Chapter 8 #4
“I think if we could get them out of there for two hours, maybe, right beforehand, and then somebody can lead them over there at the right time...” Addison was saying, an amused note in her voice.
“I’m going to need Walker for the fine details, but Nolan, maybe you and Lila can take them out for drinks beforehand or something. ”
“Yeah. Sure,” Lila said quickly, giving him a furtive glance.
“Wonderful. So the rest of everything, we can just talk about over dinner.”
Dinner was, as usual, spectacular, and Nolan found himself drawn into a conversation with Cara and Zane about the horse business, while Lila was beside him chatting with Addison. His ears twitched, however, when he overheard his name.
“You and Nolan are a dynamic duo.”
His head whipped around sharply, and he looked at Lila, who was listening to Addison.
“I don’t know if I’d say that,” Lila said.
“Sure you are. You’re the perfect couple to help with this ruse.”
“We are not a couple. Not even close,” Nolan added.
Lila turned, realizing then that he had inserted himself into the conversation, her cheeks getting red.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Addison said. “I just meant that every time I’m around, you guys drift together. Even if you’re yelling at each other.”
Was that true? Did they do that?
“Oh,” Addison said, tapping the center of the table.
“I have another idea. And maybe I’m being ambitious or arrogant or something planning this for right after the election.
An election I may not win. But they do this wonderful gingerbread jubilee over in Medford, and all the gingerbread house sales go to charity.
They also do a festival of trees, and the sales from those decorated trees go to charities in the community.
I was thinking that maybe we could combine the concept of those two events and have people in the community decorate trees and gingerbread houses for people to come and see and bid on. ”
“Well, that sounds great,” Cara said. “I’d love to make a gingerbread house.”
“Wonderful. I’ll write you down.”
Then Lila got a very excited look on her face. “Oh, I wonder if we could have one of those giant gingerbread houses, like the kind they have at Disneyland, right here in the lobby. A replica of the hotel. That would be so cool.”
Pike lifted a brow. “And a lot of work.”
“Sure. But there are talented people all over the place around here. I’m sure if I ask Laney, she can find somebody.”
“Pastry is a specialty,” Pike pointed out, uncharacteristically serious. “And something like that, something architectural, that takes a little bit more expertise.”
“Well, I’ll put feelers out,” Addison said.
Pike shrugged and went back to his dinner.
The way that Addison came up with ideas, problems, and solutions in cheerful rapid fire was really something. Definitely something that made her perfect for Walker, who was quite the schemer and dreamer himself.
Nolan had ideas, but his ideas involved a lot less interacting with the public.
His mind kept returning to what Addison had said. That he and Lila were something of a duo.
He would never have said that, but this was forcing him to retroactively review the way that they interacted with each other.
She was right, it was often hostile.
But she was also right that they still tended to find each other.
Maybe that was something to think about.
Or maybe it wasn’t. Though, as they wrapped up the meal, he realized they were going to have to present as a duo yet again.
Considering they had come together, and now they would be leaving together.
Thankfully, they had another few days’ reprieve.
And he intended to take it and actually make it a Lila-free space.
Because this was an anomaly, an aberration, and he didn’t intend anything to encourage it. Didn’t intend to do anything to foster this particularly fucked-up seed that had been planted inside of him.
Lila’s life was her business. Her love life, most of all, was her business. It had nothing to do with him, and lord almighty, he didn’t want it to.
They got back into her truck after dinner, and he examined her profile in the darkness on their silent drive back to his place.
She was his best friend’s little sister. And yet when he looked at her now, he saw Lila. Herself. A person that he knew on her own. A woman whose accomplishments spoke for themselves, and didn’t need to be hidden in the shade beneath Cody’s branch of the family tree.
“See you in a couple of days,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “See you then.”
“I guess we can talk about how exactly we’re going to get Marlowe and Cody off-site before the party once we’re back up in the woods.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Sounds reasonable. I’m sure we’ll think of something. Dynamic duo that we are.”
She said that last part dryly, and he laughed, even if it was forced, as he got out of the truck and closed the door behind him.
Lila was a damned delight sometimes. And her own person.
And those final two thoughts did a lot to disrupt the narrative he had been trying to hide behind.
So a break was going to have to be enough.