Happily Ever Never

19. Lucas

19

LUCAS

I’m making my way down Main Street with angry, impatient strides, on my way to another stupid, pointless meeting with Dorian, when my phone rings for the fifth time today.

I ignore it.

I can’t get out of meeting Dorian, though. I need to keep working towards cancelling the plans to rebuild the downtown area.

I’ve been hinting about it more and more strongly. He’s objected, deflected, and made it very clear that he won’t listen to anything I have to say, even though in theory I’m his boss. He keeps muttering about “the investors” and talking about lawsuits if we fail to go through with our plans, blah blah.

Right now, we’re supposedly in the phase where the downtown buildings are being inspected, and Carmel is running the rest of my/Jasper’s business empire from my home office, when she’s not sneakily dropping off baskets of muffins in downtown shops.

My understanding is that Theodore has threatened her with a restraining order if she doesn’t stop.

My phone starts ringing again, and as it does, I see Serena walking towards me with an impatient look on her face and her phone pressed to her ear.

She catches sight of me, hangs up the phone, and stalks towards me.

“You are ignoring my calls,” she says indignantly.

I shrug. “I didn’t even look at my phone. It’s usually just Dorian calling me.”

Usually, but not always.

“We’ve got a big problem,” she says. “Bigger than being stuck here while you very slowly work your way through the plot points.”

I start walking, and she falls into step with me.

“You and Brooke keep telling me we can’t rush things,” I say impatiently. “I’ve tried rushing things. I tried telling everyone in town that I wasn’t going to go through with my plans—I tried telling Dorian that—and they just ignored me. So which is it? Hurry up or slow down?”

She lets out a shaky breath. I’ve never seen her this rattled. “You’re right. You’re right. We have to go at the correct pace. I’m just panicking.”

“What is a bigger problem than us being stuck here?”

She stops walking and gestures at her clothes. She’s wearing high-waisted mom jeans with a pink pleather belt, a Come On Inn T-shirt, and big white sneakers.

“Look at me,” she cries out. “The other day you said I was dressed in bag lady chic, and I got mad and stomped off, because I knew you were right. This is a disaster. This is not me.”

Wow. I suspected from the beginning that she was appallingly self-absorbed, but this is next-level.

“I’m sorry, the big crisis is that you don’t like the outfit that you picked out for yourself this morning?” I glare at her. “Excuse me, some of us have real problems. And I’m on my way to a meeting with the asshole character that you invented on purpose to annoy the crap out of me. Go back to the hotel and change into something less tragic.” That was a nasty snipe, but seriously? I’ve never heard anything so petty and self-centered in my life.

I turn to walk away, moving with swift, angry strides.

She hurries after me. “I didn’t pick this outfit! Alternate universe Serena did! I literally didn’t even think about it until I was halfway down Main Street this morning.”

“And?” I say impatiently.

“Slow down!” She’s panting. I walk faster.

She breaks into a run, jogging to catch up with me, and grabs me by the arm. “I am turning into this universe’s version of me, and from what you are telling me, so are you, and so is Brooke.”

I stop dead.

“It started happening to me shortly after I got here, but I was trying to deny it, because I felt like I was losing my mind. It’s happening to you too, isn’t it?”

I nod grimly. “It’s getting worse,” I say to her. “If I look at any spot in this town and focus, I can summon up Jasper’s memories.”

“Same with me. In this universe, I grew up here with my grandparents in their hotel after my father died and my mother abandoned me, and then I went to New York to become a writer, but I visit here several times a year and I’m thinking of moving back here for good and taking over the hotel. I’m still the majority owner of it.” Her face takes on a grim set. “I know the names and backstories of everybody I see, even people who weren’t featured in my books.”

“That’s happening to me too. I recognize people I know for a fact I’ve never met before, and I have memories of my interactions with them when I was growing up here. When Jasper was growing up here. What does that mean for us?”

She shakes her head despairingly. “I’m not completely sure, but I think that the longer we’re here, the more our characters are taking over us, our thoughts, our memories, our behaviors, and it’s going to keep going until...” She trails off.

“Until there’s nothing left of the real us?” A chill sweeps over me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Possibly.” Her face is pale.

That would be the death of our actual selves. And we’d never go home. What would happen to our lives, to our families? What would happen to Susie’s—I mean Brooke’s—parents?

This universe is feeling a lot less benign and cutesy now that it’s trying to take over and claim our very souls.

