One Night Stand-In

by Blakely, Lauren

  She shrugs happily. “Some things never change.”

  But some things do.

  And we’re one of those things.

  I take a drink, set down the mug, and rub my hands together. “All right, let’s do this.”

  She tells me the cover concept, and we spend the next thirty minutes tossing around ideas, sketching out possibilities, and brainstorming.

  It’s stimulating and fantastic, and I love every second.

  I’ve missed this. I’ve missed her. I’ve missed the camaraderie. I lost this for nearly ten years, and I don’t want to give it up again, no matter how much I long to touch her.

  That’s what I need to keep in mind. Not how cute she looks when she is concentrating and nibbling on the corners of her lips. I could lick that lip.

  That’s just the kind of thinking that got us into trouble before.

  Just focus on the present.

  I lean back in my chair, and because the present is pretty damned good, I say, “We should do this again.”

  “We should definitely do it again,” she says, her tone cheery.

  “How about tomorrow? Same time?”

  “It’s a plan.”

  Right.

  A plan, not a date.

  When I leave, I give her another hug, and for a moment, I consider the risk of hauling her in for a hot, wet kiss that could turn into a long, sweaty night together.

  But I don’t.

  And I’m both happy and miserable at the same time.

  27

  Lola

  When you’re friends again with the guy you like a whole helluva lot, you get to do super-fun things like analyzing every text you want to send him to make sure you’re not crossing a line.

  For instance, this one:

  Lola: At MOMA right now. Staring at Starry Night. This painting makes me feel all the things.

  But nope. You can’t send that because what if he thinks you’re feeling all the things for him?

  So you try another time:

  Lola: Just walked past Wendy’s Diner on the way to work. By the way, we should try the silver-dollar pancakes. I hear they’re spectacular.

  But that stays in the drafts too, because what if “silver dollar” is a new euphemism for, I dunno, a bathroom bang? These are the hurdles a modern woman attempting to navigate a rekindled friendship has to face.

  The challenges compound when I see him again and it’s terrific and painful and utterly unhelpful.

  It’s Tuesday, and we meet at the Pin-Up Lanes bowling alley and play a game, catching up on our favorite music and trading stories about our zaniest clients.

  I tell him about Peter the Blade, and he tells me about a woman he and Reid worked for who they called the Stickler.

  “And that was an understatement,” he says, then he picks up a ball and effortlessly throws a strike.

  “Woo-hoo!” I shout—because strikes are impressive and deserve a cheer, even when it’s the competition nailing them.

  He blows on his fingers. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

  “And you definitely have it,” I say with a saucy wink.

  And like that, his brown eyes flame.

  My skin heats.

  But we’re out-of-bounds.

  That’s another obstacle in this resurrected friendship. If you slip into innuendo, you have to dial it back, cool it off, and zip it up.

  I’m still hopscotching around the heat on Wednesday when we meet for a drink after work, hitting Gin Joint this time.

  I’m armed and ready with innocuous topics, but as soon as I fire away with the first one, I realize it’s not innocuous whatsoever.

  “Did you hear about Reid and Marley?” I ask.

  He wiggles his brow. “I got the gist of it. Didn’t expect that.”

  “I know, right?” I say with a grin. “But I guess—”

  Then I stop myself, because talking about the two of them is not going to keep my mind in the friend zone.

  It’s going to send me spinning into the let’s try again zone.

  I execute a one-eighty, and we spend the next hour talking about Luna and Rowan. Cell service is still spotty for them, but we’ve gotten occasional updates, and their tour is going well.

  When the night ends, that thing happens again.

  That awkward thing where we stand on the street, rock on our heels, and don’t say, Fuck it, let’s go home together.

  Instead, I rise up on my tiptoes, plant a kiss on his cheek, and say, “See you at the competition.”

  “See you Friday, Lo,” he says, and when I return home, I trudge up the stairs, kick off my boots, and flop on the couch. I grab a book, but after a few pages, I toss it because I can’t retain a damn word.

  I grab a blanket from the arm of the sofa and curl up under it, because I can’t stand being in the bedroom.

  I haven’t been able to stand it since we spent the night together.

  I reach for my phone, but when I reread the email from the design committee, I feel nothing.

  Not a thing.

  Not an ounce.

  The same applies the next day, and on into Friday.

  That morning, I shower, dress, and head to work, trying to psych myself up about tonight.

  Or about the haunted carnival podcast, because spooky shit is going down behind the Ferris wheel.

  Or about Luna’s exclamation-point-laden text with the news that the Love Birds were invited on another honeymoon cruise.

  Or even about Peter’s enthusiastic email that arrives when I reach the office.

  My channel is crushing it! Views are up, comments are bonkers, and I nabbed a sponsor. Also, big news! The ex doesn’t want me back, and I don’t care because I met a lady blader in the park. This might sound crazy, and of course my brother says it’s impossible . . . but it just feels right. It’s been a whirlwind in just twenty-four hours. But sometimes that’s how it goes!

  Fine, I am excited about Peter’s turnaround in his fortunes, and in his attitude too.

  But I’m also insanely jealous of him as I ride the elevator up to my stop at Bailey & Brooks.

