Page 72 of After Tonight

He was. Or could be, anyway. Riley nodded and picked up a bag of white rocks to fill the path, suddenly wanting to be busy for some reason.

“I know you were worried that he might try to, I don’t know…”

Riley looked up. “He might try to what?”

Lucy shook her head. She almost looked embarrassed. “That he might flirt or something,” she said.

Riley was shocked to feel a surge of relief. He’s not flirting because he’s very happy at home. She smiled. They hadn’t told anyone they were seeing each other. They hadn’t really told each other that they were seeing each other. But she didn’t know what else to call it. They saw each other every day, told each other what they were up to—okay, with the exception of Derek not telling her about the cemetery tours—and they spent almost every night together. That was, pretty much, dating. She supposed. Kind of. Even if it was a big secret. But maybe it was time to tell someone.

Riley opened her mouth to reply to Lucy, but before she could, Lucy said, “But it’s all been very sweet. Very appropriate. Romantic. He doesn’t treat me like the girls I’ve seen him flirting with at the Come Again. He’s a lot more respectful.”

A chill swept over her, and Riley realized she was having a hard time taking a deep breath. “He’s been…romantic?” she asked, trying her best to sound normal. “How so?”

“He brought me coffee the last couple of mornings,” Lucy said.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Riley agreed. “But romantic?”

“He put caramel creamer in it,” Lucy said with a smile. “He said he remembered that’s how I’ve ordered it at the Come Again before. And,” her smile grew, “he added extra whipped cream. Remember that night when we had hot chocolate and you didn’t want any but he put the extra on mine?”

Oh, yeah, she remembered that. “I do.”

“And he brought scones with the coffee yesterday.”

Scones? Scones? It was one thing to put some extra coffee in one of his to-go cups and take it along when he left the house. He already had the stupid creamer tubs all over his kitchen. But scones meant he’d made an extra stop.

“And while we worked, he put music on his phone,” Lucy said.

Riley nodded. He often had it on in the kitchen at the bar and at home when he was cleaning or doing yard work. “He likes to work to music.” She honestly didn’t care at this point if Lucy wondered how Riley would know that.

“But it was Lindsey Stirling.”

Okay, Lindsey Stirling was pretty amazing, but not only could Riley not imagine Derek listening to violin music while he worked—even really cool violin music—but she’d never heard him listen to it around the house or at the Come Again. While Lucy loved Lindsey Stirling. “How did he know you like her?” she asked.

“He’s heard it in the bookstore,” Lucy said. “I had unplugged the stereo and taken it upstairs, so I didn’t have any music on, but he’d heard it before. He said we couldn’t plan a kick-ass book event without inspiration, so he pulled it up on his phone. I wouldn’t have minded listening to something else, but it was sweet of him.”

It really was. Riley frowned and dumped her bag of rocks out, thinking. Seemed that Derek had made a lot of notes about Lucy and the things she liked. He’d obviously spent enough time in the bookstore to know these details. And making a woman coffee with her favorite creamer was hardly a stretch for him.

“So I wanted to ask you something,” Lucy said.

Oh, God, she was going to ask Riley if she’d be okay with Lucy dating Derek. And Lucy didn’t even know that Riley and Derek were sleeping together. She just thought that Riley thought he was an idiot who didn’t know how to treat a nice girl.

And clearly Derek had proven that wrong over the past several days with Lucy.

Riley grabbed another bag, ripped it open and dumped the stones onto the dirt path. That Derek had dug for her in between all the cleaning and hauling and stage-building he’d been doing for Lucy. When he wasn’t getting her scones and playing her favorite music.

“Riley, are you okay?”

She stopped and looked up at Lucy. Sweet, beautiful, staying-in-Sapphire-Falls-forever, deserves-a-guy-who-makes-her-coffee Lucy. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

“You just went to work, ripping through those bags like you were suddenly possessed.”

Possessed. Yeah, she felt a little possessed. Or possessive. As in, she was feeling possessive. Of Derek.

She dropped the bag she was holding and stared at Lucy.

Dammit. How had that happened? She was supposed to be making Derek good boyfriend material for someone else. Or scaring him off entirely. Either way, she’d failed. Miserably. Because he was already good boyfriend material. And he didn’t seem scared off, at all. And she wanted to keep him.

“Riley? Are you sure you’refeeling okay?” Lucy asked, clearly concerned.

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