Chapter Eight
Lilah
"You look like you're ready to throw up." I eye Sarah with amusement as she scrubs her hands down her sides for the fifth time in the last sixty seconds. The shop is closing soon, and she has a date.
I think she'd rather be tortured on a rack than go.
"I might," she mumbles, her eyes wide and stricken. "I've never been on a blind date before. What if he takes one look at me and runs in the opposite direction, leaving me sitting at the bar by myself all night?"
"Then we're keying his car and egging his house," Jazz swears, her eyes flashing behind the counter. "It'll be the least of what he deserves for being too blind to see what's right in front of him."
"You mean the ball of barely functioning anxiety?" Sarah retorts, her voice shaking too much for the sarcasm to come through.
"No. I'm talking about the shy goddess who knows every action movie ever made, can read an entire 800-page book in a day, knows how to shake her ass, and looks like a million dollars," Jazz says, smirking at her. "You're beautiful, Sarah. If your date doesn't see it, fuck that guy."
Sarah laughs quietly, her cheeks pink.
"Jazz is right," I say, smiling at her. "You are beautiful. Especially in that dress."
"Are you sure you don't need me to stay?" she asks me, also for the fifth time. "I can cancel."
I almost give her the out she obviously wants.
It's clear she doesn't really want to go.
Frankly, I'm not sure why she signed up for a dating service to begin with, not because she's shy and anxious, but because I'm almost positive she has feelings for Olive's brother, Jasper.
She adamantly refuses to talk about him, but anytime he stops in to see Olive, she can't keep her eyes off him.
She's desperate for an excuse—any excuse—to call this date off.
But even if this guy isn't the one for her, it's about time she went out and had a little fun. Maybe it'll give her the courage she needs to face her feelings for Jasper.
"You absolutely cannot cancel," Olive cries, stepping out of the back with her hands on her hips, ready for battle. "You're going on your date, or I'm disowning you!"
"You can't disown me. I know all of your secrets."
Olive just glares at her. "You're going, Sarah. I'll tie you up in my car and carry you to the restaurant myself if I have to do it."
Jazz nods, backing her up.
Who knows? Maybe it'll work out for her. Something around here needs to work out right for once.
Things were going so great with Lincoln before he found out I wasn't putting in a bid.
Like…freakishly great. But things have been…
weird since he found out that he's getting the building.
He still says all the right things. He even spent the night with me again the night before last, before heading back to San Francisco yesterday.
He kept me up all night, giving me orgasms until I couldn't take any more.
He looks at me like I'm the most important thing in his world.
But he was acting weird before he left, almost like he was hiding something. And then he rushed back to his office to handle an emergency at work.
I don't even know when he'll be back. He didn't say.
It's making me nuts. We haven't talked about the building again since lunch the other day, but it feels like a mountain standing between us, bigger than it was before he knew I wasn't putting in a bid.
I don't know what to do about it, either. But I'm beginning to feel like Jazz was right. There's no way this is going to work when it started how it did—with us on opposite sides, fighting over this building. Maybe we were foolish to think it could be more.
The thought kills me a little. It's been killing me ever since he left.
I don't want this to be over. I don't want to ruin something so damn good because I'm in my feelings.
But it's so damn hard to untangle the way I feel.
He makes me crazy happy. And losing this place makes me crazy sad.
It's all twisted up together with the exact same starting point.
How do you go about separating something that shares the same thread?
I don't know.
"You're quiet," Jazz says once Sarah is on her way to meet her date, with Olive leaving behind her to go home. "You okay?"
"Yeah, fine." I huff a breath, my shoulders hunching. "No. I think maybe you were right."
"I usually am. About what this time?"
"Me and Lincoln," I whisper. "Maybe we aren't meant to work out, and I was stupid to think we could."
"I never said that," Jazz protests.
"It's true, though, isn't it?" I ask, my eyes on the woodgrain of the counter. It's blurry with tears. "He was so weird before he left yesterday. It's starting to feel like maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking this could work."
"Do you want it to work?" she asks.
"So bad," I whisper, my heart in my throat. "I…"
"You love him."
