Chapter 17
Opinion: Never, ever date a friend. Ever.
—Delilah Dune, opinion writer
O ne dance had turned into two while Lyla sat on her barstool throwing a silent pity party for herself. She knew Allison was just having fun, and Travis was just looking out for her, but right now, under the influence of alcohol, Lyla felt completely out of her element.
Sam polished a glass as he stood in front of her. “Need a listening ear?”
Lyla watched him for a moment. Travis was probably right about Sam. She remembered in high school, Sam had dated quite a few girls. He wasn’t the doting type. He was nice to have as a friend, but from what Lyla had heard, he was clueless when it came to being a good boyfriend.
People changed though. Wasn’t that what she was learning this summer? They changed and yet, they stayed the same. It was a fine balance.
She blew out a breath and looked around the room. She had had just enough alcohol that her ability to attempt any self-preservation was gone. “I feel like I’ve wasted all those years since graduation. And now I’m thirty. I’ve spent a full three decades on this earth, and I have no idea how to have fun. Allison and Travis are out there having a great time, and honestly, I’d rather be at home watching TV. Or camping.” Camping? Where had that thought come from? She’d never considered herself a camping person before last night.
“Camping?” Sam set the polished glass down on the counter. “I never pegged you as a granola nature lover. You were more of the nose in a book type.”
“Well, I never pegged you as the type to serve drinks to sloppy drunks.”
Sam chuckled. “Just so you know, you are that sloppy drunk tonight.” He winked when she looked up. “I’m kind of a bartender psychologist. Do you want my professional advice?”
“Okay.”
“The only time wasted is time spent regretting the past and hesitating on the future.”
She lifted her brows. “Wow. That’s actually pretty deep.”
Sam reached for another cup to polish. “So the question is, what are you hesitating on?”
Travis immediately came to Lyla’s mind.
As if hearing her thoughts, Sam tipped his head. “Go on, Lyla. Get out there and dance.”
She turned and looked out on the dance floor where Allison was laughing. Someone cut in to dance with her and Travis stepped away, smiling as Allison turned to dance with the new guy. Lyla didn’t recognize him, but Allison seemed to know who he was.
Without another thought, Lyla began walking in Travis’s direction. He’d come tonight, even though she’d practically ordered him to stay away. She should be mad—furious, even. But right now, if she were honest, she was just glad. She didn’t want to dance with any of the other guys here. She didn’t want to flirt or be picked up by some random stranger, who would probably turn out to be all wrong for her anyway. She didn’t need hunky Sam. The only guy she wanted to flirt with, dance with, or be picked up by was Travis Painter.
A woman stepped up to Travis right before Lyla reached him. Lyla stopped walking and stared at the interaction. Travis looked past the woman and saw Lyla. She watched as he told the woman something and then walked around her, heading in Lyla’s direction.
“Hey.” Travis looked handsome tonight. She hadn’t noticed before, but he was wearing a button-down shirt with a nice pair of jeans.
“You clean up nicely,” she said.
He lifted a shoulder. “So do you. Although, I liked the version of you that woke up in my tent last night too. Your bedhead is the best I’ve seen.”
“And you’ve seen a lot?” She tilted her head to one side.
“I didn’t say that. Do you want to dance, Ly?” His voice dipped low, slipping past the flimsy walls she’d built up around her inner recesses, where sparks and butterflies happened.
No. The correct answer to Travis’s invitation was no. Instead, she tilted her head to match his and allowed her voice to drop low. “Only if I’m dancing with you.”
With a sly grin, Travis slid his hands around her waist and pulled her close.
She didn’t breathe for a moment. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and breathed in his woodsy sandalwood scent. How was it that a handyman with wanderlust smelled better than anything she’d ever breathed in? “Why did you come here tonight?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Ly?”
She shook her head slowly as she searched her brain for the answer. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I came to see you. I had to make sure some other guy, who didn’t deserve the time of day, didn’t bother you.”
“So you’re being protective? Like my bodyguard?”
“No, I’m being a jealous idiot, because I probably don’t deserve the time of day from you either.”
“Why would you think that?”
He lifted a shoulder, the corresponding corner of his lips rising as well. “You tell me. You’re the one who promised it wasn’t goodbye and then never responded to my emails. Never answered my calls. I figure you finally realized you could do better than a nobody like me.”
She sucked in a surprised breath. “Is that really what you thought?”
“All I know is that I got you into a lot of trouble when we were kids. My reputation wasn’t the best. Maybe I dragged you down. I know I dragged my father down. He never let me forget that.”
Lyla had hated sitting in church and watching her best friend be torn down every Sunday morning. She suspected that the man standing in front of her now still carried the weight of those Sundays strapped to the leather tool belt around his waist. “You didn’t drag me down, Travis.”
