty-two new subscribers last week.” Peter straightens his shoulders and shoots me a proud smile over his steaming mug of coffee.

I hold up a hand to high-five. He smacks back. “That’s what I like to hear,” I say, as we study the newest set of designs for his YouTube channel at the ungodly hour of nine a.m.

Thanks, Luna.

Screw that morning exercise shit on a Saturday. I woke up at the last possible minute, showered in record time, and emailed with Harrison and Lucas, while also texting Lucas, as I dried my hair. Multitasking for the win. Then I hightailed it here in the nick of time.

As we review the next set of concepts, I take a drink of my black coffee, one sugar, stifling a yawn.

My client arches a brow, his cool blue eyes curious. “Late night, Lola?”

I laugh. “A little bit.”

He shoots me an I’m waiting look, tapping his foot impatiently on the coffee shop’s tile floor.

I shake my head. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

“So you did kiss. Interesting,” the lean and lanky man says with a sly grin.

I wag a finger. “Nope. You’re getting nothing from me. I was just out with a friend,” I say, since that’s one way of referring to Lucas now, and I’m damn glad I can call him that again.

Peter nods, vociferously agreeing. “I’m sure. Just a friend. Like, say, exactly how I see Karen,” he says, naming his ex-girlfriend and the reason he’s intent on growing his YouTube channel.

I know the story well. When Peter first hired me, he held nothing back. The man poured his heart out in a veritable deluge. “I’ve been racing around the city on rollerblades, playing chicken with cars, darting past pedestrians at race-car speeds, thinking it will somehow soothe my savage heart. It hasn’t. Not one bit. See, my girlfriend ditched me because she was embarrassed about my sport. She thinks I’m not acting my age. That I behave like a teenager. I can’t believe you’re still going around the city on roller skates, she said, even though she knows they’re called ‘blades.’ She said rollerblading is sooo yesterday. And now I want to prove to her that rollerblading isn’t outdated. That it’s cool again. It’s retro hip, like elbow patches and newsboy caps. My brother says I’m crazy, but I know he’s wrong. That’s why I need your graphics to help make my channel amazing and sophisticated. More about the art of blading than the speed.”

My heart ached for him. I doubted that growing a YouTube channel would win back a woman who’d callously tossed aside a man simply because she disliked his sport. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Grow it to win her back?” I’d asked.

“Positive.”

“We could also try to grow it for its own sake,” I’d offered.

“And that’ll help me win her back.”

Who was I to argue with his heart?

Especially since he seems happier now that he’s recording his exploits and triple axels for video consumers around the globe.

Rollerblading is his passion, and he wants to share it with the world, maybe as a way to win Karen back, or maybe because sharing his passion is healing his heart.

That’s my hope for him.

I offer him a genuine smile. “Karen doesn’t know what she’s missing,” I say, gesturing to the screen and his antics last night when he executed a lightning-fast fishtail in the park, followed by a precise figure eight.

He takes a gulp of the coffee, shaking his head. “Don’t try to distract me. Who’s the late-night fella? Is he one of your Latin lovers?”

I drop my jaw. “Hey! Way to pigeonhole me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fabian, Alejandro, that guy from college from Brazil. C’mon. I don’t think I’m pigeonholing you. You clearly have a type. We all do. Just like my type