  I reply, letting him know how happy—and not how envious—I am for him. What I want to say, but don’t, is that it doesn’t sound impossible at all, and sometimes you can totally fall for someone in twenty-four hours.

  Give or take ten years.

  In my office, I jump into the pool of book covers, swimming in ideas and designs.

  I spend the morning working on the new romantic comedy, and it’s singing, thanks to Lucas’s feedback from the other night.

  But my heart pinches when I think about him, and I’m caught up in a wave of missing him. A wave so punishing it feels like I’ve been pummeled by the ocean.

  Which is silly, since I just saw him the other night.

  And I’ll see him again tonight at the awards ceremony.

  I shake it off, focusing on the presentation.

  A little before lunch, Amy pops into my office with a delighted glint in her green eyes. “Knock, knock.”

  “Come in.”

  She cups the side of her mouth, then whispers, “Word on the street is that Baldwin is going to ask James to marry him this weekend.”

  She does a little happy dance in the doorway, and I try—I swear, I try so hard—to get excited for our friend Baldwin.

  I love good news and romance, and I love little nuggets of intel about colleagues, especially Baldwin, who is a fantastic guy.

  But I’m a blank person.

  I slap on a grin that feels plastic. “That’s great.”

  Amy stares daggers at me. “That’s great?”

  “Of course,” I say.

  Amy shakes her head, heaves a sigh, and parks her palms on my desk. “It’s not great, Lola. It’s stupendous. No. It’s more. It’s life-affirming, love-affirming, shout-to-the-heavens news.”

  She’s right.

  She’s so damn right.

  When she puts it like that, my dumb hea
rt cracks open. Wide and brutally. My throat tightens, and without warning, I burst into tears.

  In a second, Amy shuts the door to my office, rounds my desk, and kneels next to me. “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

  Sobbing, I cry some more, then choke out the painful words that constrict my throat. “I don’t want to be just friends with Lucas.”

  She sighs sympathetically, then rubs my arm. “Of course you don’t. You want him to be your person.”

  I nod, sniffling at the ease of her understanding, the simplicity of her pronouncement. “I do. Isn’t that stupid? It’s so stupid because it won’t happen, and we agreed to be friends because we were so dumb last time, and so foolish and young. And I don’t want to be foolish and young. I want to be smart and mature.”

  She takes a beat, then asks softly, “How’s that working out for you?”

  A fresh, hot well of tears rises up and falls from my eyes. I drop my head in my hands. “I hate everything.”

  She laughs, but it’s a loving laugh. “That’s the issue. You’re not a hater, Lola. You’re a lover. You’re a smart, vibrant, strong woman. The last thing you are is a hater. But you’re also stubborn.”

  I raise my face, letting her truth weave its way into my heart. She’s more than right. She’s bull’s-eye accurate, and I can’t hide from the truth anymore. “And afraid. Don’t forget afraid.”

  She takes my hand, squeezes it. “But you don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to be scared you’ll be like your parents, blinded by love. And you don’t have to be like your sister, a wonderful but loose cannon.”

  “I don’t have to,” I say, nodding, agreeing, feeling.

  Because she’s right. Holy smokes. She’s so damn right.

  I don’t have to make their choices. I can love without losing my humanity, without losing myself.

  I can love, not how they love, but like myself, with my whole heart and my head too.

  And dammit, my head is on straight.

  I’m not my family.

  I’m not my sister.

  I’m not Lucas’s parents.

  I’m my own person, and I can choose to love in my own way.

  I raise my face, wipe the tears, and speak from my heart. “I don’t want a halfway love. I don’t want the middle ground. I want all of Lucas—the friendship and the connection and the sex and the love and the French fries.”

  Amy scoffs playfully. “Well, always say yes to the French fries.”

  But there’s something I need to say no to.

  Something I need to kick to the curb.

  My fear.

  It’s time to shed that bitch.

  28

  Lucas

  The voice grates on my ears.

  She’s too cheery.

  Too happy.

  Too much everything.

  “And then he said, ‘Well, can I get you some coconut whipped cream?’ And I was like, ‘Did I hit the jackpot or what?’”

  I grit my teeth, willing the blonde at the table next to me to stop talking on FaceTime.

  But no such luck.

  “Cha-ching! You hit triple cherries,” her friend says at the decibels of a jet engine.

  The woman points at her on the screen. “He hit the triple cherry.”

  I groan at the terrible pun, my annoyance meter reaching one thousand as I try to review this client pitch while the ladies make bawdy jokes about cherries.

  The meter is about to run higher, because out of the corner of my eye, I see the blonde stand, glance around, and head straight for Reid and me.

  “Hey, can you just watch my—”

  “No,” I bite out. I don’t even look her way.

  She holds up her hands in surrender. “Oh, okay, sorry.”

  “Forgive him,” Reid says. “He knows not what he’s done. He’s having a bad week. We’d be happy to watch it. Especially for a pregnant woman.”

  I snap my gaze back to the blonde. Whoa. She has a basketball in her belly.

  “Are you sure?” she asks Reid.

