One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material Book 3) Read online

  If we rise and shine in the harsh light of day together, what would that do to this bizarre truce? Would it break it? Would we fall apart again?

  Right now, the cocoon of nostalgia and night, of friendship and desire, enrobes us.

  I don’t want to face him, or us, or myself in the unforgiving light of the morning.

  I don’t want to think too much about what just happened.

  The more I think on it, the more I will feel.

  He already feels too deep in my heart.

  And it’s only been one night.

  “See you in ten hours,” I say, breaking the silence at last.

  “See you then.”

  He turns to go, and my heart pounds angrily, like it’s demanding I take that back, like it wants me to ask him to stay.

  My pulse spikes.

  And I want.

  “Lucas!” I call out.

  He turns around. His eyes radiate hope. Words tango on the tip of my tongue.

  But so does the past.

  Not just ours.

  But all the pasts I’ve seen. My parents and their pendulum swings of love, hate, and then too much love. A surfeit of love that they smothered themselves in, ignoring the rest of the world.

  And the present too.

  My job. My business. My focus.

  And my sister. That sweet, crazy girl I love to Cassiopeia and back.

  “Yes?” His voice is pitched with hope.

  I part my lips. “I’ll email Harrison,” I say, speaking from my head, not my heart. “Like we talked about.”

  Lucas nods several times, as if agreeing with me is the most important thing right now. “Good plan. Update him. Let him know we’re on track.”

  Then he taps his forehead in some sort of good night salute.

  Not a good night kiss.

  It’s for the best, I tell myself.

  If he leaned in and dusted his lips across my forehead, I’d ask him to spend the night.

  And I don’t want to ruin what we just got back.

  It’s too precious. Too wonderful. I’d hate to break it.

  Or us again.

  Besides, we still have tomorrow.

  13

  Early Saturday Morning

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lola Dumont

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Update

  Hello Harrison!

  Hope you had a fantastic evening. Just a quick morning update to let you know we have collected the Star Wars T-shirts and the guitars. We are on track and should have everything in time for the security deposit deadline.

  Sincerely,

  Lola

  To: Lola Dumont

  From: Harrison Bates

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Your update makes me wonder . . .

  Is this your way of letting me know you want me to make things harder? Is it not challenging enough for you? I can raise the bar higher if you’d like. Just say the word!

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lola Dumont

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Re: Your update makes me wonder . . .

  No! It’s incredibly challenging, I assure you! I’m simply giving you a status report. I wanted you to know that everything is coming along nicely, and we thought you would appreciate an update. I hope you were able to enjoy some quiet last night. :)

  To: Lola Dumont

  From: Harrison Bates

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Your updates feed my soul

  Thank you for asking! I did relish a silent evening with my typewriter, my gummy bears, and no one arguing in the next apartment, over costumes or kale or board games or llamas or whatever.

  Also, status reports are so jolly. I do appreciate yours, and even though payback is a delight, I’m not so cruel that I’d ask for more. A deal is a deal. I would never make you jump higher or through a hoop on fire. Or walk a tightrope, God forbid!

  I hope you enjoy collecting the rest of the items. Also, while we’re at it, did you happen to try the cheese at Grater Good? I mean, really. Have you ever had anything better in your whole life?

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lucas Xavier

  CC: Lola Dumont

  Subject: The cheese feeds MY soul

  The cheese was decadent.

  To: Lucas Xavier

  From: Harrison Bates

  CC: Lola Dumont

  Subject: “Decadent” barely scratches the surface

  Melts in your mouth, doesn’t it?

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lucas Xavier

  CC: Lola Dumont

  Subject: “Divine” is more like it

  Yes. I’m thinking of ordering a wheel of Gouda for each of my clients as holiday gifts this year. Alongside a DVD of Die Hard. Make that the whole Die Hard collection.

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lola Dumont

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Allow me to clarify

  By “collection,” he obviously means the first three Die Hard films.

  To: Lola Dumont

  From: Lucas Xavier

  CC: Harrison Bates

  Subject: Your clarification is correct

  Yes. Thank you for catching that. Clearly, no one should even count the latter two. They only belong on a list of sequels that never should have been made.

  To: Lola Dumont

  From: Harrison Bates

  CC: Lucas Xavier

  Subject: Birds of a feather

  Along with Weekend at Bernie’s II, Pitch Perfect 2, Pitch Perfect 3, and that thing with Jar Jar Binks.

  Also, I like you two. I like you a lot.

  See, Lola—you don’t have to be all serious with me. We can have fun. Hope you had the fries at Pin-Up Lanes last night. They’re divinely decadent.

  To: Harrison Bates

  From: Lucas Xavier

  CC: Lola Dumont

  Subject: Last word

  So good I’d practically sell my soul for them.