“So what the hell do we do about it?” I demand.

“I don’t know! I’m having a hard time thinking straight. All I want to do is plan for reopening my grandparents’ hotel after you destroy it.” Her expression turns thoughtful. “There’s a very nice Victorian mansion on the south side of town that—”

Quickly, I cut her off. “Repeat after me. That is not your grandparents’ hotel.”

“It is not my grandparents’ hotel,” she says dutifully, but there’s a note of doubt in her voice.

I take a deep breath. I am not a quitter. I will not let this universe turn us into pod people.

“Go back to your hotel and change into New York City clothes. Do your hair and makeup as if you are meeting your publisher. You want to let down your publisher? Would you go to a meeting with him dressed like this?”

I know that her publisher is a hot-button issue for her, and this seems to work, because she looks suitably horrified.

“No. Of course not.”

“Good. Keep that in mind the whole time you’re changing your clothes. Meet me at Theodore’s in an hour. I think he’ll let us eat there today. ”

“We could just eat at the inn. I mean, I am part-owner—damn it! I’m doing it again!” She shakes her head vigorously.

“No, we need to get you out of the inn,” I say firmly. “Brooke and I will meet you. Dress to impress.” I make a quick call to Dorian to tell him that I’m definitely having second thoughts about the project, yet again, and I order him not to make any decisions without me, and then I hurry home to tell Brooke the latest development.

_ _ _ _

Serena is sitting at the back of Velma’s when Brooke and I walk up.

She’s wearing a smart pink-and-white Chanel suit and pearl earrings, and she’s meticulously applied her makeup. Her lip gloss matches her suit.

“So what’s the plan?” she asks me.

“I think it’s too easy to slip into our characters’ roles here...” Theodore walks up, his expression cool but not necessarily hostile, to take our orders.

I make a point of ordering the spaghetti Bolognese, the kind that his mother used to make for Jasper, and he almost smiles.

We all place our orders. As soon as he leaves, I resume. “We need to continually remind ourselves of our lives back home. Brooke, tell me about your mother’s bakery.”

Brooke winces. “It’s painful to think about. She must be losing her mind.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. But I think that we need to think of things that have strong emotional resonance for us.”

She nods, taking a deep breath. “My mother wakes up at four a.m. to go the bakery to start her day. She has regular customers who are there waiting for the door to open. ”

“Tell me some of their names,” I say, and she recites a few.

When she’s done talking about her life back home, I talk about my plans for the business, and which vendors and partners I’m going to call the minute we get back home.

Then I ask Serena about her plans for her next publicity tour.

I can see the tension on her face as she talks about it, but when she’s done, she nods. “That helps,” she says. “I’m not thinking about the stuff I need to do for the hotel as much.”

“Good,” I say. “I think it would help if you get out of the hotel as much as possible. Hang out at the library during the day and plot out some books, come up with ideas for your tour, whatever you can think of,” I tell her.

“That is a surprisingly not stupid idea.”

I give her a sardonic look. “Now there’s the Serena I know and loathe.”

“What do you think our next move as book characters should be?” Brooke asks Serena. Serena frowns.

“Let me see the book,” she says.

Brooke pulls it out of her purse—that damned, cursed book which is controlling our lives right now.

Serena flips through the pages. “Ha. Earthquake. That is inventive. I wouldn’t have written that myself—it’s a bit of a deus ex machina—but apparently you two were moving too slowly.”

“Do not read that part!” Brooke cries, horrified.

“I’m just skimming it. You’re making good progress. You’re still working towards your separate goals, but soon, a major wrench will be thrown into your plans.”

“Great. Could you be any more vague?” I say in annoyance. “I’ve gotten better guidance from a fortune cookie.”

Theodore returns with our dishes and sets them down in front of us.

“I can’t give you specifics; I just know the general story rules. I have no idea what’s coming up.” Serena shuts the book and hands it back to Brooke. “Keep doing what you’re doing. Just faster. All right, after lunch I’m going to go back to my—” She hesitates. “I’m going to go back to the hotel to get my notebook and then I’ll go to the library to work on my...” She trails off.

“Publicity tour plans,” I prod her.

“Right, right. Publicity tour plans,” she agrees.

Brooke flashes me a worried look. “I’m genuinely scared,” she murmurs. “What if I lose... me?”

“I won’t let that happen,” I promise her. And I mean it. I don’t care what I have to do. The world cannot do without Brooke Langley.

I can’t do without Brooke Langley.