  “Positive. My mate simply has his pants in a twist because he’s in love with a woman and can’t man up and tell her.”

  The pregnant woman laughs. “You should just tell her, sweetie.”

  I stare at Reid, my eyes narrowed to slits. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, I’m serious.”

  The woman holds up a finger. “I’ll be right back, and then I want to hear all about this.” She dashes off to the restroom.

  I huff. “No, I meant did you seriously need to tell her?”

  “Yes, I did. Because someone needs to tell you. Oh, wait, let me do it.” He squares his shoulders, clears his throat, and forms a megaphone with his hands around his mouth. “Get your head out of your arse.”

  I stare at him, unblinking. We’re two cats, facing off. I cast about for a snarky reply. Search for a smart-aleck remark. But I’ve got nothing.

  I just shrug.

  “So it is that bad,” Reid remarks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have it so bad that you have no fight left in you.” He heaves a sigh. “You’re a mess.”

  “Yes. I am definitely a mess,” I concede.

  A mess of sadness. A mess of frustration. A mess of missing and longing and wanting.

  Seconds later, the woman waddles back, pulls up a chair, and says, “I’m Meg. I’m eight months pregnant. Tell me everything.”

  Reid smiles and extends a hand. “I’m Reid. Pleasure to meet you. This is Lucas. See his face? It’s a sad face. Why is Lucas sad? Because poor Lucas suffers from a pathetic condition known as pigheadedness. It’s preventing him from telling the woman he spent last weekend with that he doesn’t want to be just friends. That he wants to be with her literally all the time. And do you know the side effect of this condition?”

  “What is it?” Meg asks, enrapt.

  Reid taps his chest. “He’s infecting me with his negative mood. I’m an hour away from binge-watching tearjerkers and drowning my sorrows in Ben and Jerry’s.”

  Meg turns to me, frowning. “You shouldn’t infect your friend. You should talk to this woman you met.”

  “I didn’t just meet her. I knew her ten years ago,” I correct her. Facts are facts, and they need to be laid out. “We were great friends. The best of friends back then. And I was falling hard for her. But I said some stupid things, and we never made up, and we became enemies over the years. And then this weekend . . .”

  I take a beat as the memories of the weekend, still so damn potent, flood my mind and spread through all the molecules in my body. “We spent an amazing weekend together. Well, it was twenty-four hours, but I just knew . . . I knew,” I say, my heart crawling up into my throat again.

  Meg’s eyes widen. “You knew that you wanted another chance?”

  I nod. “Yes,” I say, laying it all out there for a perfect stranger and my best friend.

  “A second chance at love? And you’re sitting here sad instead of telling her the truth of your heart?” Her question is simple.

  And maybe that’s why it jars me.

  It knocks me out of my funk.

  My horrible mood caused by a terrible case of falling in love and burying that feeling like an ostrich shoving its head in the sand.

  I’ve been denying everything, ignoring everything, and forcing my feelings into a box, closing the lid and hiding it in a corner of the attic where it’ll be buried for years again if I don’t open it.

  Wait. That’s wrong.

  More like a lifetime.

  And that’s not a way to live.

  I stand. “No. I’m not sitting here.” I stab my finger against the table. “I’m not sitting here another damn minute. You know why?” I ask, suddenly emboldened. Because in the grand scheme of things, the last few days without her is the blink of an eye. It’s nothing. But we’ve veered down this road before. And no way am I taking ten more years to find my way back to her.

  Fuck adulting.

  B
ecause this? This is adulting.

  Deciding.

  Right here, right now, I’m deciding to do love differently.

  Love might be dangerous, but not loving is deadly.

  I’ll take my chances. Because Lola is worth it.

  “Why?” Meg asks, returning to my question.

  “Because I fell in love with Lola ten years ago, and I never told her. And I lost her. I’m not losing her again.” I hold out my arms wide. “It’s that simple.” And when I say it, something loosens in me. Not a weight, but a knot. A knot of frustration at the world, at people, at the way things don’t work out. I turn to Meg. “I’m sorry I was rude about not watching your laptop. I get it. You had to pee. It’s all good.” I turn to Reid. “And I’m sorry I’m a dick sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” he asks with a laugh.

  “A lot,” I correct.

  He waves it off. “You’re a good one, mate.”

  I turn to the pregnant woman again. “I think it’s great that your husband gets you coconut whipped cream. I have someone I want to do that for, and I can’t wait to tell her.”

  Reid cuts in, raising a hand. “But don’t you have to go make that presentation at the awards ceremony?”

  I smile. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  29

  Lola

  The thing about being the responsible one is just that—responsibility weighs on you.

  It nags you.

  It tells you to head downtown to the hotel where the Design-Off event is held, bring your laptop, and have your pitch ready.

  I’m wearing a blue pencil skirt, a white short-sleeve blouse, and polka-dot heels.

  I’m professional but artsy.

  It’s perfect for the presentation I have to give, right before Lucas’s slot.

  It’s perfect to wear as I share my vision with experts in my field.

  It’s perfect for being the responsible one.

  I have a plan. Present, wait, and then grab that man and tell him how I feel.

  But here’s the other thing.