“It is.” I tried not to grin. Why was she nodding so much?
“And”—she held out her hand—“I will now bid you farewell.”
I smirked. “Tell me how much you hate yourself for saying ‘bid’ and ‘farewell’ in the same sentence.”
“So, so much.” Her cheeks reddened. “Now shake on it.”
“What exactly are we shaking on?”
“No discussing last night, ever.”
I stood toe to toe with her, chest to chest. “I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer.”
“YOU PROMISED!”
“You’re the one who has a problem with it. Not me.”
“But—”
“I’m thinking I may redecorate my office with pictures of your ass. Hey, I know, a screen saver of you in nothing but my shirt—”
“You are seriously the devil!” She clenched her fists and with jerky movements tried to put on her dress. “I can’t believe I thought this would be kept between us.”
“It will be,” I said smoothly.
She paused. “Then what—”
“I’m just making the point that the minute you walk out this door, there will be another time when we will discuss this—and, Avery?”
“What?” She gritted her teeth.
“You will be in my bed again before this week’s over.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
I shrugged.
“You’re a menacing man whore! I refuse to sleep with you after you’ve stuck your . . .” She screwed up her face and pointed at my dick. “Business all over town.”
“I’m hurt.” I really was, but I wasn’t going to let her see it. “And why do you care? Didn’t you say only one day?” I had her there.
“Exactly.” She nodded. “One day.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
“Well . . .” I grinned as I read the short message. “Look at that. The universe is even on my side. I don’t have a Thursday anymore.” Nothing like being dumped via text.
“But . . .”—her eyes narrowed—“are you tricking me?”
“You know what sounds fantastic?” I ignored her anger. “A hamburger, say, tonight?”
“YOU HORRIBLE HUMAN BEING!” she shouted. “How dare you lure me into your bed with beef!”
“And extra cheese. I’m thinking . . .” I tapped my chin, trying to think of her favorite. “Swiss?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Extra fries.”
She glanced down. “Does this meal include fry sauce?”
“Do I look like I’m insane? Of course it includes sauce.”
She cleared her throat, put her hands on her hips, then smoothed down her dress, only to then put her hands on her hips again. “Pick me up at seven.”
It was cute as hell how she tried to stomp by me, stopped, backed up, and then very innocently stood up on her tiptoes and kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks for the steak.”
I felt the buzz from that kiss hours later when I was in my office, and later that afternoon when I was staring at my phone and the five missed calls from my mother—the buzzing finally stopped.
Mom: PROBLEM.
Chapter Thirty-Two
AVERY
“I slept with the devil,” I whispered as I cupped my hand over Austin’s ear and prayed she wouldn’t repeat what I’d just said in the packed Starbucks.
“Huh?” Her eyes narrowed as she looked back and forth between me and her ever-present iPhone, which was lighting up with a new message every few minutes.
I rolled my eyes. “Answer your stupid boyfriend, and then I need all of your focus!”
“One sec.” She held up her hand and started furiously texting, then smiled like an insane person down at the screen. She was like five seconds away from kissing a mobile device. “He’s so sweet.”
“Uh-huh.” I took a sip of my drip coffee, irritated that my best friend couldn’t spare five seconds of her time to help me through my first pre-midlife crisis—because that’s what this was. I’d made a poor life choice, twice, and had somehow found myself on the road to hell because he’d convinced me to say yes again!
I chugged.
And then Austin’s hand was on mine. She pulled the cup from my mouth, and coffee dribbled down my chin.
“Oh, honey, I didn’t know it was that bad—and drip is meant to be sipped.” She handed me a napkin. “So what happened?”
“I don’t know!” I wailed. “I mean, I know what happened. I can’t stop thinking about what happened, and then I went ahead and did it again because that always makes things better, more sex!”
I shouted the last part, earning the glare of another patron. I lifted my coffee in salute and was promptly ignored.
