Page 1 of Just Between Us

CHAPTER ONE

LUCY

University was finally over,and I felt a mixture of emotions. I was glad to see the back of some of it, yet I was still anxious about coming home. It wasn’t that I didn’twantto come home. That had always been the plan. But ending up jobless, boyfriend-less, and back in my teenage bedroom was not what I’d had in mind.

We hadn’t been back in town more than a handful of hours when we bumped into some friends from high school who asked us out with them. Annie thought it was a fab idea, but I just wanted to get my head down and lick my wounds over heading back to my childhood bedroom for a while.

Annie was, of course, going to be fine. She had landed a job after only her second interview. Going home and staying with her father, Richard, wasn’t going to be something that lasted. Annie would be off flat-hunting and building her own life in no time. I, on the other hand, wasn’t fairing as well.

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun. We’ll drop our bags at my house and head right back out again.”

She took one look at my face and sighed.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s our first night home. We’ve graduated with first-class honours, and the future is ours for the taking, Luce!” She elbowed me as if to drive her point home.

I shook my head in defeat. How could I burst her bubble of joy? “Fine. But I’m not getting shitfaced, and you shouldn’t either.”

Annie laughed. “Mate, if anyone is getting shitfaced tonight, it should definitely be you after the six months you’ve had.”

She was right. When I had announced my plan to go home to my ‘up for anything’ boyfriend, he informed me I’d stumbled upon the one thing he actuallywasn’tup for. He also made it very clear it wasn’t moving to my hometown that didn’t interest him, it was the idea of any kind of future with me after university. I was his ‘slumming it while in college phase’—his words, not mine. He was heading off to travel the world with a girl he’d met on placement.

If I thought about it and was honest with myself, he did me a favour. He had always been a bit of a selfish dickhead and was more into his own ‘enlightenment’ than any kind of relationship on equal terms with me. He wanted a motherly housewife figure at his beck and call. I was never going to fit that bill.

But the idea that it was his choice to break up and not mine. Ugh.

Annie nudged me again, snapping me out of my momentary cruise down bad breakup lane.

“Fuck it,” I said. “Let’s get wasted. You’re absolutely right.”

Her smile widened; we plotted outfits, where we would end up, and how we would get there.

It wasa little after one in the morning when we finally got back to Annie’s childhood home. Admittedly, I was nowhere near as drunk as she was, a point she illustrated beautifully when she missed the edge of the path to her front door and ended up on her arse in her dad’s well-tended flower bed.

“Sssshhhh!” She giggled as I tried to pull her out of the blue and white daisy bush she had landed in.

“Don’t youshhhhme, dickhead. I’m not the one with my bum in the flowers,” I loudly whispered back at her, laughing.

“Dad will hear you!” She snickered.

“Dad already has,” came a rich baritone voice from beside me as he hopped over the flowers, put his arms under his daughter’s armpits, and helped me heave her back to her feet.

“Oops. Sorry, Dad,” she replied sheepishly, her tone not as hushed as it needed to be, a drunken grin across her face.

I bit back a titter and looked wide-eyed between her and Rich.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head as he smiled. “Come on, you drunken duo. Into the house with the pair of you.”

I tried to focus on Annie, but there was something about the tone in Rich’s voice that had given me goosebumps. I wasn’t sure if it was the playfulness, the strength, or that he was telling me what to do, but it had sparked… something.

Rich helped us both in and up the stairs.

“I can take it from here.” I smiled shyly, suddenly very conscious of my compromised appearance and the spark of attraction I felt for my best friend’s father.

Rich nodded. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Feel free to come down and get bottles of water and painkillers for the morning. I’m assuming you’re not heading home to your mum’s at this point?”

I bobbed my head in agreement. “Thanks.”

Rich laughed with a smirk. “No worries.” He said nothing else and left to go back downstairs.

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