Chapter Twenty Hunter
Chapter Twenty
Hunter
It’s almost six thirty and I still haven’t heard back from Lucy.
Does she have me blocked or something? We were on good terms the last time we saw each other.
Or so I thought. I’ve been slammed at work the last few weeks.
Not that thoughts of Lucy haven’t crossed my mind.
They have. Every day. I just haven’t acted on them.
The stakes haven’t changed. We can’t start what we can’t finish.
As I head down the fire escape stairs of my building, my phone starts to vibrate in my hand, and Lucy’s name flashes up. Thank God.
“Lucy! I messaged you hours ago.”
“I’m at work. I have actual work to do at work. I don’t spend the day playing Candy Crush Saga like you.”
God, I’ve missed this girl. I can’t shake the grin off my face. “Good to hear your voice, Lucy.”
“Anyway,” she says, sounding slightly flustered, “I just got the message about Katherine and Ed being in town. Did you know about this?”
“Heard the same time as you. You know we’re on a group chat.”
“Wait, that’s a group chat?”
My smile only grows at her increasingly hysterical tone. I get to the bottom of the stairs and open the door into the heat of the New York afternoon. It’s bright, and I have to shield my eyes with my hand, like I’m a mole seeing the sun for the first time.
“They decided to fly down tonight so they could have dinner with us and a full day tomorrow for . . . some wedding-related thing. I glaze over as soon as she starts talking about wedding prep.”
“We need a plan,” Lucy says. “We should meet before. What time is it?”
I turn around and look up at the building Lucy indicated she worked in when we bumped into each other at Stranger than Fiction. “When are you getting off work?”
“Just now. I’m heading out. We have to meet them at seven, right?”
“And we wouldn’t want to be late,” I say under my breath. “So what’s your plan, Lucy Jones?”
At that moment, I see the woman herself come through the revolving door in the building next to mine. I stand and watch as she raises her face toward the sun, like she’s hoping to photosynthesize or something.
“You look cute,” I say.
She snaps her head around and sees me immediately. I don’t hate the way her smile fills her entire face as we lock eyes.
She wanders over, and I have time to take in her hourglass shape and the way she can make corporate-wear look sexy as hell.
“Hello, stranger. How long have you been standing out here waiting for me?”
“Just three or four hours.”
She laughs, and I can only stand and take it all in. She’s just beautiful.
“So how often have we seen each other these last few weeks?” she asks.
For a moment I’m stumped, then I realize she wants to create a cover story. “I’ve been busy at work. You’ve been busy at work. Maybe we grabbed lunch a couple of times.”
“Good,” she says. “That works. Katherine’s asked me a few times whether I’ve seen you. I’ve been pretty vague, but I mentioned lunch, so that tracks.”
We grab a cab, and as I slam the door shut, I’m reminded how small these cars are. Lucy and I haven’t been this close since Martha’s Vineyard.
She sweeps her hand down the skirt of her dress. “So,” she says. “How have you been?”
I chuckle at her attempt at small talk. “Like I said, really busy at work. What about you?”
“Yeah,” she replies. “Same. And . . .”
“And?”
“I don’t know. Something weird happened to me today.” I don’t respond, wanting her to tell me in her own time. “My boss’s boss—one of the junior partners—pulled me into her office and told me she wanted to mentor me.”
I try to catch her eye, but she stares out the window, toward the driver, down at her skirt—anywhere but at me.
“That sounds great,” I say. “Doesn’t it?”
Lucy sighs. “I think so. She was talking about how I have all this potential.” She bursts into a laugh, which doesn’t have the same unrestrained energy she normally does. “She was even talking about me going to law school—part-time, in the evening.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Right?” She finally looks at me. “That’s a crazy idea.”
“Is it? Do you want to go to law school?”
She chews the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t thought about it in a long time. Now I’m older. And there’s the debt. Potentially.” She shakes her head. “We need to be talking about stuff. Like, couple stuff.”
“I think that’s what we’re doing.”
She gives me that don’t mess with me look she wears so well, and I can’t help but smile in response. It’s good to see her. “Maybe we should meet for lunch for real between now and the wedding. Then we won’t have to invent a cover. We’ll have a ready-made one.”
She starts chewing her cheek again. “Maybe. But we need a cover in the next ten blocks.”
“We’re taking it slow. We haven’t stayed at each other’s places—that makes it easier than lying and getting ourselves into trouble. We’ve met for lunch a couple of times at Stranger than Fiction, and dinner once.”
“Or maybe we haven’t managed to make a dinner date. We arrange times, but either you’re working late, or I am, and we keep having to cancel.”