  14

  At the same time as the emails fly back and forth

  Lola: Whoa. For a second there, I thought he was serious about jumping through higher hoops.

  Lucas: Me too. But I also think he imagines himself as some sort of gamemaster.

  Lola: Perhaps he runs escape rooms.

  Lucas: Or a live-action puppet show.

  Lola: The Delightful Sadist Puppeteer. Which means we’re his marionettes.

  Lucas: Yes. We are. And I weirdly enjoyed his puppet theater.

  Lola: So did I. Perhaps I’ve secretly wanted to be a sock puppet my whole life.

  Lucas: Dreams do come true. Also, props on making that seamless transition in the email chain from serious to playing along.

  Lola: I’m quick on my feet.

  Lucas: And with your tongue and your lips. Incidentally, your mouth is both divine and decadent.

  Lola: I wouldn’t know how yours is.

  Lucas: That needs to change.

  15

  Lola

  “I had three hundred and fifty-two new subscribers last week.” Peter straightens his shoulders and shoots me a proud smile over his steaming mug of coffee.

  I hold up a hand to high-five. He smacks back. “That’s what I like to hear,” I say, as we study the newest set of designs for his YouTube channel at the ungodly hour of nine a.m.

  Thanks, Luna.

  Screw that morning exercise shit on a Saturday. I woke up at the last possible minute, showered in record time, and emailed with Harrison and Lucas, while also texting Lucas, as I dried my hair. Multitasking for the win. Then I hightailed it here in the nick of time.

  As we review the next set of concepts, I take a drink of my black coffee, one sugar, stifling a yawn.

  My client arches a brow, his cool blue eyes curious. “Late night, Lola?”

  I laugh. “A little bit.”

  He shoots me an I’m waiting look, tapping his foot impatiently on the coffe
e shop’s tile floor.

  I shake my head. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “So you did kiss. Interesting,” the lean and lanky man says with a sly grin.

  I wag a finger. “Nope. You’re getting nothing from me. I was just out with a friend,” I say, since that’s one way of referring to Lucas now, and I’m damn glad I can call him that again.

  Peter nods, vociferously agreeing. “I’m sure. Just a friend. Like, say, exactly how I see Karen,” he says, naming his ex-girlfriend and the reason he’s intent on growing his YouTube channel.

  I know the story well. When Peter first hired me, he held nothing back. The man poured his heart out in a veritable deluge. “I’ve been racing around the city on rollerblades, playing chicken with cars, darting past pedestrians at race-car speeds, thinking it will somehow soothe my savage heart. It hasn’t. Not one bit. See, my girlfriend ditched me because she was embarrassed about my sport. She thinks I’m not acting my age. That I behave like a teenager. I can’t believe you’re still going around the city on roller skates, she said, even though she knows they’re called ‘blades.’ She said rollerblading is sooo yesterday. And now I want to prove to her that rollerblading isn’t outdated. That it’s cool again. It’s retro hip, like elbow patches and newsboy caps. My brother says I’m crazy, but I know he’s wrong. That’s why I need your graphics to help make my channel amazing and sophisticated. More about the art of blading than the speed.”

  My heart ached for him. I doubted that growing a YouTube channel would win back a woman who’d callously tossed aside a man simply because she disliked his sport. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? Grow it to win her back?” I’d asked.

  “Positive.”

  “We could also try to grow it for its own sake,” I’d offered.

  “And that’ll help me win her back.”

  Who was I to argue with his heart?

  Especially since he seems happier now that he’s recording his exploits and triple axels for video consumers around the globe.

  Rollerblading is his passion, and he wants to share it with the world, maybe as a way to win Karen back, or maybe because sharing his passion is healing his heart.

  That’s my hope for him.

  I offer him a genuine smile. “Karen doesn’t know what she’s missing,” I say, gesturing to the screen and his antics last night when he executed a lightning-fast fishtail in the park, followed by a precise figure eight.

  He takes a gulp of the coffee, shaking his head. “Don’t try to distract me. Who’s the late-night fella? Is he one of your Latin lovers?”

  I drop my jaw. “Hey! Way to pigeonhole me.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Fabian, Alejandro, that guy from college from Brazil. C’mon. I don’t think I’m pigeonholing you. You clearly have a type. We all do. Just like my type is an ex who won’t give me the time of day. Evidently, I like to suffer. So, who is he?”

  Even though Peter has become something of a confidante, I’m not ready to let on about Lucas, and definitely not with a client. Still, I can give him a little nugget. Besides, it feels good to talk about last night. “I saw the guy from college. We’ve been tasked with picking up a bunch of things for our siblings, who were tossed out of their apartment but can’t get them because they’re on tour.”

  A perplexed look falls across his face. “Does not compute.”

