He laughed. “If you’re going out with my brother, I can assure you, you’re not going to see any awesome crap.” He looked cocky. His eyes had met Lucy’s and he was daring her with them to look away. She didn’t. She wasn’t going to back down.
Lucy shrugged. “That’s some big talk from the guy who didn’t even think to offer.” She could tell that it was bothering him. She could tell that he’d wanted to show her around and that his brother had clearly stepped over some kind of invisible line that had been drawn.
He shrugged and put on a look of disinterest. “I guess I only ask out girls who are fun.”
It was Lucy’s turn to laugh. “Oh, right.” She nodded. “I forgot, because I’m boring.”
Josh looked confused. He hadn’t been there through their earlier conversation and he had no idea what they were talking about. “Is everything alright between you two?”
Lucy nodded. “Your brother thinks I’m boring because I came out to sit by the pool,” she explained, so that Josh’s confusion could come to an end.
“Oh, right,” Josh said, looking slowly between them. “Well, I think you’re alright.” He smiled when his eyes fixed on Lucy.
“Smooth,” Daniel cut in with a smirk. “That’s just what every girl wants to hear. You’re alright,” he mocked his brother.
Lucy frowned. What was Daniel saying? Was he implying that Josh was trying to flirt with her? Was that why he was so ruffled over Josh’s invitation for her to see the town with him? “Well,” she cut through Daniel’s smirk with an icy stare, “it’s better than being called boring.”
“I never actually called you boring, though, did I?” Daniel said, jumping on the first technicality he could come up with. “Anyway,” he shoved his hands down into his swimming shorts pockets, “if you find yourself dying of boredom with him, come let me know. I’ll show you the best time you could be having.”
Lucy watched as he walked back to the house. She could feel Josh watching her, as she watched his brother, but she didn’t care. She’d heard the undercurrent in Daniel’s voice. He’d been offering her a lot more than a tour when he’d mentioned having a good time together.
*******
Chapter 4
The day had been long. The day had been impossibly long. There weren’t enough hours in the day to explain how long the day had been going on for. Lucy could feel herself giving up on life. She could hear the creeping, whispering, nagging voice in the back of her mind telling her that Daniel had been right. She would never tell him that, of course. She would never allow herself to think it above a whisper, but he was.
Josh had managed to turn what was supposed to be fun sightseeing into a nightmare. The day had started off well. The sun had been out; there had been a breeze in the air. Lucy had been hopeful. When Josh had started off the tour with a museum, Lucy had felt her hope take a hit, but it wasn’t until they’d finished their five-mile hike that she realized it wasn’t going to get any better.
“So, what do you think?” Josh asked as she dragged her tired and aching body back to his car.
Lucy looked at him. Her whole body was ready to collapse. She’d walked more that day than she ever had in her life. Why was he asking her to think? Didn’t he know that her brain had turned off somewhere up in the hills that they had been climbing? “I don’t know,” she told him hesitantly. He’d clearly put a lot of effort into their day and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but inside she was screaming for it to come to an end. “I’m pretty tired.”
“Sure, I get that.” Josh nodded quickly. “But, just hear me out. We’ll go back into town, get something to eat. I can show you the nightlife. Then, we can go home. What do you think?” It clearly meant a lot to him. Lucy could tell from the way that he was looking at her.
“Sure.” She nodded. “That sounds fine.” She climbed into the car and relaxed back into the leather interior. She closed her eyes and tried not to think back over the day. It had been terrible. It wasn’t just the poor choice of activities. It was Josh too. He was just so…dull. It was like he’d read an instruction manual on how to be a human and was living strictly by the rules it had laid out.
“I think you’re really going to like where I’ve booked for dinner,” Josh said when he’d pulled out of the parking lot. Lucy didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to spend the rest of the time she had in the car in silence, so that she could recover. “Do you want me to put the radio on?” Josh asked when he sensed that Lucy needed some quiet time.
“Yeah, that sounds good.”
They drove with nothing but the sound from the radio for a while. Lucy could feel herself drifting in and out of sleep as they curved along the quiet roads that led back into town. It wasn’t until she felt Josh’s hand resting gently on her shoulder that she realized they’d pulled up outside the restaurant.
“I guess you weren’t lying about being tired.” Josh smiled when she opened her eyes.
