Love Story (Love Unexpectedly 3)

I can’t help it. I flinch. Abby Mancuso. My high school girlfriend and the one responsible for my and Lucy’s implosion.

Actually, that’s not fair. Abby was the catalyst. The responsibility for that ill-fated moment rests solely with me and Lucy.

“No,” I snap. It’s as much info as she’ll get from me on that subject.

Lucy turns her head and looks out the window. And though I order myself to shut the hell up, I keep talking.

“I haven’t spoken with Abby in months.”

Maybe years? I can’t remember.

Lucy snorts. “Yeah. I’ve heard that before.”

I adjust my grip on the steering wheel to keep from punching the dash in frustration.

“Does your boyfriend know you’re dodging his messages?” I snap.

She whips her head around. “What?”

“Oliver,” I say, deliberately missing his name. “He was texting you last night. Does he know you’re with me?”

“Yes. He knows my parents shackled me to the guy who’s like a second brother.”

Her words are meant to be a jab, and she lands the hit. I can’t stop the wince.

Lucy and I may have been as close as siblings once, but she’s never been like a sibling to me, and I haven’t been one to her either.

?

??How’d you meet him?” I ask.

She pushes her glasses farther up her nose and stares straight ahead now. “Don’t act like you care.”

Evasion is unlike Lucy. She’s a face-things-head-on kind of girl; it never really occurs to her to play word games. “You’re having second thoughts.”

“I’m not.”

“About him, or about surprising him?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, and I’m pissed to know how much I wish she’d have said it was the first one.

“We met at a restaurant,” she says, deciding to answer my original question after all. “It was my first internship, and he was a sous-chef. That’s like the assistant—”

“I know what a sous-chef is,” I snap. “Sometimes I even manage to pluck the hay out of my teeth.”

“You know, I thought Horny was pulling to the left because the tire was low on air, but now I see that the chip on your shoulder is what’s pulling the car that way.”

“Who made the first move?” I ask, continuing our destructive pattern of picking and choosing what we respond to.

“I did,” she says. “He was hot and smart.”

“And connected.”

Her head snaps around. “Meaning?”

I spare her a quick glance as I change lanes to pass a slow truck. “Meaning, it can’t hurt to have a guy in the biz, right? An up-and-comer with connections?”

She blinks and I can feel that she’s stung, but I don’t apologize. “You’re so right,” she purrs, recovering quickly. “In fact, I tried to seduce the owner, but he was gay, so I’m stuck on the slow track of sleeping my way to the top.”