“Lucy, can I talk to you a minute?” Lucy fought the urge to look at Daniel.
“No, I’m kind of busy,” she said quickly. “You two have a good day, though.”
“Oh, I’m sure we will.” Sophie grabbed Daniel’s ass and grinned at her. “I’ve really been missing this one,” she added, because the ass squeezing hadn’t been enough, apparently.
“Lucy, please?” he sounded desperate. He moved away from Sophie and over to Lucy, so she had no choice but to look at him. “It won’t take a minute.”
“Fine,” Lucy sighed. They both walked out of the kitchen. Daniel’s eyes stayed fixed to the door, until he was sure that it was shut, before he looked back at Lucy. “What do you want to talk to me about?” she asked, avoiding his eyes.
“Lucy,” he paused, shifting on the spot he was standing on, “I was going to tell you about Sophie, I just didn’t get a chance to,” he explained. Why was he explaining? Lucy shook her head lightly.
“You’ve got no explaining to do. What you do with your life is your business.” She shrugged. “I hope that you two work things out this time.” She smiled tightly at him.
“Is that all you have to say?” He looked frustrated. He looked like he’d been hoping she’d say something different. What had he wanted her to say? Had he wanted her to kick off? To proclaim her love for him, so that he would pick her over Sophie? That wasn’t going to happen.
She already had too much to deal with. It wasn’t just that, though. Even if the court case wasn’t happening, she wouldn’t go there. He clearly still had feelings for Sophie. It was that, or he’d gotten back together with her to make Lucy jealous. Either way, she wasn’t interested. She wasn’t going to be just some other girl. She’d been that to Logan. She’d been just another name on his list and she wasn’t going to do that again.
“Yes, I think that’s it.” She nodded. “You clearly want to be with Sophie, so I’m happy for you. Why wouldn’t I be happy for you? You’re my brother, after all.”
“I wish people would stop saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“That I’m your brother.”
“But, you are.”
“I know that,” he sighed.
“So, what’s the problem?” Lucy pushed him.
He shook his head. “There isn’t one, I guess.”
“Okay, well, that’s good then.” Lucy turned to walk away, but Daniel reached out and pulled her back gently by the shoulder. “What?” She turned to look at him again.
He looked sad. It wasn’t all over his face, just in the corners of his eyes. A glimmering sadness that wasn’t being allowed to play out. “I just—” He paused. Desperation joined the sadness in his eyes. “It…it doesn’t matter.”
“I really have to go.” Lucy shook his hand away from her shoulder. It fell to his side with dead weight. “I’ll see you later.” She turned and walked away from him. She could feel his eyes on her, until she’d turned the corner, but she didn’t stop to look back. She had too much going on. Her whole life was hanging in the balance. She stopped when her whole body became winded.
“Oh, crap, sorry,” Josh said as she fell to the ground with a thud.
“Don’t worry about.” She pushed herself back onto her feet. “It was probably my fault.”
He frowned at her. “You know, you still look stressed.”
“Thanks,” she said sarcastically, patting her jeans down.
“Oh,” Josh’s cheeks burned red, “I didn’t mean that as an insult. Listen, if you want to get out of here, I could book us a nice restaurant for dinner? It might help take your mind off of things?”
“Sure.” Lucy nodded. “That sounds good,” she lied. She didn’t want to go out for dinner with Josh. She wanted to go out with Daniel. She wanted to be with Daniel. Josh might look the same, but he wasn’t the same. He was everything that Daniel wasn’t, in the worst possible way. He was so boring and sensible, but he was the one asking her to dinner, so did she really have any right to complain?
*******
Chapter 13
Josh hadn’t booked out the restaurant for them. He’d just booked a table, and Lucy was relieved with that. She’d been worrying since she’d accepted his offer that it would be another awkward night of just the two of them. The restaurant he’d picked was nice. It was a place that served Thai and they’d created a tropical forest within its walls.
“This place is pretty cool,” Lucy told Josh as they sat down at their table.
“I thought you’d like it.” He smiled. “I get the feeling that you’re the kind of girl who wants to see the world.”
Lucy smiled. “Sure, I want to travel. I mean, what’s the point in having a life if you don’t see everything there is to see?”
“You know, there’s a lot of stuff out there to see.” He leaned back against his chair. “You think you’ll get it all done?”
“I’ll give it a good go.”
The waitress came over and took their orders. When she’d walked away, Lucy let her eyes scan over the other tables in the restaurant before she returned them to Josh.
“So, I guess you’ve heard about Sophie and Daniel getting back together?” he asked her. Lucy could feel his eyes examining every small movement of her face.
“Sure, I saw them in the kitchen this morning.”
“They look happy together, huh?”
“Yeah, Sophie seemed real happy to back with him.”
Josh leaned back in his chair with a happy smile. “It was all my handy work, you know.” His hands rested on the table. “I saw how miserable he was, so I got in touch with her.”
“It was all you?” Lucy asked him in shock. “You got them back together?” She tried to hide the sudden mix of emotions she was feeling. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugged. “Why do you care so much?”
“I don’t care.”
“You seem to.”
“Well, he’s my brother. She’s no good for him,” she tried to defend herself.
Josh laughed. “Lucy,” his eyes met hers, “you’ve been here for less than two weeks and you’ve met Sophie once. What makes you think that you know what’s good for my brother?”
Lucy could feel herself getting angry. Her hands were starting to shake and everything she wanted to say ended with an insult. She took her eyes away from Josh in an attempt to calm down. All the tables in the restaurant were in use and she carefully took in each couple and family. She stopped. Her eyes fixed on a cascade of brown hair that was tumbling down a thin girl’s back. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, leaning on her seat so that she could see the girl’s face.
“What are you looking at?” Josh turned in his seat. It didn’t take him long to focus in on Sophie. She was sitting across the table from some guy that wasn’t Daniel. It was clear that she was on a date. It was written all over her body language as she leaned over the table with a seductive smile and a twirling finger playing through her hair.
“You were saying?” Lucy cocked her eyebrow at Josh.
Josh’s cheeks had turned bright red. “This wasn’t meant to happen.” He slammed his hands down on the table. Lucy cringed as people at the tables close by turned to look at them. “You can’t tell Daniel that you’ve seen this.” He held his eyes firmly on Lucy’s. “Do you understand?” There was something threatening to his tone and Lucy didn’t like it.
“Why would I keep this a secret?”
“It’s going to destroy Daniel,” Josh said quickly. “He’s in love with Sophie. This will kill him. Are you really prepared do to that? Is being right really worth that much to you?”
Being right? Was that what he thought this was about? “I wouldn’t be telling him because of that. I’d be telling him because he has a right to know. He has a right to know that the girl he loves clearly doesn’t love him.”
“Why do even care?” Josh spat at her.
“He’s my brother,” Lucy said weakly. “Why wouldn’t I
care?”
Josh laughed bitterly. “Why don’t you cut the crap, Lucy? You don’t care about this family. You have never cared about this family. Your mom might be an idiot, but I’m not. Something happened at college. I don’t know what happened, but something did, and that’s why you’re back. It isn’t because you wanted to be with us. So, I’ll ask you again. Why do you care if Daniel is with Sophie?”
Lucy didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected the conversation to turn as it had. Josh had always seemed so mild mannered. She wasn’t sure where his anger was even coming from. “I just don’t want to see him getting used.”
“I thought I told you to cut the crap?” Lucy frowned at him. “You can’t even admit the truth, can you?” His eyes were full of pity. “It’s sad, really.”
“The truth?” she questioned him.