One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,45

can parse out what Peyton’s getting at, I grab my phone and send a text halfway around the world.

I’ve texted my brother a few times in the last twenty-four hours to no avail.

I don’t expect to hear back, but you never know.

Lucas: What would you do if you won the lottery? Would be nice if you’d tell me. And I don’t mean the castle, the rides, or the rockets.

There’s no reply.

I turn to Lola. “And Luna? What would she do?”

“Donate it all to the Malala Fund. That’s where she gives most of her extra money. She’s big into supporting education for girls in developing countries. But I highly doubt the Malala Fund would let Harrison leave stuff at its New York office, so it has to be something else. Something more fantastical.”

Lola looks out the window, deep in thought, and as she stares at the street, I draw this image of her in my head so I can remember it. The woman somewhere else. The woman who loves her sister unconditionally. The woman who thinks and feels and wants.

And I want something too.

Something I’m not sure how to name, how to have, how to ask for.

Or what would happen if I did.

But when my stomach rumbles, at least that’s an easy want to name—breakfast. “Any chance we can take this brainstorm to a diner? I’m starving for pancakes drenched in syrup.”

Lola snaps her gaze to me. “That’s it!”

“That’s what Luna would do if she won the lottery? Open a diner? Eat pancakes drizzled with warm butter and covered in syrup?”

She shakes her head, grinning as she taps my thigh. “Sounds like your fantasy, Lucas. But I meant the fourth item. Your songwriting notebooks are where you had the ‘Oh my God, wasn’t that the hottest makeup sex ever, babe?’ and ‘The only thing that would have made it hotter would have been syrup.’ A diner. Their favorite diner is about ten blocks away. Wendy’s Diner. That has to be it.”

“Wendy’s Diner has the best pancakes ever,” I add, and as soon as I say it, it tickles a memory. “Rowan once told me he had the best pancakes ever there, and I guess that was why.”

“We can go there and get the notebooks, and we can go to Takes Two to Tango after, or tonight,” Lola says.

“I’m famished too,” Reid chimes in. “I could go for pancakes. Maybe some eggs too.”

Peyton shoots him a stare, like she’s trying to send him a telepathic message, and says, “You’re not hungry,” in a these aren’t the droids you’re looking for way.

Reid blinks. “I’m definitely hungry.”

Peyton shakes her head, trying again. “Reid, did you know I own a lingerie shop? It’s a few blocks away. Want to come check it out?”

“Thanks, but I don’t wear lingerie,” he says, and I chuckle privately because I have a hunch what Peyton’s up to—trying to get Lola and me alone again.

“But single women do. And some of them come to my shop,” Peyton says, and perhaps she’s doing double duty, leaving us alone and ushering Reid to the store to play some sort of matchmaker. “Single women who like water rides. Like my store manager.”

He snaps to attention, as if just remembering he’s been on a hunt trying to find his girl from Paris.

The possibility that she might be in this shop will surely be irresistible to my friend.

Irresistible but slim, I suspect.

“Yes, I would love to see your shop.”

As Peyton and Amy escort Reid to the lingerie shop, Lola and I head for pancakes.

Once we reach the diner and introduce ourselves, a woman with Little Orphan Annie curls tsks at us, holding a canvas bag of notebooks and saying, “Finally. I was about ready to throw these out.”

18

Lola

I lift my fork and point it at Lucas’s empty plate. One lone pancake crumb graces the ceramic surface. I stab it and offer it to him, chiding, “You shouldn’t leave anything on your plate, Lucas.”

“Damn. How did I miss that?” He leans forward, darts out his tongue, and devours the last bit of pancake from the tines.

He groans in pure Food-Network-host perfection. “Thank you,” he says, intently serious, “for locating that final morsel.”

“I take it you’re adding these pancakes to the soul-selling list?” I ask with a raise of a brow.

He screws up the corner of his lips then strokes his chin. “I’m considering it. The fries only needed one try. But I feel that to award such a distinction, I’d have to try these pancakes three