Page 18 of After Tonight

“I don’t know much about football or fishing,” Lucy said. Then she scrunched her nose up. “I haven’t watched football since junior high and I’ve never actually been fishing.”

Good grief, Derek Wright was getting Lucy Geller to think about football and fishing. And she had no idea that they wouldn’t be fishing at all. Riley was sure he could get her friend thinking about a lot of other things she hadn’t really tried before as well. Yes, okay, Lucy was a grown woman. A very intelligent one. And as such, she had every right to decide who she spent time with and what they did during that time. But Lucy was also a sweet, somewhat naïve, geeky virgin. No, Riley and Lucy had never said the word “virgin” to one another, but Riley would put her next month’s rent money—and she desperately needed that money, because she was saving up to get the hell out of her parents’ house—down on Lucy being one. And that made Riley feel protective of her.

Riley noticed Derek coming toward their table with their cups of cocoa, and she refrained from replying to Lucy’s comment. For now.

“Here you go, ladies.” He set the cups down. “No whipped cream for Riley and extra for Lucy.” He grinned at Lucy, then gave Riley a look that said giving Lucy extra and Riley none had everything to do with the innuendo in his tone—okay, both of their tones—when they’d been discussing whipped cream a little bit ago. Why she’d teased about not wanting whipped cream but liking melted marshmallows, she had no idea. It was as if Derek pulled flirting out of women even when they had no intention of bantering with him.

“This looks great.” Lucy dipped her finger in the whipped cream and lifted it to her mouth as she looked up at Derek.

Riley was surprised at the playful move, then realized that Lucy hadn’t meant it to be anything other than a taste of the whipped cream. She glanced up at Derek. He was staring at Lucy’s mouth.

Oh, boy. She sighed. “Thanks, Derek. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for refills.”

He looked over at her and arched a brow. He knew he was being dismissed. But he addressed Lucy when he said, “If you need more whipped cream, at any time, you know where to find me.” Then he gave Riley a wink and headed back to the bar.

She frowned after him. He was just going to mess with Lucy right in front of her? Um, no.

“I don’t think you should go out with him,” she told Lucy.

Lucy set her mug down, licking whipped cream from her lip in a way that Riley was sure Derek would find completely hot. But Lucy didn’t even realize she was doing anything flirtatious.

“You don’t?” Lucy asked.

Riley couldn’t let them hang out. Lucy would be giving off signals that weren’t signals at all, and Derek would somehow manage to talk her into…fishing. Even if he claimed that he was interested in being a better guy, she wasn’t convinced Derek could turn off the get-into-my-bed that seemed to ooze out of him.

He didn’t really want a nice girl. Riley believed that he kind of, maybe, thought he did. He was watching Scott and Kyle settle down, and he was thinking that some of that might be nice. Hell, how could anyone be around Kyle and Hannah and not think that true love forever and ever amen was the ultimate goal in life? Throw Scott and Peyton on top of that and…yeah, she could see why Derek might be having some thoughts.

But she wasn’t entirely convinced that he really, really wanted that. He might want to try it out, but that didn’t mean it would be for him. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t get into a relationship like that and realize it was a lot of responsibility, and it came with a lot of expectations that he wasn’t quite ready to fulfill on a long-term, all-the-time basis. And she didn’t want him practicing on Lucy.

She knew that he was dependable. The whole town depended on him for things. She knew that he was trustworthy. The whole town trusted him. He was very committed to Sapphire Falls and the people here. But there had to be a reason that none of that had ever transferred to a woman.

And yes, Riley should mind her own business. But she probably wasn’t going to. Derek wasn’t going to practice the relationship thing, and realize it wasn’t for him, with Lucy. He could practice on someone else. Break someone else’s heart. And if he ever got good at it and decided he did want to be serious, then he could ask Lucy out. Maybe.

Yeah, Riley was not going to mind her own business.

“I know you don’t really like Derek,” Lucy said.

Riley shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I don’t think he’s the right guy for you though.”

“But you don’t like him.”

Riley blew out a breath and thought about that. “He just…drives me nuts,” she said. “It’s not really dislike.”

Derek had always been around. She couldn’t remember a single significant event in her brother’s life when Derek hadn’t also been there. So she’d experienced the naughty-little-boy side of him, complete with spiders in her bedroom and hiding in closets to scare her. She’d experienced the annoying-teenager side of him, when he and Kyle would raid the kitchen and eat all of her cereal, or when they’d blast the music while she was trying to study, or when they’d kick her out of the basement—her haven—so they could hang out with their friends…and debase her couch. She’d experienced the idiotic-young-adult side too. When he and Kyle would drink too much and pass out at her house—once on her bedroom floor for some reason that neither of them had ever been able to explain—or when Kyle would come home from college and they’d stay up all night…again in her basement.

He was always around. And not just for Kyle’s stuff. He’d been at every one of her birthday parties, the one time she’d gone to the Homecoming dance, and her graduation. Significant moments in her life and he’d been there like he had every right.

He just annoyed her. She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly.

But she could put her finger on why she didn’t want Derek dating Lucy. “He’s messing around, Luce. He thinks he wants to date a nice girl, someone different from his usual, but he’s never done that before and I’m afraid that…he won’t like it.” She shrugged. She didn’t think Lucy would actually take offense at that. “He doesn’t really know what a real relationship looks like. With a woman,” she added. Because she had to give him credit. He knew how to be a good friend, a good son, a good employee, and a good citizen. “I just don’t want anyone I care about getting hurt because Derek is feeling restless.”

She frowned. Derek should be able to have a good relationship with a woman. And really, if he was talking about trying something serious with a woman who had been in other relationships and had some experience, it would be okay. It wouldn’t hurt him to be in a real relationship where they talked and did things together that didn’t involve, well, any panties on any floors.

And why did she feel a little like she was blushing, thinking of the way he’d said the word “panties”? That was ridiculous. She took a sip of the cocoa.

And damn. That was good. So Derek was a Cocoa God too?

Finally Lucy nodded. “That makes sense.”

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