He watched the other couples dance around them. “You know, I never faulted you for cutting me off. I always knew you were born to fly. It was just a matter of time before you got your wings.”
Lyla hated that she’d made Travis feel in any way the way his father had. “I was a horrible friend.”
“You were my best friend. To this date, you’re still the best friend I’ve ever had. The most beautiful one too.”
Her lips parted.
“What?” he asked.
She shook her head, feeling like she wanted to dissolve in a puddle of tears. She wasn’t sure if they’d be happy or sad. Both, probably. “I just, I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not.” She thought about what Sam had just told her. She was only wasting time if she was hesitating on what she wanted. Right now, what she wanted was to be here in Travis’s arms. She wanted him to keep telling her the things he’d just said and more. “I want to spend the night with you again.”
“Camping?” he asked.
“Not camping.” Her skin burned as he watched her.
“We are spending the night together. Here, dancing and drinking. I’ll make sure you and Allison get home safely.”
That’s not what she meant either, and he knew it.
“Not because I don’t want to spend the night with you, Ly,” he whispered, leaning in to her ear so that she could hear him. “It’s because you mean a lot to me, and I don’t want to move things too fast.”
Pulling back, she looked at him. “But you’ll be leaving soon. We’re running out of time.”
Travis tugged her closer, leaned down and, with his gaze trained on hers, he brushed his lips over her skin, working his way from her cheek to her lips. The kiss was soft and slow. It felt like she was enveloped in a dream. During those rare times she’d allowed herself to wonder, she’d imagined Travis’s kisses would be more rough. More urgent. Instead, his kisses were slow and gentle.
“We have time,” he said as he pulled away. “Plenty of time.”
Lyla flopped restlessly on her bed the next morning. Where was she, and how had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was drinking, laughing, dancing, and—kissing Travis?
Lyla shot up in bed and nearly screamed at the motion on the other side of her mattress. Allison was lying there asleep with her mouth gaping open. There was a string of drool falling to the mattress below. No sign of Travis, though. Lyla remembered that he’d offered to be their DD. He must have taken them here and gotten them safely to bed.
As gently as she could, Lyla got up while trying not to wake Allison. After a pit stop in the bathroom, she headed toward the kitchen. She wished Travis would have left her and Allison at Allison’s home because then there would have been a coffeemaker.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Lyla looked down at herself. She was still dressed in last night’s attire. Her hair was likely a mess, and she was pretty sure she didn’t smell all that great.
The doorbell rang again. She didn’t want the sound to disturb Allison so, reluctantly, Lyla headed to the front of the house. Allison deserved to sleep in as long as possible, because when she awoke, Lyla suspected her hangover would be miserable.
When she opened the door, she found Travis holding up a tray of coffees. The caffeinated aroma was strong and welcome.
“I bet you want one of these right about now.”
All her insecurities about bedhead and bad breath melted away with his grin. “How did you know?”
“Low-key genius here. Can I come in, at least to put the coffees down? I won’t stay. I have a couple jobs around town, anyway. One of which happens to be right next door, for Ms. Hadley.”
Lyla opened the door wider, gesturing Travis inside. “Thank you for the coffees. They are much appreciated.”
“Allison still sleeping?” he asked, talking over his shoulder.
“She is. I just woke up, myself.” Lyla stepped up to the coffee cup that he’d set on her counter. Her name was written on the side of the cup. “You remembered how I like my coffee?”
“I’m a details guy, remember?”
“Well, I’m a coffee girl. Thank you.” Lifting the cup to her mouth, she took a sip and tried not to compare Travis to her ex. Joe had never remembered the way she liked her coffee, even though it wasn’t complicated. She was also a simple girl. Two raw sugars is all she took. Two. Raw. Sugars.
Opinion: A man who doesn’t remember the little things is sure to forget the big things.
“You’re in deep thought over there, Ly. Whatcha thinking about?” Travis looked amused as she sipped his own coffee. “Could it be the kiss?”
“Kiss?” she echoed back, her breath catching in her chest. The memory of what he was referring to came slamming back into the forefront of her mind. The kiss.
He looked momentarily disappointed. “You forgot?”
“No.” She shook her head, which made it pound slightly. She didn’t have a monster hangover, but the small thrum of a headache was there. “I wasn’t that drunk. I guess part of me thought it was a dream.”
“Not unless we were sharing the same dream. Last night was . . . nice.”
“Yeah.” Lyla continued to sip her coffee, using the moment to figure out what to say next as she stared up at him over the rim of her cup. Seeing the way Travis was looking at her convinced her that last night’s kiss had been real. And, judging by his expression, he didn’t have regrets. Did she?
