Page 193 of The Grand Ruin: Lance & Scarlet-Part One

“I know I don’t have to. But you make a good cuppa, and now you can be my listening ear when Lance is playing up.” I grin as I walk backward to the door. “Make sure to text if you need anything, Joey. We can chat any time about anything.”

He tips his chin, smiling. “Sure.”

It was definitely a warmish smile.

Lance

Scarlet, you’re it for me. Be with me?

Sunshine, I think you’re the smartest, most funny, wild girl on earth. Will you be my girlfriend?

Scarlet, I love you. Will you be my girlfriend?

Why does everything I come up with sound like cheesy schoolboy confessions?

Girlfriend. She’s already more than my fucking girlfriend. That’s why it sounds so dumb.

But I can’t go all out and ask her to marry me. Not yet. She’d freak out. Mason would likely keel over.

I need to talk to him about us after tomorrow night.

“Still nothing from Nina’s mum?” Charlie asks Mason from the other side of the studio, pulling me from my thoughts. Mason just shakes his head.

He’s been planning hisasking Nina to come homefor weeks, roping us all in to get the studio he bought for her last year ready.

Scarlet’s convinced Nina doesn’t have a clue, and I’ll admit, even I’m excited to see her reaction to the whole spectacle Mason has planned.

“She’s probably drinking herself into a ditch somewhere,” he muses, dropping the paintbrush to the tray and looking around the room.

“You did your best, mate. Don’t let it hang over your head,” I tell him. Mason reached out to Nina’s mum around the same time Jasmine showed up. He’d taken Jasmine under his wing in the hopes that one day she’d be someone to Nina—the family she’s always wanted. And I guess reaching out to her mum, helping her get clean and sending her to a facility in the city was all in the hopes they could reconcile any relationship between them all. Masons never properly met the woman, but she’s the only living grandmother of his son, and I know how important it is to him to make Nina happy.

“You think this is going to dry in time for tomorrow?”

The studio above the gym is nearly done. After being told he couldn’t have the grand piano moved to the top floor of the building, we presumed Mason would let go of the idea. Instead, he had three windows removed and hired a crane to lift it in.

“It will be ready,” he tells me, sighing as he runs his hands through his hair. “Whether or not she will be is a whole other story.”

Scarlet doesn’t notice me as the hospital doors drag open, spitting her out into the frigid night air. She’s got her head down, looking at something on her phone, her hand aimlessly reaching for her bag strap twisted on her shoulder.

I smile as I watch her.

I tried to think of all the ways this night could go. How I could make it mean something without it being cringy as fuck.

Truth is, sometimes you have to be that guy, standing outside her work with flowers and chocolates.

She steps to the edge of the drop-off bays, ready to cross the road. Her head lifts, scanning left, then right. She seeks me out immediately, not even doing a double take. Surprise cramps her features before she smiles.

My eyes track her as she crosses the road, making her way to me. When she’s close enough, I right myself from my perch on my bike and pull her into my arms.

“What are you doing here?” she murmurs into my jacket.

“Am I not allowed to be here?”

“Yes…” She looks down at the brand-new leathers and helmet slung over the back of the bike. “But what are you doing here?” she chuckles.

“Can I take you somewhere?”

“Is it somewhere nice? I smell grim.”

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