  “It’s a long story.” I wave a hand, not wanting to dig into the details. “But Lucas and I were sort of thrust together to pick up the dirty laundry of our little brother and sister. And we had an interesting time running about the city.”

  “Interesting,” he says, mulling over the adjective. “Interesting is good.”

  “I’m weirdly looking forward to seeing him in a little while.”

  “Why is that weird though?”

  “Because I don’t know where we go next or what we’re supposed to be. I don’t know what happens after we finish this to-do list.”

  He taps his chin. “That’s always the question, isn’t it? We always want to know what’s coming around the bend.”

  “But we don’t get to know,” I say.

  He shakes his head a little forlornly. “We definitely don’t get to know.”

  We spend the rest of the meeting firming up the design plans, and when I say goodbye, it hits me that I don’t feel guilty I pushed this client meeting back to this morning.

  Last night, I was annoyed I had to rearrange my schedule.

  But this morning, I can see around the bend with my twenty-twenty hindsight. Canceling gave me the chance to reconnect with an old friend.

  And to help my sister, I remind myself, as I walk across the city.

  I’m definitely meeting him in an hour or so to help my sister.

  For the record, I have no choice.

  Not that I’d make a different one.

  But I head to Doctor Insomnia’s to share news of my evening at the command of two queens—my two best friends.

  They peppered me with a barrage of texts this morning, demanding my presence and a full report. From their messages last night, I knew I’d be serving up a plate of details to go with their morning coffee, but nerves scamper inside my chest. After years of Lucas playing a starring role on my dartboard, will last night’s turn of events make me seem like a pushover? One hot kiss and I flip-flop?

  Only, I don’t feel like I gave in to something I’ll regret. Nor do I feel like last night was a mistake. If anything, I wish we’d made up sooner.

  I steel myself, though, because girlfriends don’t always forgive exes—or pseudo exes—as quickly as the one sleeping with the ex does. I head into the coffee shop to find them huddled on a couch with mugs, laughing brightly. When they look up, I simply smile.

  Like the Mona Lisa.

  And it gives everything away.

  “Get over here right now and tell us everything,” Amy commands, stabbing the cushion on the couch and staring at me over the top of her red glasses.

  “Spill,” Peyton seconds.

  “And start with whether that dirty-girl grin on your face means I should take him off the hate list,” Amy says, miming crumpling up a sheet of paper and tossing it away.

  I nod, grinning. “Definitely. We cleared the air,” I say, telling them what he said about our not-date ten years ago, how he apologized and wished he had groveled and asked for another chance, and how I admitted I should have tried harder to stay friends. “And once we talked it out, we realized we’d both made mistakes and we both wanted a fresh start. I felt like this huge weight had lifted. Like all the annoyance I’d been holding on to was just gone. Poof.”

  “It’s good to be able to let go,” Amy says with a sympathetic smile.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad you don’t think I’m a pushover. I was a little worried you’d berate me.”

  Peyton scoffs. “You? A pushover? You’re the opposite. And for the record, I never thought what happened between you two was so horrible—well, except for losing the friendship. It always seemed like there had to be a reasonable explanation.”

  “Most arguments usually have reasonable explanations,” Amy adds. “We just aren’t always ready to hear them at the time.”

  “I don’t think either one of us was reasonable back then,” I say.

  Amy shakes her head. “You were both full of fire and pride and raw emotions.”

  I stay quiet, not entirely admitting how many wild emotions were swirling inside me then. I didn’t admit it to Lucas last night either.

  But Amy won’t let me get away with a noncommittal answer. Her eyes are piercing as she meets my gaze. “Lo, you really cared about him. You had feelings for him. That’s why it hurt.”

  My heart squeezes at her words. There’s no point pretending with my friends. “Yes. Fine, I did have feelings for him,” I say, speaking honestly. “And that’s probably why I carried the hurt around for so long, nursing it like a houseplant.”

  “You watered it regularly,” Pey
ton says with a soft smile. “We helped you water it if you needed to. But now you don’t. That’s good. Life goes on, and we move on and forgive.”

  “And sometimes I guess we forgive ourselves,” I say, sinking back into the couch, mulling over what happened over the years and in one evening. “Maybe we needed to be forced to spend time together to face the past. Because in this flash of clarity, I saw how I should have done things differently at the time. I should have told him why it hurt so much.”

  “You weren’t ready then. Don’t beat yourself up,” Peyton says. “You were young and hotheaded. Both of you. Misunderstandings happen and can fester.”

  “Definitely. And you found an opportunity to deal with it when you were ready, when fate forced you to. But tell us more about how it un-festered,” Amy says, big green eyes imploring me.

  With the heart-to-heart behind us, I feed Amy her favorite meal—a true story with a touch of romance.