Page 75 of Until You

“Who is he?” he asked. “I might know him.”

There were a half dozen reasons she couldn’t tell him the truth. Why had she dug herself into this hole? “He’s not from around here. He lives in Atlanta.”

She was playing this all wrong. She should have pretended to be single and hung out with him for the rest of the evening, and found out everything she could to help the store, but the thought made her feel slimy. And strangely enough, she felt like she was being unfaithful to Tyler, which in itself was ridiculous. They had no commitment to each other at all. For all she knew, he was going out with some other woman tonight.

But she knew he wasn’t. He was with his brother. He’d told her he hadn’t wanted to come, but she knew he’d stayed away because of her.

She realized Victor had asked her a question, but she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I need to go make a quick phone call.”

He nodded, and she headed into the house, setting her drink on the kitchen counter then hiding in the garage like she had during the shower.

What the hell was going on with her? How could she be so taken with him? If she was going to fall for someone, it couldn’t be Tyler Norris. He was a terrible choice.

She pulled a Stella out of the refrigerator and popped off the top. Hopping up on the work bench, she sipped her beer, feeling like something was missing.

Tyler.

Then, before she could stop to think it through, she pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the bottle with the label showing and the garage in the background. She uploaded it to a message that read, Thinking of you.

Sipping her beer, she waited several minutes for him to respond, disappointed when she got no response.

She was a grown woman, moping around because the man she’d practically asked not to come to his friends’ party didn’t answer her text.

What the hell is wrong with me?she asked herself, for what had to be tenth time that day.

It was her professional life. It was in tatters and it was bleeding into her personal life. But then, who was she kidding? She had no personal life.

But that wasn’t true either. She had Tyler.

“Enough,” she said out loud, draining the last of the beer and throwing the bottle into the glass-recycling bin.

She headed outside, grabbed a new bottle of water, and flopped down in a lawn chair next to her cousin.

“I want to know more about Tyler driving you home last night,” Britt said as she sipped her frozen margarita through a straw.

Good Lord. She needed to play this casual. Leaning back in her lawn chair, Lanie gave Brittany a pointed look. “Britt, I already told you everything.”

“No…you didn’t. Not really.” When Lanie didn’t answer, Britt pressed on. “So he was… nice?”

“Of course he was nice. Why wouldn’t he be nice?”

“Well…after the shoe incident…”

“In case you didn’t notice, we got along fine when I took off his bandage.”

“True, but he seemed tense.”

“He was in pain.” Which still made her feel guilty. “The tape was stuck to his skin.”

“No. It was more than that. He showed up a good fifteen minutes early—totally on edge—and he paced like a lion at the zoo, watching the parking lot until you showed up.”

Lanie tried to hide her surprise. “No offense, Britt, but he’s probably not a huge fan of all these photos shoots. If I was the last one to show up, maybe he was eager for me to get there so we could get started.”

“Maybe…”

Lanie didn’t believe her own explanation for a minute, but damned if she could figure out another explanation for his behavior. There was no doubt he was eager to see her again, but why would he be tense? He knew she was coming.

“I think there’s something between you two.”

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