Austin was quiet for a second and then leaned forward. “Can you please repeat that . . . ?”
“AUSTIN!”
“You said ‘sex.’”
“Yes.” I nodded slowly. “When a man and woman decide they find each other attractive and all the hormones start firing and juices release and your ability to make logical choices flies out the window because you see a naked chest—but, Austin . . . that man’s chest.”
“Back up, who’s the man?”
“The devil. Did we not just establish this?”
Her eyes widened. “Holy shit, you slept with Lucas Thorn?”
A barista walked over to us and handed Austin her pastry, then locked eyes with me. “You know Lucas Thorn?”
“I, uh . . .” I lifted my coffee into the air to buy some time. “He’s my boss?”
She blinked. “You slept with your boss?”
“I’m sorry, who are you?” I asked sweetly.
“I used to be Thursday.” She held out her hand.
I had no choice but to shake it.
“And you are?” She was being nice. But meeting someone who he used to sleep with only hours after leaving his bed? Not the best way to start a morning. Just another painful reminder that I was in over my head.
“I’m nobody,” I finally answered. “No day attached to my name or anything. I mean, not that that’s bad—I mean, good for you, woman power, rawr.”
Austin kicked me under the table.
The barista started laughing. “If it makes you feel better, I only lasted a week before I told him I couldn’t take it.” She smiled. “Do yourself a favor, do him a favor—don’t let him label you with a meaningless day. If he tries, he’s not the one for you.”
“Thanks.” My voice came out scratchy and emotional. By the time she left the table I was dabbing my eyes with a brown crinkled napkin, and Austin was staring at me like I’d grown five heads.
“You slept with him,” she said. Again. As if I wasn’t painfully aware of what had taken place last night.
“Yes.”
“And now you have a weird chest fantasy.”
I grinned. “You have no idea.”
“And I never will, because I’m not asking for those types of details, but . . .” She leaned forward. “Are you seeing him again? I don’t want to be that bitchy friend that warns you not to go there—”
“Then don’t.”
“But . . .” She patted my hand, the one that was holding the napkin. “Thatch says the guy doesn’t commit—ever. And need I mention that your entire family is going to shit a brick? What about Kayla? Do you even realize the ramifications?”
I slouched. “Well, I mean, long story short . . . Because you and Thatch hooked up, Lucas had to take me home and make sure I didn’t get kidnapped on the street corner, then one thing led to another and his sister saw me at his place.”
Austin’s eyes widened. “Tell me this story has a happy ending.” She raised both hands and crossed her fingers in front of her face.
“It did last night,” I said under my breath and then inhaled loudly. “I felt bad that his sister was going to assume the worst about him, okay? Our families have never been the same ever since the fallout.”
“Right,” Austin said
slowly. “The fallout from when he was found in bed with your sister!” She shouted that last part.
I covered her mouth with my hand to shush her. “Look, I haven’t forgotten what happened. It’s just for now. I mean, it’s just temporary. All the parents start talking again, everyone’s happy, crisis averted.”
Yeah, I so wished it would be that easy.
Austin slowly shook her head. “Except you slept with him. Lying to protect him, however misguided, is one thing—but having sex with him? Especially when you KNOW how he is?”
“What if this is the new me?” I asked, giving a nonchalant shrug. “What if I want to cut my hair, dye it pink, get a nose ring, and become the girl who only wants no-strings sex?”
My best friend knew me too well, knew my defensiveness was just my insecurity screaming at the top of its lungs and pounding its chest.
“Then you wouldn’t be you, Avery.” She handed me her pastry. Only a true friend would have noticed I’d been looking at the paper bag like I had tractor-beam eyes and could will it to float toward me. “And the last thing you need to do is change just because a man looks good naked.”
“So. Good,” I whimpered.
Austin raised her hands in the air. “Look, I know you’ve always sort of had a thing for Lucas—I mean, what girl in our high school didn’t? What teacher, for that matter?”
