Page 33 of A Break in Communications

Was she, actually, though? That was the question, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t too long to get to my family’s house—time just flew by when you were arguing with someone as smug as Lucy—and I pulled into where the courtyard was already busy. Big house—my grandfather Mark had bought a house far beyond his budget and spent his life working to the bone to pay it off, and now the family’s legacy was keeping the thing intact, becausethe thing about having a big house was that there was always something broken. It was a pretty thing, though, Tudor-style façade with dense landscaping all around it, thick trees dressed up with coats of snow and light strings, wooden paneling around the windows that looked rustic and inviting with Christmas lights in the windows, still lit up against the early-morning dimness around.

And of course I could hear the music blaring already. My grandmother loved tacky mid-century Christmas music, and with her hearing going, she really shouldn’t have been in charge of the music volume, but nobody ever had the heart to say no to Grandma, so every year we ended up listening to the same starlets howling aboutrocking around the Christmas tree. I was hoping she’d still be asleep by now, but knowing my mother, she’d probably gotten the whole family too excited to meet my beautiful, dreamy girlfriend who was just perfect in every way.

I guess I was glad Lucy actually was pretty and charming, or I’d have to deal with veiled disappointment.

“My family’s humble abode,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt. Lucy didn’t take her eyes off the house.

“That’s what counts as humble?”

“It’s humbler once you feel how drafty it is, having to keep the heat down so it doesn’t bankrupt them…”

“I didn’t realize I should have brought earplugs.”

“For once, we’re actually on the same page. I’ve been told it’s rude to wear them. Shall we?”

She stepped out of the car, and the woman had the nerve to come over to my side of the car and get the door for me before I realized what she was doing, busy tossing my things into my purse. Still, my grandma being nosy and probably peeking out through the curtains, I couldn’t start a fight right now unless I wanted my dysfunctional love life to be the subject of family gossip for the next year, so I smiled sweetly at her and let hertake my hand, helping me up out of the car, and she went one step further than I was prepared for—tugged me off my feet and into her, and I stumbled, losing my breath a little, falling into where she wrapped an arm around my waist, and the next thing I knew, her forehead was resting against mine as our breath fogged up in the cold, mingling together in between where our lips were inches apart. My stomach dropped, and my heart beat faster, anxiously twisting up wondering what she was angling for here, before she winked.

“I’m guessing the old lady looking through the curtains is your grandmother,” she whispered, and I slumped.

“I… had a feeling.”

She pressed the bouquet of violets back into my hand. “Have to make sure everyone knows those came from me, to you. Can’t have them thinking Anna Preston scored an underwhelming girlfriend.”

“I hate you, you know.”

“Oh, I know, darling. Now, do you want to go inside, or stay here gazing into each other’s eyes all day?”

I sighed, pushing away from her. “As tempting as it is, I’ll… somehow… rip my gaze away from your captivating blues.”

“Captivating blues?Even as a joke, I think that’s more romantic to say than anything a girl’s said to me before.”

I suppressed a smile, walking a half step ahead of her up to the big, overdone porch entry. “Sounds like you’re the one scoring underwhelming girlfriends, then.”

She laughed. “Not anymore, I’m not.”

I paused at the door, glancing back at her, and after a second’s consideration, I offered an arm, looping it under hers and holding her close to me. “Lucky you,” I said.

Chapter 9

Anna

We were five minutes in and my family liked Lucy better than they did me.

Mom had greeted us at the door, absolutely gushing over how beautiful a couple we were, and apparently Grandma wasn’t the only one creeping on us, because we were flush with people talking about how nice it was to meet her and what a nice couple we were, as if they knew anything about us. Grandma, of course, pretended like she hadn’t been spying on us in the courtyard, and to nobody’s great surprise, Veronica only showed up once there was food on the table.

We sat for breakfast, and I smiled politely and said nothing while everybody took turns talking to Lucy like she was divine salvation and I was just there.

Maybe it sucked that Lucy was charming. She was a master at letting somebody else talk about what they wanted to talk about, and she picked up talking about Mom’s cousin in the Netherlands and let her lead the way running her mouth like Mom always wanted. Took about two seconds for her to pick up on Dad’s obsession with college basketball, and we were off to the races with Lucy giving him space to recite every number and every name he had in his head, and when my cousin Josh talked about his video games, Lucy acted like it was the most interesting thing she’d ever heard. I knew the deal was sealed when Grandma asked her what she did in her free time, the foodworn down to crumbs now and everyone nursing their coffees, and Lucy faked a little bashfulness.

“I don’t really have a lot of free time,” she said. “Between the office and looking after my grandmother, it’s hard to find time for much… but I’ve been wanting to get back to salsa lately. I used to take classes.”

I shot her a look, breaking character for a second. I would have suspected she was making it up to charm my grandmother, who always loved dance growing up, but I didn’t feel like even Lucy could have known that. “What? When did you do dancing?”

She laughed, giving me that bright-eyed smile she had down pat, and she brushed a lock of my hair back from my face. I felt myself prickle, flustered at the sudden touch, but she didn’t give me the chance to recover. “It’s been a while,” she said. “But being with you makes me want to dance again.”

Dammit—I think I blushed. Why? Why on earth I was blushing over Lucy Masters flirting with me—just because she was smooth, even though I hated to admit it, and I was lonely? I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating… I didn’t think I even wanted the promotion anymore, not now that it would only make me think about all of this.

---