Page 80 of One More Time
Given that Lucy’s own approach was to kick down any stubborn bricks that happened to find themselves sticking inside her, the idea was terrifying. There was no future forthem. There was only going back to their separate realities, which were so far removed from one another that it was laughable.
In a perfect world, could there be more with Nicky? Sure. Lucy wasn’t an idiot. He was fucking incredible. If things were different, she would latch herself on to him like a koala, clinging to his chest forever. Probably. Maybe. But thingsweren’tdifferent. There was fantasy and then there was reality. She had made the distinction. Whatever they had between them wasn’t going anywhere.
Also, she really was the absolute worst at relationships. Why would one with Nicky be any different? She made bad choices about men. Even if she did want to just throw caution to the wind and jump into something with him, it would probably go straight to hell in a handbasket anyway. Because her decisions about relationships and who to get into them with was obviously critically flawed. Exhibit C: Devin. Her judgment was completely untrustworthy.
Lucy knew, from hours of insomnia-fueled doomscrolling, that she had been married more times than the statistical American average. That had to mean she was also statistically crap at it, right?
Furthermore, maybe everything seemed so good between her and Nicky because they hadn’t gotten to the part where she felt resentful about picking up his socks and he decided that grading papers at midnight was too much. They were in the honeymoon phase. She’d seen it enough to know the signs. When that passed, who was to say that things wouldn’t be just as terrible as they had been withBrandon? Or as awkward as with Sam? Or as one-sided as with Devin?
And, of course, all the conjecture was fantasy because she was gearing up for the tenure review that she’d been working toward her entire adult life and he was going to beon another fucking continent.
Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, rearranged her slimy, stained clothing and said, ‘Get over it.’
The door to the shower room flew open, clanging against the wall so hard it made Lucy jump.
Lucy shrieked, ‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’
Her daughter stood in the doorway holding a bath towel over her front, rivulets of white gloop streaming over her face and into her eyes.
‘You’re her, aren’t you?’ Chloe asked.
Lucy suddenly wondered if wedding stress could give a healthy twenty-one-year-old a stroke. She sputtered, ‘Chloe, what are you talking about? Are you okay? Do you feel dizzy? Does one of your arms feel weak?’
‘I’m fine,’ Chloe grumbled, flicking watery white mess off her forehead. ‘The love languages. It got me thinking. Nick Broome’s is probably music, right? It’s you! Thehistory. Thecomplicated kind. You’re her! You’re the “Breathing Room Girl”!’
Oh, shit.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
NICKY
Nicky made his way down the hallway outside his suite, feeling every minute of the hours he should have been sleeping. He only ever felt his age in his knees. At some point maybe he could replace them with titanium and feel like he was twenty again. And now he needed to add knee-replacement fantasies to the ever-growing list of pathetic things his forties had done to him.
Nicky had left the room hours before, his notebook and acoustic guitar in his arms, racing down to meet the concierge. He’d needed a piano to make the music in his head arrange itself into something usable. Luckily, he was rich and famous with a very fine concierge at his beck and call. The man had found him an unused grand piano in one of the hotel’s many nightclubs – mercifully closed.
As Nicky reached for his keycard, he heard a door down the hall click open. Hoping it was Lucy’s, he waited to seewho might emerge. The noise had come from her suite, but it was Chloe who stepped into the hall.
The hem of a long, flowing white nightgown peeked out from under a trench coat, fuzzy slippers on her feet. She closed the door sneakily, and backed away from it on tiptoe.
When Chloe looked up, she spotted Nicky immediately. Then tipped her head and rolled her eyes.
Busted.
She walked toward him, and Nicky teased, ‘Where do you think you’re going, young lady?’
‘Cute,’ Chloe replied. ‘I’m going to see my fiancé.’
‘Isn’t that bad luck?’
‘I’m not superstitious,’ she said. ‘And it’s an evening wedding, as you well know. I can sleep in after I sneak back.’
‘Got it all figured out, huh?’
Chloe nodded with a naughty gleam in her eye.
‘All right, I guess.’ Then, in a stern fatherly voice added, ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
Chloe tutted. ‘You’re a rock star, Nick. What exactly might that be?’