“Sounds good,” I say. “Are you mad?” I don’t know why I follow it up with the question. I guess I want to know if she would be mad if I canceled dinner because I had to work.
“Mad that you had to cancel? No way. You have your own business. I get how it works. It’s a twenty-four-hour job. I like that you’re so dedicated.”
She fumbles for something in her purse. She must feel me staring, because she glances up. “What?”
“For real that’s what you think, or is that part of—”
“For real,” she says. “Drive and ambition are attractive, you know?”
I do know.
“What does Katherine think about you going to law school?”
She brings out a tube of lip gloss and expertly applies it in a couple of sweeps. “She doesn’t know. I haven’t told anyone but you.” She smacks her lips together and drops the gloss back into her bag.
My heart inches higher in my chest, and I have the urge to scoop up her hand in mine or smooth my palm over her leg. I want to touch her.
“Here we are,” she says as the car pulls in. “Remember, if in doubt, stick as closely as possible to the truth.”
“Roger that,” I say.
Katherine and Ed are at the table already, and both grin up at us as we arrive.
Katherine squeals as she hugs her sister. “You came together. It’s so, so nice to be double dating.”
My stomach roils a little. I hate lying to Ed. We’ve known each other a long time. But everything is changing. Work has taken second place for him since he’s gotten serious with Katherine. And I’m feeling that.
“I just ordered the Bellinis,” Katherine says. “Those ones we had in Martha’s Vineyard were incredible. Didn’t we have the best time?”
I sling my arm across the back of Lucy’s chair. It was a great weekend.
“I can’t believe the size of that striped bass,” Ed says. “It was huge.”
Lucy turns to me. “You caught a fish? You didn’t tell me that.” She doesn’t say anything, but her expression says, I thought you didn’t like fishing.
“It was almost forty pounds,” Ed says before I can respond.
“Forty pounds?” Lucy says. “That’s the weight of a car or something, isn’t it?” She turns back to me. “You were okay?” She wants to ask me if I threw up.
I nod and Ed interrupts, “None of us caught anything close to the size Hunter did.”
“How interesting,” Lucy says.
“So tell us about you two. How’s it going?”
“We’re here to talk about you,” Lucy says. “What are you down here for?”
“Oh, just a suit fitting for Ed. And there’s a wedding store downtown that does really cool place settings. It’s huge on Insta. I thought I could take a look if I came down too.”
“And you don’t have to work?” I ask Katherine. I know Ed has plenty to do. But Katherine has a job too.
“I’ve gone part-time since Christmas,” she says, exhaling. “Makes life so much easier. I don’t know how I would have coped with all the wedding planning if I’d still been full-time.”
My jaw tenses a fraction, and I try not to let my rising stress show in my expression.
I know I shouldn’t find Katherine’s statement irritating, but I do.
Even if she’s doing more wedding planning than Ed, the fact that she felt the need to go part-time to accommodate speaks to her priorities, and Ed’s.
Lucy shifts in her chair and rests her hand on my leg. It’s unexpected but comforting. Her warm touch soothes me. I don’t know if it’s knowing that she gets what I’m thinking, or if it’s feeling like I have someone in my corner, but it feels good. My jaw relaxes.
“So is everything set now?” Lucy asks. “There can’t be much more to do, can there?”
Katherine laughs. “Oh, I can’t wait to say the same thing to you when you get married. It’s never-ending. I think because we’re having the full four days of dinners and lunches and stuff. It’s a lot.”
“Yeah, why are you doing that?” I ask.
“There’s a contingent coming from Oregon we were going to have to entertain anyway.
So then we thought if other people are traveling, we can’t not invite them too.
And then we figured we might as well just invite everyone to all the things!
” Katherine is grinning from ear to ear.
It sounds like this is exactly what she wants. But it’s a lot.
“It’s my idea of a perfect hell,” Lucy mumbles, and I tamp down a smile.
“What would you do?” Katherine asks. “Elope? Mom would go insane.”
“That’s why I’m never getting married,” Lucy says.
“Your mom wanted a big wedding?” I ask Katherine.
“Of course. She thinks it’s her wedding.” Katherine laughs, but I don’t think that’s funny. If all this ridiculous fuss was what they wanted, fine. But if it’s all just to please Mrs. Jones? Not fine.
“As long as I don’t have to marry your mother,” Ed says.
“Who picked the venue?” I say before I have a chance to realize that it’s none of my business and I don’t need to get involved.
“Mom has really good taste,” Lucy says.
“And there aren’t that many places in Boston,” Katherine says.