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When it comes to her? “Never.”
Chapter8
Nico
We sitin the living room of our hotel suite, watching Lily’s phone light up with Avery’s name. We’ve been anticipating this call since we landed, but it won’t make explaining Lily’s abrupt change of plans any easier.
I glance over at her, and she shoots me a tight smile. I answer the video call.
“Was this part of some big, elaborate plan, Nico? I thought we talked about this already.” My brother’s voice booms through the speaker.
“Hello, how are you doing?is also an appropriate way to greet someone,” I say.
“Let’s leave that for later,” Avery chimes in, and her smiling face appears on the screen.
Lily scoots closer to me on the couch, tilting her head toward the camera.“Hey, Ave.” Lily waves, but her eyes nervously bounce around the room.
“Shouldn’t you be going on your honeymoon already?” I deflect the round of questioning for Lily’s sake.
“You already know our honeymoon in the Azores is at the end of July. Besides, we’re going to spend the summer working out of the beach house and we’ll miss you guys so much.” Avery leans into the camera, looking at Lily. “I have to admit I’m glad you’re finally taking some time off, Lil.”
“Sure, you’ll be missed, but we need an explanation.” Luca’s face entirely overtakes the screen.
For all his success, my brother is the spitting image of our technologically-ineptabuelitooperating a phone for the first time. Avery nudges him out of the way, resting her hand on his thigh as a sign to chill out.
“We didn’t plan it,” Lily says.
“I just had an extra ticket.” The lie sounds more convincing each time I say it aloud.
Luca huffs as if he can sense my dishonesty from thousands of miles away. “Convenient.”
“It’s true. My flight home was canceled, and I boarded Nico’s plane on a complete whim.” Lily rushes through her words as if she’s in the final push of a marathon. “We didn’t plan the kiss either. It was an accident, and it won’t be happening again.”
Avery practically leaps out of her seat. “So, you did kiss?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
I can’t resist bragging, “Earlier, Lily said it was very nice.”
“I never said very.”
Avery laughs. “Molly and I had a bet on if you guys were actually going to kiss.”
That’s not what I expected to hear. “Who won?”
“Me,” Avery says proudly. “I had a feeling you would.”
Huh. I tuck her support into the back of my mind.
“You have no faith in me, Ave,” Lily bellows at the screen, her beautiful smile on full display.
“So, I was thinking, if Nico doesn’t mind, you should stay the whole summer,” Ave suggests.
I like my sister-in-law more and more every day.
“Great idea, I don’t mind at all,” I chip in.
Lily digs her fingernails into my arm off camera, but I ignore her attempt to get me to be quiet.
