Page 17 of After Tonight

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“Everything okay?”

Riley realized she was scowling as she took her seat at the table with Lucy. She smiled and shook her head. “Sure. Derek just drives me nuts.”

Lucy nodded, playing with her pencil. She looked worried.

Riley leaned in. “What’s up?”

Lucy met her gaze. “I just…”

Oh, crap.Riley worked on not sighing. “Lucy? What’s going on?” But she knew. Derek the Debaucher had gotten to her.

That had been stupidly easy for him.

“Derek asked me out,” Lucy said.

Riley pretended she didn’t already know that. “No kidding. When?”

“Just now when I was up at the bar.”

Don’t overreact. “What did you say?”

“I said he didn’t have to do that.”

Riley felt her scowl return. “He didn’t have to do that? What’s that mean?” He shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t like he was doing Lucy some big favor.

Lucy shrugged. “He offered to take me to lunch before he helps out with the book signing. I thought maybe he felt like he was supposed to make the offer.”

“Why would you think that?”

Lucy pushed her glasses up her nose. “Well, I mean, he’s never asked me to do anything social before. Why now?”

“Because you’re lovely and he’s finally pulling his head out of his ass and noticing?” Riley suggested.

Lucy laughed. “Well, that would be something.”

Riley studied her friend. Yeah, it would. It would actually make her think more kindly toward Derek on one hand. If he was sincerely noticing that Lucy was great, that would say something good about him. But if he was just trying to have a perfect score with the women in Sapphire Falls…well, she’d have to kill him. And besides, it wouldn’t be a perfect score. She was living here now, after all.

“Do you want to go out with him?” Riley asked.

“Oh, geez.” Lucy sat back in her chair. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a guy like that.”

Derek was as different from Lucy as he could get, but Lucy was ten times smarter and a million times sweeter, and Derek should be the one worried about what he would do with Lucy. “What do you think you’d have to do exactly?” Riley asked. Was Lucy talking about sex? As in, she wouldn’t know what to do during sex with a guy like Derek?

She wasn’t really used to talking about guys with Lucy. They had so many things in common that there was never a shortage of topics, and they never really got around to guys. Because guys weren’t that important to them.

Riley dated, but nothing serious. There had been two types of guys in Sapphire Falls—the ones who liked her but thought she was kind of a dork, and the ones who thought her rebellious side was hot and wanted to party with her. But she hadn’t been a partier, and she hadn’t been into guys who couldn’t name at least four of the Avengers, so, she hadn’t gone out much in high school. Once she’d ended up in California, things had changed a bit. Guys who could name all of the Avengers thought she was interesting, and she hadn’t had to exert the rebellious thing as much away from her perfect big brother, so she’d found people like her and had enjoyed a fun dating life that sometimes involved sex and sometimes didn’t. Like normal people did.

But Lucy had never left Sapphire Falls. She’d inherited her bookstore from her grandmother, along with a very nice trust fund that meant the bookstore didn’t have to actually be profitable. She’d been a dork in high school too. But a happy dork. In fact, Lucy either didn’t see that she was different, or she didn’t care. And Riley loved that about her. Lucy did her thing, happily oblivious to the fact that other women their age were having relationships and getting married and having children.

“I’d have to go to ball games and stuff, right?” Lucy asked, looking at Riley through her big pink-rimmed glasses.

Riley couldn’t remember a time when Lucy hadn’t worn glasses. And they’d met in kindergarten. She shook her head and focused. Ball games. And stuff. With Derek. She nodded. “He is very into sports.”

“And he might want to take me fishing or something,” Lucy commented. She was fiddling with her pencil again.

Riley was sure that fishing with Derek didn’t involve a lot of actual fish, but yeah, he might want to take Lucy “fishing”. “He definitely likes to fish,” Riley agreed.

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