Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,55
way at all. God had brought them together and they would’ve been the first to acknowledge that truth. Theirs was such a beautiful story of healing and newfound hope and . . .
Great, she was tearing up. Right there in her chair while everyone around her celebrated, her eyes were pooling with nonsensical tears. Get ahold of yourself. She blinked. Sniffed. Glanced down when she felt her phone vibrate. A text? She pulled it from her pocket and snuck a peek at the display.
Meet me in the kitchen.
Lucas?
She blinked again, willing her eyes to dry, and looked around. Lucas was standing over by the doorway, currently shaking Marshall’s hand, his phone in his other palm. “Let’s celebrate with dessert,” he was saying. “Jen and I will get it.”
Okay, apparently she was meeting him in the kitchen and prepping dessert. But why was Sam now looking at her like that? Lips pressed, eyes narrowed.
Everything had gone weird today.
She ruffled Violet’s hair as she passed her chair and hurried to catch up to Lucas. He was already pulling a tub of ice cream from the freezer when she entered the kitchen. “You didn’t keep your word.”
He plopped the tub on the counter. “What?”
“You promised a verbose text. Five words? ‘Meet me in the kitchen.’ You call that wordy?”
He grinned. “Oh yeah. Forgot about that.”
“And why text it when I was right there in the room? Also, what’s up with you and Sam? Did you even say hi to him when he got here tonight? Did you purposely pick the chair farthest away from him at the table?”
He opened a drawer, closed it. Opened another and pulled out an ice cream scoop. “Maybe he picked the chair farthest from me. Ever think of that?”
“Why did you want me to meet me in the kitchen?”
He pulled the lid off the ice cream tub. “Not to get interrogated, that’s for sure. Hand me some bowls, will you?”
She snatched a stack from a cupboard. “Here.”
“Thank you.” His exaggerated gruffness was a perfect mimic of Sam.
“You’re welcome.”
“So? Your pitiful excuse for a text?”
He did a miserable job biting back his amusement as he dug the scoop into the ice cream. “You were getting a little teary-eyed in there. Thought you might want an excuse to leave the room.” He jerked his head back up. “Why? What’d you think I was thinking?”
What’d he think she thought he was thinking? “I don’t know, Lucas. I very rarely know what you’re thinking and it never used to bother me before.”
He let go of the scoop handle and moved around to where she stood on the other side of the table. “But it bothers you now?”
Yes, and she wished she knew why. Wished she knew a lot of things—like why her hands were clammy and how to be a normal person around her friend. Her friend.
She moved to the fridge. “I wonder if Mara has any chocolate syrup or caram—” She shrieked when she opened the door. A porcelain doll stared back at her from the top shelf—one of many that used to decorate a guestroom upstairs. They’d been boxed up months ago, but Marshall had kept a few out. He loved pranking Mara with them.
She pulled the doll from the fridge and turned to Lucas. He lifted one brow and smirked. “Those two have a weird way of flirting.”
She closed the fridge and returned to Lucas’s side. “Why did you think I’d want an excuse to leave the dining room just because I was getting a little emotional?”
He propped one hand on the back of a chair, the edges of his scars peeking out from beneath his sleeve at his wrist. “Because I’ve figured out something about you in the past week, Jen. You’re one of the most upbeat, bubbly people I know. I always sort of thought nothing could faze you. But then I saw you nearly fall apart over that burnt lasagna the other night—”
“It wasn’t just the lasagna.”
“I know. It was a whole host of things. And last night I saw you panic at the hospital. And all week, I’ve watched the number those kids are doing on you. What I’ve figured out is that, for all your cheerful ways, you’re someone with really deep emotions. Only you don’t necessarily love showing them.”
She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Lucas say so much at once. He’d noticed all that about her? “You say that like it’s a good thing. Having deep emotions, I mean.”