Beauty, it turned out, was a merciless mistress.
Chapter 14
It wasn’t until Jana had left several hours later that Lucy realized they never had called Grady. She stared at the phone in the kitchen as she shoved the half-empty pizza box into the fridge and tossed the empty soda cans in the recycling bin. It wasn’t her place to tell him. And Jana hadn’t said what she planned to do about telling the rest of the world, other than she didn’t want her editors to know until absolutely necessary. It was hard enough being a female reporter in the bastion of male-dominated sports. But surely she’d tell Grady.
Lucy snagged the crumpled bag of Milanos before retreating to her bedroom. If he called her, what would she say? They’d never kept anything from each other. It would feel weird, like lying by omission.
She snorted and shook a cookie loose before tossing the bag on her nightstand and heading off to turn on the shower. “Like he’s going to call me, anyway.” Her heart squeezed a little at that. She was alternately pissed or hurt at his recent cold shoulder. But at the moment, she just felt guilty. This was Jana’s time, and they had to be there for her, a united front.
She stepped into the shower and squirted on her specially purchased shampoo for highlighted hair, swearing when she raked her scalp with her acrylic tips before remembering, again, that she had talons now.
So, the only question was, would she just confront Grady on her own, tell him to act surprised when Jana spilled the beans, then demand he patch things up with her for their friend’s sake? Or did she hang back and hope he wasn’t being such an ass that he wouldn’t figure out for himself that their friendship came first?
She still hadn’t figured out what to do as she slathered on her tan-maintenance moisturizer and creamed the makeup off her face. God, this is exhausting, she thought, missing her old Dove-and-water routine. Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
“You did the right thing,” she told her reflection. “You’ve finally figured out how to shed the ugly duck and don your inner swan.” Even she couldn’t spew that crap without laughing.
But as she yanked on her shapeless, comforting ratty old nightgown—so what if it was like a pacifier and she was pushing thirty—she admitted that, while she wasn’t entirely comfortable with the new Lucy, she wasn’t ready or willing to revert to the old one.
She unwrapped the towel from her head and was just detangling the snarls, which highlighting made worse, by the way, when there was a knock on her apartment door. She checked the clock, frowned, then scuffed to her front door and eyeballed the peephole.
An instant later she was flipping the locks and opening the door. “Grady? What are you doing here?”
“Any pizza left?” He didn’t even bother trying a sheepish smile, much less a single word of apology.
She knew this was the opportunity she’d so badly wanted, but now that he was here, unrepentant and looking tired and grumpy, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from bracing her arm on the door, blocking his entrance. “I let Jana take the leftovers home for Dave,” she lied. “The Pagoda House is still open this time of night.”
“Very funny.”
“Not really.” And she knew from the way he shifted his feet that he understood they weren’t talking about death-by-moo-shu.
“So, does that mean I can’t come in?”
“It depends. I’m really not in the mood for another lecture on the evils of self-improvement.”
“Good. I’m not in the mood to talk about the reunion. So we’re even.”
The comment stung, though she knew she probably deserved it. Even if he hadn’t been present for her endless analytical dissection since her return, no doubt Jana had filled him in.
“So what are you here to talk about?”
“Did you really send the rest of the pizza home with Jana?”
Lucy wanted to be mad at him. He’d abandoned her in her time of need. But then, she hadn’t been there for Jana when she should have been. Maybe Grady was also in the throes of some life-altering event and here she was making it all about her. “No. I was just trying not to be a pushover after being all but shunned for the past two weeks.”
“Not everything I do or don’t do is about you.”
Well. Hadn’t she just thought that? She should have been relieved. It wasn’t her. It was him. Except she was still pissed. “So your playing Invisible Man since you dumped me on my doorstep is all about you?”
His lips quirked a little, while his soulful eyes still managed to look a little sulky and oddly intense all at the same time—a Grady Matthews trademark.
“No,” he said flatly. “That was totally you.”
She started to close the door. He stopped it. For a guy with shaggy hair, who looked like the only muscle he flexed was the one between his ears, he had surprisingly fast reflexes. She knew it was from all the racquetball. So, okay, maybe it wasn’t just the puppy-dog eyes that attracted women.
“But this isn’t about either of us,” he told her.
Jana. Had she called him after leaving earlier? “Okay.” She stepped back and let him in. “Help yourself to the pizza and I’ll be out in a minute. If I don’t finish detangling my hair, it will be murder with the flatiron tomorrow.”
Grady shot her an unfathomable look, but wisely remained silent. He just shook his head and sauntered to the kitchen.
“What?” she asked, knowing better, but when the hell had that ever stopped her? “What’s with the look?”
“You’re just so . . . girly now.”
She clasped her hand to her chest in mock horror. “Oh, my God, no. Not that. Please tell me it’s not true.” She flipped her wet hair at him and walked to her bedroom door. “And I thought tonight wasn’t about me.”
She closed the door behind her before she could hear his answer.
Chapter 15
It’s always been about you,” Grady muttered as he yanked the pizza box out of the fridge. He wasn’t remotely hungry when he’d showed up at her doorstep, but suddenly he was feeling ravenous.
