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“When was that?” I asked, trying to act like it didn’t matter. Only the question itself said otherwise.
Emily spun around and stared at me. “Long before I met you, but it’s still my favorite place on a Friday night when I’m not busy babysitting Henry. And their garlic fries are amazing.”
“A promise is a promise. Dinner in Seattle or we aren’t meeting your author crush.”
Her cheeks reddened, and she grabbed her purse from her sister. “He’s not my crush. I don’t have crushes.”
“Not even on the bartender?” I chuckled, squeezing Emily’s shoulder as we wandered out the door with her ignoring me. “Of course, you don’t. You just have friends.”
Chapter Three
Emily
The line went down the sidewalk as we impatiently waited to get inside. I adjusted my backpack and smiled at Lucas, who suddenly looked a little uncomfortable, which was completely unlike him.
I slipped my thumb under the strap and shifted my weight, staring at Lucas.
“What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Lucas scratched his chin and smiled before shaking his head. “I do?”
“Yup.” I popped the ‘p’ and followed his gaze down the street to see a beautiful brunette in a short, pink miniskirt and a white midriff camisole.
“Ah, gotcha. I’m surprised she reads.” I glanced at Lucas, who smiled and brought his gaze to mine. I couldn’t believe those words rolled off my tongue. I touched my wildflower necklace and drew a breath.
Lucas grinned, tilting his chin as his eyes locked on mine. “Since when did you start judging a book by its cover?”
I chuckled, noticing the line had started to move. “Always. That’s how I knew you weren’t the settling down type.” I winked at him as we slowly made our way toward the entrance.
I glanced down at my worn jeans, pink gingham top, and white Converse sneakers. It was awesome that I wasn’t trying to compete with the woman staring at Lucas because there was no competition.
She flat-out won. She was gorgeous and put together and… gorgeous. Did I mention that?
Another wonderful benefit of being friends and only friends. What I wore didn’t matter. There was no competition.
No competition at all.
In fact, one of my favorite lines from my current book was something like,“In the quiet hours of night, there is no light to see the rivals that should never be.”
The words made me smile. I loved the visual.
It was why I’d started playing with poetry myself.
Writing poems didn’t come easily for me, but it was something I enjoyed apart from reading, which was why I’d done what I’d done and hadn’t told a soul.
Not even Lucas. It would just have to wait until I got my reply, even though I was dying to tell him.
“You’ve got me pegged all wrong, Emily,” he teased. “I just haven’t convinced the woman I’m hopelessly in love with that I’m a changed man.”
His eyes remained fastened on mine, and electricity zapped through me, landing in my belly to smolder and promptly fizzle out.
I pulled my gaze from his and shrugged. “Well, I’m sure the lucky lady will pull through for you. In fact, here she comes.”
“Lucas Edwards, I’d recognize you anywhere.”
I looked up from the pavement and saw the miniskirt woman waving frantically in our direction as she nearly floated over.
I never understood how women could walk like that. My gate was more of a thump, clog, swoosh step, but more power to the refined ladies of the world.