I nod, swallowing hard. "I don't even know how it happened.
It wasn't supposed to happen! But now it has, and I don't know what to do.
I'm going to lose him and my building, all because I let myself like him when I knew it was a stupid thing to do.
I don't want to lose him, Jazz. I don't want his bid on this building to be between us forever, but it already feels like it's a mountain standing in the way. "
And it's so stupid. It's just a building, right?
Except…it's not. It's about more than that.
This is my dream, the one thing I've sacrificed everything to make work.
I've poured my soul into this place; from the café I designed to the paint colors I mixed to the shelves Jazz and I installed ourselves.
And now, I have to watch it be torn down to fit someone else's dream.
I'm trying to be okay with that, but now, for some reason, he isn't okay with it. I don't get it. He's getting what he wants. So why does it still feel like it's coming between us?
"There's a simple solution to this," Jazz says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and then laying her head against mine. "Call your dad. Let him buy the building. Lincoln told me that he won't try to outbid you. I think he wants you to win, Lilah. You just have to want it, too."
"I do want it."
"You have to want it bad enough to call your dad," she corrects.
"You think having family in your corner is a bad thing, but you're wrong.
You aren't running to your dad to solve all your problems, bestie.
You're running to him for help solving the ones too big for you to solve on your own.
That's what you're supposed to do. It's what he'd want you to do. Don't break your own heart here."
Maybe she's right. Hell, she's usually right.
I'm just…stubborn. I've always been stubborn, unwilling to lean on anyone because I wanted to do it all by myself.
I wanted to be responsible for myself and my dreams and goals, because I've always felt like if they were only mine, they somehow meant more.
But life isn't supposed to be a solitary endeavor, is it? We're supposed to lean on each other.
Maybe this is the universe's way of teaching me that lesson. I can't do everything on my own. Not unless I want to risk losing more than I can afford. And I can't afford to lose Lincoln.
"I'll call him," I sigh, giving in because she's right. She's been right all along. And if I don't start listening, I'm not just going to lose the building of my dreams, I'm going to lose the man of my dreams, too. I can't take that risk. It's just not worth it.
"Really?" Jazz asks.
"Really."
She squeals, flinging her arms around me in a bone-crunching hug. "Fucking finally!" she shouts in my ear. "Oh my god, Lilah. I thought we were going to have to pack this whole store, and I was going to have to stop talking to you for at least a year. You know how much I hate manual labor."
I chuckle, shaking my head. "Don't start packing yet."
"Oh, I'm not." She plants her lips against my cheek in a big kiss. "I'm going to dinner with Loralei."
"I thought you were helping me close tonight."
She shrugs, shooting me an impish grin. "No can do. River Jamison gave a talk at the library last year, which means she knows him. Which means she can help me convince him to hold his next signing here."
"I thought you decided he was a jerk?"
"He is a jerk. And he's rude. And he had the audacity to threaten to have me removed from his property." Her eyes flash unholy fire. "Obviously, I'm going to torture him until he agrees to give me what I want."
"You're going to end up with a restraining order."
"If that's where he ties me to his bed, I might be in." She waggles her brows, making me laugh. "I can do a lot with hot and cranky."
I shake my head at her, still laughing. River Jamison better watch out. He's gotten under her skin, and no one ever manages to do that. She's going to give him hell to make him pay for it.
"See you tomorrow," she says, blowing me a kiss.
"See you tomorrow," I call, but she's already rushing through the door. I laugh again, staring after her. God, I love her. My life is way more interesting with her in it.
I spend a few minutes tidying up and locking the doors, trying to distract myself.
Eventually, though, my mind takes a sharp right from the task at hand to Lincoln.
He's never far from my mind anymore. Now that we're sleeping together, he's haunting me even worse than he did before.
Except…he's not even here for me to enjoy it.
"Ugh," I groan, snatching my phone off the counter.
Me: Hey. Just wanted to check in. Hope your work emergency is going well.
I hit send before I realize how lame that sounds, but it's too late to take it back now. The deed is already done. I wait for a moment, hoping for a text back, but my phone is infuriatingly silent. Aside from a text early this morning, I haven't heard from him all day.