He didn’t need a shrink to dissect that one.
He’d promised himself he was going to stay away from her until the damn reunion was over, or until he got his head screwed back on straight. Whichever came first. Even Jana was losing patience with his lame, morose attitude. Of course, Jana wasn’t exactly acting normal lately, either. Which was why he was here now. Or so he’d told himself.
“Okay,” Lucy announced as she flounced into the kitchen. “So what’s this all about?”
She never used to flounce, he thought, biting savagely into a cold piece of pizza. “Jana,” he said after swallowing. He rummaged in her fridge for a Coke, both to wash down the cold lump of pizza and give him an excuse not to look at her.
“What about her?”
“She’s not acting like herself. She’s all distracted and moody and, I don’t know, just not herself. Did you notice it tonight? I wondered if she’d said anything or given any indication there was a problem. Are she and Dave okay? Is it a work thing?”
“Why didn’t you show up earlier tonight and ask her yourself?”
He paused at the sharp tone, but decided not to go there. So she was pissed at him for all but vacating her life the past two weeks. She’d have to get over it. She was better off without him, at least for the time being, even if she didn’t know it. “I got caught up at work late.” Which was only a partial lie. He was always caught up in work. Lately more than usual. Specifically the past two weeks. And that was only partly due to the funding approval. He hiked himself up on her counter. “So, did you notice?”
Lucy didn’t answer right away, which made him immediately suspicious. She was the world’s worst liar and she knew it. But that didn’t stop her from trying if and when she thought it necessary. “Notice what?” she asked, with next to zero innocence.
“Jana. She’s been acting weird.” He polished off his pizza while watching her try and decide how much, if anything, to tell
him. He would find out all of it anyway, now that he knew there was something to find, but it could be amusing to watch her go through the motions.
In the end, she just sighed and said, “Yes, I noticed. I’m just not sure I should be the one to tell you.”
Surprised by her candor and the seriousness of her expression, he lowered the Coke can he’d been about to drink from. “What do you mean? Why not?”
“She has . . . news. And she should probably be the one to share it.”
“I take it she’s shared it with you.” At Lucy’s nod, he continued. “So why wouldn’t she want me to know, too?” Then it clicked into place. “Oh, wait a minute. This is about the baby thing, right?”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed. “‘The baby thing’?”
“Yeah. While you were in Barbie Rehab, she let it spill that she and Dave were trying to start a family. I just didn’t think it would distract her as much as it apparently has.” He gave her a leering grin over the edge of the can as he polished it off. “I guess boffing your brains out night and day could do that to a person.”
“You should know,” Lucy commented as she tore the crust off the last remaining slice and popped it in her mouth.
“Excuse me?” He tossed the empty can into the plastic bin. “What was that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Except you’re the Hugh Hefner of one-night stands.” Her words were muffled as she chewed. “Okay, okay,” she swallowed hard, lifting her hands, “maybe two-night stands, three max. I mean, you are single, so it’s your choice.” She shrugged, condemning him in tone, if not in words.
“Yes, I date. And no, I haven’t been interested in looking for anything permanent with anyone I’ve met so far. But I’m hardly with a different woman every night. Or even every week.”
“All I’m saying is you can be cavalier when it comes to sex, so I wouldn’t go casting stones.”
“I wasn’t ‘casting stones,’ ” he said, his voice rising, “I was only making a joke about Jana and Dave and . . . wait a minute.” He leveled a stare at her. “You’re purposely misdirecting this conversation, aren’t you? What do you know about Jana, or Jana and Dave, that I don’t?”
Lucy grabbed the empty pizza box. “Why don’t you go bang on their door in the middle of the night and ask them?”
Grady grabbed her wrist as she turned to throw the box out, tugging her back around. “This is about the baby thing, right?”
Lucy turned and looked up at him, her unnaturally straight hair swinging in a perfect curtain as it skimmed over her shoulders. Devoid of makeup, she still looked mostly like the Lucy he knew and loved, but the fake tan, the blonde hair, the new attitude, still threw him. Badly.
Just not badly enough to make him not want to tug her closer and—
“Yes, it’s about the baby thing, okay?”
He frowned. “Why the hostility?”
She pulled her arm free and finished disposing of the pizza box. “I’m not hostile. I’m tired. It’s late and I want to go to bed.”
So did he, but he didn’t need to be going there at the moment. Talk about purposely misdirecting a conversation. “So, what is it? She wants to try and he doesn’t? Are they having fertility problems, what? I mean, they just started trying, so how do they even know if they’re going to have problems?”
“I swear, you’re worse than us.”
“What? How?”
“Gossip Guy. You can’t stand not being in the loop.”
So he did the Offended Guy look. Because she was exactly right and it was his only defense. “I’m just a concerned friend, that’s all. That’s what friends do, they look out for one another.” And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized the trap he’d walked into.
Her newly tweezed Barbie brows came together in perfect harmony with her arms folding across her chest. How did women do that, anyway?
