“. . . [T]here may be a hundred different ways of being in love.”
~ Jane Austen
* * *
And a hundred different ways not to recognize it.
Cast
Emerett “Lake” Lakewood: Ridiculously clueless and a compulsive matchmaker.
Knightly Dixon: Morally scrupulous with the patience of a saint.
Taylor Dixon: Knightly’s son and Lake’s best friend.
Amy Dixon: Wife of Taylor, married off-page at the start of the book.
Harry: Lake’s first victim of romantic meddling.
Philip: The man Lake wants Harry to fall in love with. Fond of clapping and his alligator-print shoes.
Martin: Harry’s cousin and longstanding crush.
Cameron: Next door neighbor and huge fan of Jane Austen. Needs a venue for his film studio.
Brandon: Cameron’s brother and business partner.
Josh: Lives down the street, graduated from Oxford, does everything better than Lake.
West: Lived abroad in England, was Taylor’s first best friend. Is harboring a secret.
Garfield: The cat.
Emerett “Lake” Lakewood loved love, and loathed weddings.
He snatched the spare key from underneath a pot of petunias and broke into his best friend’s childhood home. Floorboards creaked as he stole into the urban-farmhouse-style living room.
Taylor’s Xbox shimmered in a shaft of moonlight; the distressed-wood coffee table he and Taylor had studied at for exams gleamed; the forest-green vase they’d taken turns throwing up in the night they’d graduated college taunted. A silly ache washed over him like a late October breeze.
He’d been one of the last to leave the local hall, though he’d wanted to bail the minute Taylor and Amy—his now wife—had driven off with a clatter of tin cans.
His sigh echoed in the room. From his tuxedo lapel, he removed a cream lily. The flower his best friend had chosen for the centerpieces and bouquet.
Lake set it atop the rustic mantelpiece, under an old clock that ticked ten past three, and slung himself lengthwise over the couch. He sank into its familiar hold, but it lacked comfort without Taylor trying to knock his legs away.
Lake buried a sad groan in a linen throw pillow.
He should be happy.
Taylor loved Amy, they were devoted to each other. Lake and Taylor had just turned twenty-six, for crying out loud. Dynamics changed with time. Best friends became friends, and then later, acquaintances. This was the natural course of life.
But, God. This sucked.
No best friend to listen to his crazy schemes and political tirades.
No best friend to give him advice on his boring commercial-editing job and his nonexistent love life.
No best friend to be blatantly open with.
He’d become a loner, suffering in bromantic solitude.
He punched the pillow over another self-pitying groan.
A darkened figure appeared in the doorway, brandishing Taylor’s baseball bat. Lights flashed on, and Lake shielded his eyes. “Just add to the torture, why don’t you.”
“Lake?” Taylor’s dad said, a surprised hitch in his low-timbred voice.
Lake lowered the pillow.
Taylor’s dad—Knightly Dixon, or Knight, as Lake had been calling him daily for the last seven years—lowered the bat and threw his neatly tuxedoed ass into the adjacent armchair, gripping Taylor’s bat like a king holding his staff. With his free hand, he loosened his bowtie and popped a button.
He looked nothing like Taylor. Taller, darker brown hair, squarer jaw, and deeper laughter creases. He’d shaved for the wedding, but he already sported light, silver-speckled stubble. A badge of raising a child alone in his twenties and thirties.
Okay sure, he had a good relationship—friendship?—with Taylor’s dad. But Knight had a way of making Lake see his own faults. And Lake did not enjoy seeing his own faults . . .
Knight settled tired, soulful brown eyes on him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Lake rolled onto his side, propped himself on his elbow, and stared at Knight’s muddied dress shoes. “Did you walk back?”
“I’d hardly drive after drinking.” He toed off his shoes and tossed them onto the tiled hearth.
“Guess I made you traipse in here with them on?”
“I saw a flicker in the window and grabbed this from the shed.” Knight lifted the bat an inch off the ground and dropped it again. “I have a great deal of patience when it comes to you, Lake. But please, never scare me like that again.”
“Mental note: Don’t give Taylor’s old man a heart-attack. Got it.”