“Drink fluids,” he instructed, pointing a finger in her direction. “I need you to be in tip-top condition for tonight’s bucket-list item. I hope you packed your swimsuit.”
Panic flared through Lyla’s body akin to the feeling of stepping on a jellyfish tossed on the shoreline. “Travis—”
“It’s happening, Ly. And it’ll be okay. Trust me.”
“I’m not jumping off the Pirate’s Plank. I can’t.”
“We’ll start off easy. We’ll just go for a swim. Me and you.”
She tugged her lower lip between her teeth, nibbling softly. “I’m not jumping. I’m not.”
“We’ll see.” He looked so confident. If she could borrow just a pinch of that confidence when it came to the things that scared her.
“Why? Why is finishing the list so important to you?” she asked, searching for a way out of what felt inevitable. When Travis got something in his mind, he went for it. He would never pressure her into something she didn’t want, but he could convince her to want it.
“Because finishing the list, that was who we were. So doing the things on that list makes me feel like we’re us again. Only different.”
See? That was a good answer. The kind that made her want to say yes.
“Plus, I don’t care what you think, not finishing the list is bad ju-ju.”
Pulling a breath into her lungs for a long moment, she began to nod as she exhaled. “Okay,” she said quietly.
Travis’s expression told her he never thought her answer would be anything less. “Okay.” Turning, he headed out the front door, calling over his shoulder, “See you this afternoon.”
“What did I just agree to?” Lyla asked herself as the door closed.
Allison cleared her throat from the hallway. “I don’t know, but I’m excited for you.”
Lyla turned to look at her friend. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
Allison groaned. “I think you mean, painful-head. Is that other coffee cup for me?”
“Travis brought them for us. One for me and one for you.”
“I love him,” Allison muttered, walking over and grabbing the cup with her name on it. She eyed Lyla as she sipped. “I don’t literally love him. I know he’s spoken for, and you can’t deny it anymore. I saw last night’s kiss.” She waggled her eyebrows and then winced in pain.
“It was one kiss, and we were drunk.”
“Correction, you had been drinking but weren’t drunk, and he was completely sober.” She sighed after another sip of coffee. “This is so good. So, so good—mm . . . I have to go.”
Lyla lowered her own coffee cup from her lips. “But you don’t have a car.”
“My mama is picking me up. I texted her while you were flirting with Mr. Wonderful.”
A horn honked outside, and both women turned toward the front door.
“That’s her.” Allison clutched her coffee against her. “I’ll call you later, bestie.”
Lyla had never had a real female friend. This was nice. “Bye.” Once Allison was gone, Lyla stood there, sipping her coffee and contemplating the day. The unfinished bucket list was lying on the countertop nearby. She reached for it and glanced over the items that had never been checked off that last summer. After the camping trip, there were only three more items to complete.
· Watch Sleepless in Seattle 4 times.
· Go skating (Travis).
· Jump off the Pirate’s Plank (Lyla).
This was the list of two kids who had no idea what life was about. Doing the items on their list had amounted to conquering the world. Life wasn’t that simple, though. In fact, it was exceedingly complicated, especially when it came to her relationship with Travis.
At one time, she could tell him anything. Their conversations had been unfiltered. Not these days. She wasn’t even sure she would confide her hopes and fears with him anymore. If she told him what her thoughts were now, specifically the ones she had about him, things might get a little awkward. It was just physical attraction, nothing more. And as long as she kept it that way, spending time together was completely harmless.
Opinion: No strings, no rings, no messy disasters.
Lyla nearly choked as she simultaneously sipped her coffee and gasped. That was perfect! That opinion would definitely stir debate among her readers. Bob would approve too. Carrying her coffee to her bedroom, she plopped down on her bed and pulled her laptop to her thighs. When inspiration hit, one had to take advantage. And all the credit for this inspired moment went to last night’s kiss with Travis.
Lyla’s fingernails clicked along the keys. The opinion needed a touch more flair. As Bob liked to say, “Drama sells.” With a few taps of the backspace key, she reinvented the initial opinion until it was something sure to spark debate. Then she sighed contentedly and read the opinion that would save her job.
Opinion: No strings, no rings, no ruined lives.
August 10
Dear Diary,
I’ve never been kissed. Unless dog kisses count. Sonny has kissed me multiple nights, especially lately as I pour out my heart to him on the back porch. Devil-dog by day, angel-dog showering me with dog kisses by night.
Here’s the thing. The only person I hang around is Travis, and kissing my best friend solves one problem (the never been kissed one) but creates a dozen more.
Lyla