He took the offensive before she could launch her first volley. “I know you’re going to blast me for being in absentia these past couple of weeks, but I’ve been swamped at work.”
“You’re always swamped at work. Super-secret spies never tire of obtaining new gadgets to better snoop out the scoop on the bad guys.”
“It’s a new and dangerous world out there,” he said, actually serious.
“So it is. And I’m sure we’re glad to have our surveillance needs securely in the hands of your twisted genius. But that has nothing to do with you being a friend to both me and Jana at the same time.”
“What needs have I abandoned exactly?” He waved a hand in front of her. “Look at you. You don’t need me.”
She snorted. “Is that what you think? Really? Come on, I expected better of you. The packaging might be different, but I’m the same Lucy Harper I’ve always been. And if you think it’s been easy adapting to the changes—”
“Wait, wait, wait a minute. Are you saying you don’t like the new you? That you wished you’d never gone?” A smug smile began to curve his lips. “Are you saying ‘You were right, Grady, and I was wrong,’ that superficial changes are shallow and lame?”
She smacked him in the chest.
“Ow,” he said, rubbing the spot over his heart. There was symbolism for you.
“Sissy.”
“You have bionic arms. Be careful where you wield them.”
“‘Shallow and lame,’ am I?”
His smug smile turned instantly sheepish. “So that’s not what you were saying, then? My mistake.”
“Don’t get all Pound Puppy on me. You know I have no defense for that.”
He stuck out his bottom lip and whimpered.
She swatted at him again, which he easily deflected as she tried hard not to smile. “You’re such a loser geek.”
“So were you,” he said without meaning to.
She sobered instantly. “‘Were’?” Her shoulders slumped. “Is that what this is about? You think I’ve abandoned you or something? Do you know how ridiculous that is?”
“You’ve become one of them and you’re calling me ridiculous?”
“‘Them’?”
“You know, one of the shiny pretty people.”
Her eyes lit up. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” He slid off the counter. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have come over.”
“Grady!”
She trailed after him as he walked—okay, stalked—to the door.
“Come on,” she cajoled, “don’t be a jerk about this. You’re the brainiac; why is this so hard for you to comprehend? For God’s sake, it’s just lipstick and hair!”
He turned abruptly at the door, bracing her shoulders with his hands to keep her from running into him. “What was wrong with staying the way you were?” he blurted out. “Were you really so unhappy that you thought you had to do all this?”
She looked both sad and weary. “I liked who I was on the inside. Was it really so bad for me to want to spruce up the outside a little?”
“You didn’t just change the outside. You’re . . . different.”
“Maybe when you look better, you feel more confident in yourself.” She gave a stubborn little shrug, trying to shake him loose.
He didn’t take his hands away. “You’ve always been your own person. It’s one of the things I admire about you most. You know who you are and you’ve always been fine with that. Screw the rest of the world.”
“You just described you. Not me. And, well, the world wasn’t noticing Lucy Harper. It’s hard for someone to get to know who I am on the inside when I can’t get their attention in the first place. So I decided to change that.”
His heart constricted a little. “And are you getting the attention you wanted?”
“Yeah.” She said it a bit defiantly.
And just like that, he got his head back on straight.
“I do want you to be happy,” he told her. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. He swore that wasn’t him shaking. “I’ll try to have a better
attitude.”
She closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. “Just be my friend.” When she looked at him again, her eyes were shining. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice suddenly rough. “Me, too.”
Chapter 16
Lucy was supposed to be getting ready for the reunion. God knows, she’d had plenty of notice to plan ahead. And yet, there she was, staring in the mirror, wondering why in the hell she’d ever dreamed she could pull this off.
The dress, the black and slinky number from Lorna’s Closet, hung on the back of the door. The come-fuck-me heels leaned seductively against each other on the floor beneath. (Jana had corrected Vivian’s terminology, saying, “Nobody calls them CDM pumps.” Lucy wasn’t sure she was grateful for that.) She was grateful that Grady had seemed to pull his head out of his ass after their little talk two weeks ago. He hadn’t come so far as to laud her self-improvement campaign, but he had at least shown up on Pizza Night. They’d reached a détente of sorts. Mostly because of Jana.
Jana had sprung her news on Grady that next day. And every day since then, their world had turned from talk of the reunion and Lucy’s conquest thereof, to topics that were loads more fun. Like what breast pump worked best and which monitor could pick up the whimper of a meerkat from five hundred yards away. In a dense jungle.
Okay, so perhaps Grady had taken to the technological aspects of his impending godfatherhood a bit too keenly. But if Grady’s nursery suggestions were, in fact, implemented, nothing would ever happen to Little Baby Pelletier that wasn’t monitored, scanned, coded, and recorded for posterity.
To be honest, it had been a bit of a relief to have something else to focus on. The ever-exhausting Back-to-School night had come and gone. To her surprise, she’d been hit on by not one, but two of the dads. Only one of them had been single. And though he’d seemed very nice, she’d had to turn him down—dating a student’s parent was strictly forbidden.
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