Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,7
empty one. My brother is two years younger, but once he started college, he wound up hanging with my friends—a fact I occasionally find myself regretting.
He’s waiting for an explanation as to how I know anything about Lily’s night, so I say, “Daisy tells me everything."
"Doubtful. There are some things a woman doesn't tell someone who hasn't shared her bed. And she's way too ambitious and dedicated for you.”
I frown. “I’m ambitious and dedicated.”
“Exactly. You’d make magnificent bookends and terrible lovers.”
Tris says I have a problem letting people in, but that’s not accurate. Rather, there are few people I want to invite in.
“Have you heard from Mom?” I ask. “Been trying to track her down all week.”
“No, but I’m sure she’s fine. Probably drinking too many martinis and delighting over the fact that you’ve got your panties in a knot over her whereabouts.”
Irritation chafes at me. “She put you through law school. Don’t be a dick.”
“She manipulated both of us for years. You’re still playing along.”
When Daisy strides in, my retort is forgotten. She’s wearing cherry-red shorts and a crisp white T-shirt. Her dark hair, cut blunt at the ends, swings in a curtain around her shoulders. Her sandals make her taller and display curvy legs that come from walking everywhere in this city.
“Afternoon in the Hamptons?” I murmur as she shifts into the seat next to me, struggling because of the close quarters.
“You weren’t invited,” she tosses back, her dark eyes locking on mine.
We always made fun of the rich New Yorkers, but now we work with them every day.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. Lily came home this morning panicked because she got a B on an essay. I sat her down and reminded her the sum of her life experience won’t be determined by an economics paper.”
“Way to go handing out life lessons before coffee.”
She threads her fingers through my hair. “Speaking of… you need a haircut. I felt like an asshole pointing it out when you’d just spent an extra thousand dollars and hours at LAX to get back to see me.”
“Justified.” A grin pulls at my lips, and hers curve to match.
Daisy’s been my friend since undergrad. Our friends were friends. She was down to earth and self-possessed as hell. The night we met, I mentioned that girls always seemed to be tripping around me, and she informed me any collisions were due to the fact that my hair was too long for me to see straight.
I liked her immediately.
I thought the feeling was mutual, but after her twin sister, Vi, dropped out of school, Daisy all but ghosted me. It wasn’t until almost a year later, after a spring break trip, that we started hanging out again.
Hunter clears his throat. “Kendall couldn’t be here because Rory’s sailing boats at the park," he says, referring to his girlfriend and her son. "But I wanted you to know I’m planning to propose.”
The girls gasp, and the guys groan.
"Incredible,” Rena murmurs as if Hunter just showed her a video of a dog riding a motorcycle.
"Never thought I'd settle down?" he asks.
"Never thought I'd see you plan something," Daisy teases, and he shoots her a withering look.
We might all be friends, but we’re very different people.
I’m a big-picture guy, but Daisy spots what’s running under the surface. Sometimes she misses things she needs to think about, and I have to step in—like how she was so fastidious going over the lease agreements for her company’s first home that she forgot to question whether they needed one in the first place.
I’m glad she has some weaknesses. It means she’s human and that I can help her.
Which I like doing.
“She’s been proposed to before, you know," Rena comments.
Hunter’s ruddy face goes pale. “Come on. Give me some credit.”
“I’m offended I haven’t seen you in my office yet,” Jake, who runs a gem company, weighs in. “How many carats?”
“Wait. You guys have been dating less than a year,” Rena says.
“When you know, you know. Plus Rory’s the cutest kid ever.”
Daisy and Rena beam, and Wes shakes his head.
“So, a lot of carats,” Jake says dryly.
We all catch up, but as we order coffees and mimosas and pancakes and French toast, my mind drifts back to the bigger problem at hand.
I need a girlfriend.
Not a real one, of course. Just someone to make Xavier comfortable in my solidity as a potential successor long enough to put the groundwork in place—the first step of which is me winning this award.