I nodded in agreement.
“But”—Austin sighed and lowered her voice—“I think it’s a bad idea. Noble that you want to help bring your families back together, but you just crossed a pretty big line, and now he’s going to just want his cake and eat it too.”
I swallowed back the emotion building up in my throat. Hating that she could be right. Hating that I was thinking of the same possibility. “Or”—I lifted my chin—“this changes everything.”
After a few moments of silence, she finally heaved a long drawn-out sigh and changed the subject. “Look, I have to get to class and I’m meeting Thatch later.” Her eyes got all dreamy, the bitch. “He’s clearing the rest of his afternoon so we can go to a matinee.”
“Aw, Thatch is just so sweet,” I said sarcastically, lashing out at her because she was making me feel even more nervous about what had transpired between Lucas and me. “You know he’s a complete player, right? As in, he isn’t the devil, but he’s his half brother?”
Austin’s dreamy expression remained. “You don’t know him like I do. He’s not like that anymore.”
Look at us. A pair of idiots.
“If you say so.”
“Well, I do.” She stood. “You’re just trashing Thatch because your new sex partner can’t keep it in his pants.”
I gaped at her. “Low blow, Austin. I don’t want to fight.” My throat got tight. “I just wanted my best friend, the person who knows me best, to tell me what to do.”
“Not how this works, honey.” Austin shoved her sunglasses on her face. “You want me to tell you it’s okay, and I can’t. Look, I’ve known Lucas just as long as you have. He’s not the same guy he was when we were in high school. He’s changed, Avery. The Lucas Thorn you crushed on isn’t the one you just slept with. He’s like a tiger that’s lived in captivity, only to be set loose in the jungle. Do you think he’s going to actually volunteer to go back in the cage? Trust me. No matter how sexy the lion tamer is—he won’t stay. He’ll stray.”
“Wait, I thought he was a tiger?”
She waved me off. “They’re both cats, and the point remains—why would any sane guy choose to settle down when he doesn’t have to? He’s getting the milk and the cow for free.”
“So now I’m fat?”
“I’m leaving. Enjoy the pastry.”
“Enjoy your date,” I grumbled, feeling worse than before, if that was even possible.
As luck would have it.
My day was about to get even better.
My text alert lit up.
Thorn: Mayday! Mayday! RED ALERT!
I rolled my eyes and texted him back.
Me: Stop overreacting and use your words.
Thorn: The mothers.
Really, that’s the only thing a person ever has to say to inflict horror and absolute terror.
Because if I read that text correctly—it was plural.
As in, our mothers. Which meant only one thing. They’d gone beyond a casual phone call and were now planning world domination.
Mine.
His.
Oh dear God.
I texted back slowly.
Me: Apocalypse.
Thorn: We may have to fake our own deaths.
Me: I know people.
Thorn: Meet at office in 5.
Chapter Thirty-Three
LUCAS
“You know, all this pacing isn’t helping—in fact, it’s making me more nervous. Just. Stop. Walking.”
I ignored Avery’s plea and kept going back and forth, back and forth in my office. My phone conversation with my mom had gone something like this:
“Oh, hi, Mom—how’s Dad?”
“The party’s back on!” she squealed. “Bill, stop that! I said stop. Your father! You know how he gets on Thursdays—between you and me, I think it’s because it’s so close to Saturday, and S stands for—”
“MOM!” My ears were bleeding. “What do you mean the party’s back on?” A cold sweat broke out across my forehead.
“The problem I texted about?” She sighed. “Well, I don’t want to get too personal, but Avery’s mother is having a rough time with Brooke being back home, and, well, she needed some cheering up, so . . .”
Just thinking about that bitch Brooke had me ready to ram my fist into a wall. She had always been conniving and manipulative, and I blamed her partly for what happened, even though it was still my mistake.
Between her and Kayla I felt like my head was going to explode.
