Page 25 of One More Time
‘You should definitely introduce her to Chandler’s uncle Shane,’ said Hannah.
Chloe glared at Hannah with such force, Lucy was surprised not to see two smoking hollows where Hannah’s eyes used to be.
‘Uncle Shane?’ Lucy asked Chloe.
When Chloe refused to respond, Lucy looked to Hannah.
The poor thing could only grimace and shrug.
‘It was just an idea,’ confessed Chloe.
‘I don’t—’
Chloe raised her hands to cut Lucy off. ‘I know you don’t. But he’s smart. He’s a journalist. And he’s nice.’
‘And hot,’ added Alexis.
‘Alexis!’ Chloe admonished.
‘Well, he is!’ Alexis fought back. ‘Uncle Shane is a complete silver fox.’
Oh, holy Mary, Rhoda and Phyllis, am I in my silver fox era? When the fuck did that happen? How do I make it stop?
Lucy took a gulp of air – because she couldn’t reach the booze.
Chloe turned to Lucy and leaned in conspiratorially.‘Look, I know it’s going to be a lot with the dads and, well,allof that. I thought Uncle Shane might be a nice distraction.’
What was it with everyone and their decompressing and distracting? Lucy wasn’t fragile. She had never been fragile. She handled stress and chaos and every other damn thing like a champ. Why did everyone suddenly think she needed coddling? Andfondling?
Lucy had no choice but to put on her stern motherly hat. She said gently, ‘That is very kind of you, Chloe.’ She turned to the bridesmaids, ‘You too, girls. But I don’t need a silver fox.’
Kim silently mouthed the words, ‘Yes, you do.’
Lucy cleared her throat and continued, ‘I’m great as is. Now, are you sure this dress isn’t too over the top?’
Even the seamstresses chimed in with their noes this time.
Well, guess that’s settled.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NICKY
Time was a stubborn bastard. It sped up and slowed down, flexed and contracted with no discernable predictability as far as Nicky could tell. And that was just while he was in the drive-thru line at Starbucks or sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off.
The way time lived in Nicky’s mind was even more confusing. He could remember some things with such clarity that they felt like they’d just happened. Other things, even things that had once seemed important, faded away. Leaving behind only the memory of a memory, like a file with a name but no contents in his internal hard drive.
So it was that Nicky Broome, lounging in his boxer briefs in a chair overlooking the Las Vegas Strip, concluded that time was meaningless.
How else could anyone explain being in the same room with Lucy Rollins almost thirty years after the first time and feeling both like no time andall the fucking timehadpassed simultaneously? Time was obviously nothing but an illusion, a trick of the mind.
If he could still summon the old magic, he would write all these thoughts down in one of the crisp new Moleskine notebooks he still kept in his carry-on. They were there, waiting. He couldn’t say if it was out of habit or hope, but they were there. Even though he hadn’t been able to hear the music for a goddamn age.
That thing inside him, the one that had guided him through so much trouble and given him so much joy, was silent. It had been for a while. A year, maybe more. No songs. Who was he kidding? Not so much as a single note or word – for more than a year.
That, too, was a subject for contemplation. But for some other day. The silence was too frustrating and painful. It made him feel lonesome, maudlin, and restless.
Anyway, what he really wanted to do wasn’t write. What he really wanted was to be in the same room with Lucy again. Any way he could have her. And there was one stretch of time in particular that his mind could play at will, as clearly as an IMAX film in 3D.
