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“This does help me. Big time,” Emily says. “You said you’d help however I needed. This is where I need it.”
Lia groans and drops her head to the table with a thump next to her plate. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Her words are muffled by the table her forehead is planted on.
After a second she lifts her head back up with a sigh and a glare at her mom. Wordlessly, she goes back to her scrambled eggs.
Emily and my mom exchange smiles, which puzzles me.
Before I can protest, Emily rattles on about deadlines and what all will be needed to make my auto shop a winter wonderland and a fully decked-out Santa’s workshop. Lia doesn’t say another word for the rest of the meal.
She makes it clear she’s unhappy about the situation.Well, I’m not thrilled either, Gray.
My breakfast churns painfully in my stomach thinking about how all of this is going to play out. How the fuck am I going to keep my head straight about Lia when I’ll be around her almost every day while she’s here?
I need to steer clear of her not just so I don’t have to dodge the constant barbs she throws my way, but also so I can keep my head and my dick in check around her.
I’ve convinced myself out of sight out of mind. It’s how I’ve survived the last decade. Well, that and a lot of meaningless flings.
But the look on my mom’s face is enough to make me climb out of my misery. It’s been a while since I’ve seen her eyes light up this way. And I want to keep it there.
I know it’s going to hurt.
It’ll be my demise one way or another.
But I do it anyway.
I toss my napkin onto my empty plate and lean back, stretching my arm across the back of the booth. I ignore the heat from Lia’s body and ball my fist up so I don’t play with the ends of her hair.
“Okay, I’m in. When do we start?”
THREE
Lia
I’m goingto kill my mother.
When she asked me on the walk to Maggie’s diner to help with the holiday festival that was coming up in a few weeks, I figured she wanted my marketing expertise. She did ask me about some ideas for a new Santa’s workshop, but I had no clue it would include Henderson’s Auto Shop.
And Jake.
I hate the universe right now.
I walk outside the diner with Mom, while Patty chats with someone she knows at another table and Jake pays the ticket.
Who’s he trying to fool being nice? Not me. I’m not falling for any of that nonsense.
I may have ditched the glasses, figured out how to dress to my body type, and know how to kick ass on an ad campaign, but when it comes to Jake, I’m still that awkward high school girl.
The girl whose heart he broke into pieces like it was his job.
Mom turns to me, her eyes contrite. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Lia. I thought you and Jake were friends.”
I fold my arms over my chest under the guise of staying warm and look out toward Main Street. “We are or we were. It’s just been a long time.”
Were we though? Jake knew my brother and cousins well, having lived in this town his whole life too. But while he’d always been nice to me, even striking up conversations with me at times at school, it wasn’t until that one summer that we actually became friends.
And then more than friends.
No one knows about that summer. We’d kept it on the down low.
