One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,40
is an ex who won’t give me the time of day. Evidently, I like to suffer. So, who is he?”
Even though Peter has become something of a confidante, I’m not ready to let on about Lucas, and definitely not with a client. Still, I can give him a little nugget. Besides, it feels good to talk about last night. “I saw the guy from college. We’ve been tasked with picking up a bunch of things for our siblings, who were tossed out of their apartment but can’t get them because they’re on tour.”
A perplexed look falls across his face. “Does not compute.”
“It’s a long story.” I wave a hand, not wanting to dig into the details. “But Lucas and I were sort of thrust together to pick up the dirty laundry of our little brother and sister. And we had an interesting time running about the city.”
“Interesting,” he says, mulling over the adjective. “Interesting is good.”
“I’m weirdly looking forward to seeing him in a little while.”
“Why is that weird though?”
“Because I don’t know where we go next or what we’re supposed to be. I don’t know what happens after we finish this to-do list.”
He taps his chin. “That’s always the question, isn’t it? We always want to know what’s coming around the bend.”
“But we don’t get to know,” I say.
He shakes his head a little forlornly. “We definitely don’t get to know.”
We spend the rest of the meeting firming up the design plans, and when I say goodbye, it hits me that I don’t feel guilty I pushed this client meeting back to this morning.
Last night, I was annoyed I had to rearrange my schedule.
But this morning, I can see around the bend with my twenty-twenty hindsight. Canceling gave me the chance to reconnect with an old friend.
And to help my sister, I remind myself, as I walk across the city.
I’m definitely meeting him in an hour or so to help my sister.
For the record, I have no choice.
Not that I’d make a different one.
But I head to Doctor Insomnia’s to share news of my evening at the command of two queens—my two best friends.
They peppered me with a barrage of texts this morning, demanding my presence and a full report. From their messages last night, I knew I’d be serving up a plate of details to go with their morning coffee, but nerves scamper inside my chest. After years of Lucas playing a starring role on my dartboard, will last night’s turn of events make me seem like a pushover? One hot kiss and I flip-flop?
Only, I don’t feel like I gave in to something I’ll regret. Nor do I feel like last night was a mistake. If anything, I wish we’d made up sooner.
I steel myself, though, because girlfriends don’t always forgive exes—or pseudo exes—as quickly as the one sleeping with the ex does. I head into the coffee shop to find them huddled on a couch with mugs, laughing brightly. When they look up, I simply smile.
Like the Mona Lisa.
And it gives everything away.
“Get over here right now and tell us everything,” Amy commands, stabbing the cushion on the couch and staring at me over the top of her red glasses.
“Spill,” Peyton seconds.
“And start with whether that dirty-girl grin on your face means I should take him off the hate list,” Amy says, miming crumpling up a sheet of paper and tossing it away.
I nod, grinning. “Definitely. We cleared the air,” I say, telling them what he said about our not-date ten years ago, how he apologized and wished he had groveled and asked for another chance, and how I admitted I should have tried harder to stay friends. “And once we talked it out, we realized we’d both made mistakes and we both wanted a fresh start. I felt like this huge weight had lifted. Like all the annoyance I’d been holding on to was just gone. Poof.”
“It’s good to be able to let go,” Amy says with a sympathetic smile.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you don’t think I’m a pushover. I was a little worried you’d berate me.”
Peyton scoffs. “You? A pushover? You’re the opposite. And for the record, I never thought what happened between you two was so horrible—well, except for losing the friendship. It always seemed like there had to be a reasonable explanation.”
“Most arguments usually have reasonable explanations,” Amy adds. “We just aren’t always ready to hear them at the time.”