“No, I guess not,” she said sleepily. She looked over Josh’s shoulder at the small restaurant in front of them. It looked out of place. It looked like it should have been on some little back alley in Paris, hidden away from the tourists. The small, oval windows showed a cozy-looking, candle-lit restaurant inside. “Is it open?” Lucy asked when she realized that there wasn’t anybody sitting at the tables.
Josh nodded. “Kind of.”
“What do you mean, kind of?” she asked.
Josh didn’t say anything at first. Lucy watched as he got out of the car and walked around so that he could open her door. “Well, it’s open for us.” He offered out his hand, so that he could help her out of the car.
“I don’t understand,” Lucy said in confusion.
“Well, who wants to be seated next to a crying baby, right?” Josh made an attempt to joke. Lucy didn’t laugh, and he cleared his throat nervously. “I just thought, since it’s your first time here and everything, that I’d make it special.”
“So, you booked out the entire restaurant?”
Josh shrugged. “It’s really not that big a deal.”
“If you say so.” Lucy shook her head in disbelief. She was used to guys with money—they were the only kind of guys that went to her college—but she wasn’t used to them being thoughtful with it. Most of the guys that she’d dated had taken her to parties; they hadn’t booked out restaurants to eat with her.
Lucy backtracked on her thoughts. It wasn’t a date. She needed to stop comparing it to a date, because it wasn’t. Josh was her stepbrother. Sure, they weren’t really related and sure, he was hot, but that didn’t change anything.
“Thanks.” Lucy smiled when Josh held open the door so that she could go into the quiet restaurant. The atmosphere changed completely from the moment she stepped through the door. The heat from outside was gone. The bright night sky was hidden. The walls danced with shadows cast from flickering flames and soft music played in the background.
“Do you like it?” Josh asked her when they’d been seated at a table close to the window.
Lucy nodded. “It’s good.” What she meant to say was that it was beautiful. She’d never been taken somewhere so nice, but she knew that was lame.
“I’m glad you like it.” He passed the wine menu to her. “Do you want to pick something to drink?”
“Sure.” Lucy took the menu from him. “Josh?” She hesitated when his eyes came rushing up to meet hers. “In case I get drunk and forget to tell you later, thanks for today.”
********
Chapter 5
Lucy rolled over on her bed. She could feel her sheets getting tangled between her legs, but she made no attempt to sort them. Her whole body ached. The wine she’d had with dinner the night before had tasted so good going down, but it had begun to seek its revenge on her. The inside of her mouth was dry. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than a glass of water, but she knew that even the walk to her bathroom was going to be too much.
Someone knocked on
her door. The sound of the hand making contact with the wood made Lucy flinch, and she tried to escape from it under her pillow. The sudden movement she made to move the pillow sent a wave of nausea over her body and she groaned when the knocks returned. “Who is it?” she called out with her face against the cold mattress. “What do you want?”
The door to her room opened, but she didn’t bother to move. “Dude,” Daniel said as he walked into Lucy’s room. His eyes were on Lucy. She was sprawled on her bed with the sheets in between her perfect, tanned legs. She was only wearing a tight pair of boxers and a bra. Her blonde hair was poking out of the pillow that her head was under. “You’re showing me everything right now.”
Lucy knew she should move, but she was still struggling to find the motivation. “What are you doing in here?” she groaned at Daniel. “Leave me alone.” She batted her hand in the air behind her blindly. “It’s like the middle of the night or something.” Speaking was only making her brain ache more.
Daniel laughed and sat down at the bottom of the bed. Lucy felt the sheets shift from her legs, and for a moment she wondered what Daniel was doing. She felt the sheets being thrown over her body, though, so she didn’t bother to move. “There you go,” Daniel said when most of her body was covered up. “So, I’m guessing you had a lot to drink last night?”
What was he trying to do? Win a state-the-obvious competition? “I guess so,” she replied grumpily. Josh had been dull all the way through the meal. She had needed the booze to keep her going. It had helped a lot; it had made Josh almost funny.
“You know, it’s almost midday,” Daniel told her.
“So?” she snapped at him. “Have you just come in here to torture me?”
Daniel laughed again. “No.” Lucy could feel the bed shake slightly from the movement of his head. “I’m throwing a party tonight. I thought you’d like to come and see what real fun looks like.”