One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,50
my chest. “That’s me. I only read The Catcher in the Rye and Heart of Darkness and A Confederacy of Dunces. Just in case the man committee ever asks for my credentials.”
She laughs. “I’m calling you on it. You don’t like those books. You like Nora.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, I read your Nora Roberts. But it was good. That woman can write. Also, I like A Game of Thrones.”
“So manly.”
“And I like Our Dumb World.”
“The book published by The Onion? A bunch of articles?”
“Love it. Best social satire ever.”
She shoots me a satisfied grin. “Okay, that’s totally you. I can see how you’d enjoy parodies about the ridiculous ways of people.”
“That’s definitely me. Clown hater, spoof lover, and occasional sneak reader of Nora Roberts.”
She tips her forehead to a couple of guys a few rows ahead of us who are nursing blue coffee cups, haggard looks on their faces. “Your turn. What’s their wild-goose chase?”
“Ah,” I say, furrowing my brow as I craft a tale, taking my stab at a story. “Two buddies. Their college roommate went on a bender last night after his girlfriend dumped him. He was sad and pissed, and he tossed all her things around town. Left her stuff in a series of dumpsters.” I stop, holding up a finger. “But she called him this morning, begged him to take her back, and he said yes, but now he has to get all her things back right away before she knows what went down. So he called his two buddies.”
“Ouch.”
“It’s a cruel world,” I say.
She sighs and stares out the window. “At least we aren’t the only ones on a crazy mission.” She turns, then meets my gaze. “But I like our mission.”
Her voice is soft, earnest. It weaves through me, hooking into me. Opening my heart a little more. “Yeah. Me too.”
“You do?” Her voice wobbles. It lacks the usual boldness of Lola Dumont. But I don’t mind because what I hear is a vulnerability—the same tender side of her that formed the foundation of our friendship years ago.
That side of her is what led to all our late nights, our talks, our bonding over art, inspiration, ambitions, and dreams. I hear the honesty in it that led me to open up to her about my family, my brother, my parents. I wasn’t raised to be that kind of guy, wearing his heart on his sleeve, sharing all his shit.
But with her, I was that guy.
Lola unlocked that side of me without even trying to. She was easy to talk to then, and now that we’ve peeled away our hard shells, she’s that way again.
The question is—am I still the guy I was before? The guy who launched into self-preservation mode the second the going got rough?
Nearly ten years ago, I wrapped steel around myself when things looked like they were going to fall apart with Lola.
With this woman I was . . .
Even in my head, it’s hard to say how I felt, hard to admit it.
But I knew in my heart what was happening then.
Why it hurt when we blew up.
Because I’d been falling for her.
I could easily fall for her again.
My eyes drift down to her lap. Her hands are folded together. We’ve kissed, we’ve touched, and we’ve made each other come.
I reach for her hand, slide my fingers through hers, and say, “Yes. I like it too. I like it a lot.”
She presses her lips together like she’s holding something inside. Swallowing, she whispers, “I almost don’t want it to end.”
I squeeze her hand tighter. “Me neither.”
I run my thumb across her palm, stroking, caressing, as the wheels rattle over the tracks, the towns whipping by.
We’re silent for a few minutes, saying nothing, but maybe saying everything as I touch her hand and she lets me, shifting a little closer until her shoulder is against mine.
“Lucas?” she whispers.
“Yes?”
“That term. Wild-goose chase.”
There’s a question in her statement. “Yes?”
“They aren’t successful. That’s what worries me. That’s the very definition of the concept—a waste of time because the thing you’re searching for doesn’t exist, or is somewhere else.”
“Right, but we have three things so far. We’ve found them. They do exist.”
“But we’re not technically searching for the things. Well, we are. But the things unlock the money, the security deposit. We don’t actually know if he’s going to give us the money back when we