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“I guess you’re up on all those renovation shows,” Lucas commented, standing back to allow me to peer as closely at rows of fake flowers glued in vases and words in giant three-dimensional lettering as I liked.
“I watch them, obviously,” I agreed. “But the makeovers they do are… well they’re targeted to a certain audience, let’s just say. The sorts of people who think these sorts of decorations are the pinnacle of design.” I gestured to the display of Live, Laugh, Love ornaments.
“Too low-class for Calista Haas: I’m delighted to hear you have standards.” Lucas held out his good arm to me. “How about you lead me to something in here you do think is an example of good decorating, so I’ll know the difference?”
I shook my head. “If I do that, I know you’ll buy it for me, and I don’t have anywhere I can put any more stuff.”
“I love this,” Lucas said. “She can’t be tempted by material things because she doesn’t have anywhere to put them.”
“Where did your family get all this money you’re always talking about, anyway?” I couldn’t help asking. “Or is it one of these situations where you can’t tell me?”
“We’re not exactly the Mafia,” Lucas said. “Actually, what happened many years ago is, my mother… she’s a product promoter, she calls herself. She goes around finding inventions that are taking smaller countries by storm and brings them here. So, you know that modular train set that was big back when we were kids?”
I remembered it because I’d been half considering asking Santa for the base set for Christmas when I was six. Everyone had been talking about it at school, and we’d pretty much all wanted to be in on it. I guess this explained it. “I don’t remember what it was called, but…”
Lucas waved me off like he didn’t want me to say the name anyway. “Well, my mother was the one who brought those here from Europe. She got ridiculous money out of that deal, it was coming in for years after. And then she got all sorts of other business offers out of it, she’d proved herself to the toy distribution market for life. She never did another deal half as big as that one but she didn’t need to, she and my dad were really smart with the money they got in from that and their investments will keep us afloat even if none of us work another day in our lives. It was lucky when Lucy got sick, actually. We could get her in for whatever treatment t
he doctors thought looked good, because we had the money right there. Who knows what would have happened to her otherwise.”
I could see he was grimacing and I didn’t think it had anything to do with his healing injuries this time, so I said the first relatively non-controversial thing that came into my head. “Your mum is the big breadwinner in your family, huh?”
“Well my dad makes pretty good money,” Lucas said. “He’s got a successful dental practice. But it’s secondary to Mum’s little empire.”
I was going to make a cheeky remark about how maybe he had some kind of thing for powerful women because of his mum, but we were walking down an aisle facing the glass front of the store then, and what I saw outside the shop made me freeze. It was just another group of kids from our school, still in uniform, but I recognised Ashleigh and Petra, and I was pretty sure one of the two tall boys slouching along behind them was Steven.
I must have reacted really strongly, because Lucas peered out the window as well, and made a noise of recognition.
“Do you want to go out and say hi?” he asked.
I turned all the way around to face him. “I didn’t think you would want me to.”
“I don’t, really,” Lucas admitted. “But I’m not going to go hide from my own friends if I see them out somewhere.”
“Well I’m going to hide from Ashleigh,” I said. “I hear she wants to kill me, and it’s all your fault.”
Lucas winced. “That was a bit of a mistake. Something slipped out earlier, much like it did with you I imagine. And it’s hardly all my fault when you were the one who betrayed her trust in the first place.”
And I hadn’t thought too much of it at the time, because Ashleigh was kind of the enemy to me. Someone I didn’t have to like because she didn’t like me… even though she had been apparently trying to help me at the time she’d put her confidence in me.
“It was a collaborative effort,” I said. “Our first team project.”
“I won’t make you face her this afternoon,” Lucas said. “I’m not going to be able to protect you if she decides to go for your eyes today. Come with me.”
I followed him down an aisle at one end of the store where some particularly exuberant advertising on the window announcing an upcoming sale eliminated any possibility of someone seeing through the glass. A small selection of Christmas decorations were on display there, as well as rows and rows of Love word decorations.
“See!” I said with triumph. “Even the low-class masses can’t take that trash!”
“Quiet,” said Lucas, low-voiced. There was a giggle a few aisles down: his friends had entered the store.
“I’ve been looking for a nice scented candle to put in my bedroom,” a loud voice rose over the murmur in the store. Petra.
I glanced at Lucas, and realised I was heaving with a stifled giggle of my own. There was just something about hiding back there with a slightly damaged but still cute boy while his friends prowled the area that was sending me. I was pretty sure that something was ‘Calista has finally lost her fucking mind’, but I had to work with what I had.
“Lucas,” I whispered. “You haven’t become ugly.”
One side of his mouth lifted. It wasn’t that big grin I so enjoyed, but I didn’t think I could handle his perfect teeth—no doubt the pride of his perfect dentist father—at the moment.
“I’m not vain, either.”