“Stop that!” Mom giggled like she was swatting something—most likely my father. “Anyways, we talked last week and it was . . . tense, you know? But I saw her on my morning walk this morning. We got to talking again, and it felt so good! Just like old times.”
My heart sank.
“I’ve missed her,” Mom sniffled. “We hugged, and of course the topic of conversation floated over to you and Avery—and I may have hinted that I’d be more than happy to throw a party to celebrate. Not just you two getting together but our families as well.”
Oh hell.
She sighed loudly. “I know you said you guys don’t want to do one and that you are planning a long engagement, but honestly—I don’t know why you wouldn’t want this! It’s a way of righting a wrong, and, well, the minute I told Tess we would host, she burst into tears!”
“From happiness?”
“Well, she sure as heck isn’t sad!” There was a strange rustling sound. “Bill, stop that! Your son’s on the phone.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Son, you’d understand if you saw what this woman is wearing right now.”
“Please don’t tell me what she’s—”
“Nothing but an apron, son, nothing but an apron.”
“The chicken one?” I winced. “With the giant—”
“Cock on the back.” Dad chuckled. “Oh, son, it’s a glorious day! I think I see the moon!”
“Oh, hush, you!” Mom giggled. “Now, the party’s this Saturday—no backing out. Think of all the people you’re going to make happy! And the best part! EVERYONE is going to be here, even Avery’s grandfather!”
I felt my entire body go numb, and then hot. “Is he?” How the hell did they all put this together so fast?
“Sure, sure, and Kayla too, but Tess said Kayla is really excited for you guys. Isn’t that sweet of her? She actually said, and I’m quoting Tess, ‘They make a lovely couple!’”
“Did she now?” Yeah, I highly doubted those were her exact words, and I was even more convinced that whatever nice thing she might have said, it was with more sarcasm than Tess could possibly comprehend. She didn??
?t know Kayla the way I did, or Brooke for that matter.
Both had mean streaks that Avery didn’t possess.
I hung up the phone and texted Avery, asking her to meet me in my office in five minutes.
“Do you think she was serious about the party?” Avery asked, chewing the shit out of a green Starbucks straw as she drummed her fingers against the chair. “We could get in a car accident.”
“So we’re back to that?” I groaned. “Back to the whole faking our own deaths scenario.”
Avery stopped chewing the straw. “Kayla, Brooke, Mom, Dad, Grandpa with his guns, and your family of fun, all in one house. Yeah, Thorn, I’m back to death instead. Is that a problem?”
“Hell no,” I growled.
I was having the damnedest time concentrating, what with the way Avery was sitting, her black pencil skirt hiked up around her thighs. She wasn’t wearing nylons, just really high nude-colored shoes that reminded me of what her pink skin looked like beneath the clothes.
Her crop top revealed a sliver of her stomach.
And her eyes were outlined with some sort of dark liner that made them pop, and made me want to throw caution to the wind and attack her with my mouth.
“Thorn.” She snapped her fingers. “Eyes up here, Casanova.”
I blinked, unaware I was even staring at her breasts until she said something, and then it was impossible not to stare.
With a sigh, she tossed the straw onto the chair next to her and sauntered over to me, her hips swaying slowly enough to put me in a trance.
“What are we going to do?” She breathed out a shaky sigh.
It was instinct. I pulled her into my arms and rubbed her back. “We go to the mattresses.”
“Oooh.” She shivered in my arms, and I loved it. “So we war?”
I nodded. “What other choice do we have?”
Her body went rigid against mine. “We could tell them the truth.”
“Oh great, I’ll go first.” I smirked. “Hi, guys, we aren’t really engaged, nor should you be expecting a grandchild anytime soon. You see, it was a little white lie that got a bit out of hand. But here’s a bonus—we did see each other naked last night, twice, and damn, watching your daughter orgasm has to be one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. Oh, hey, Grandpa, it’s been a few years!”