8. Lila
Chapter eight
Lila
“You need to leave,” I say as JT walks into the living room. I’m sitting on the couch, trying to force my heart rate to slow, but the thought of him staying here keeps ratcheting it back up. The last thing I need while I’m starting a new job—one I had never even heard of before I met Kelsey—and trying to integrate myself into a new community is JT Johnson messing with my head.
He casually strolls to the armchair. “No, I don’t think I will,” he says as he sits down.
I want to punch him in the face, but that would be admitting he’s getting to me, which I can’t allow to happen.
“You need to leave,” I repeat, narrowing my eyes as JT lounges in the armchair like he owns the place. The audacity.
He leans back, resting his ankle casually on his knee, and smirks. “Sorry, but Jameo invited me. You know, the guy who actually pays for the place.”
I glare at him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Well, Jameson isn’t here right now, so technically, as his blood, this is my territory.”
He tilts his head, pretending to consider my words. “Territory? What are we, wolves?”
“Considering how you’ve all but peed on that chair, yeah, I’d say so,” I shoot back. “Now, unless you want me to call Jameson and let him know you’re harassing his little sister, I suggest you find somewhere else to be. Like maybe your house. Or Siberia. I truly don’t care as long as it’s not the one place I am.”
JT chuckles, low and infuriatingly confident. “Harassing? I’m just sitting here, Lila. You’re the one getting all worked up.”
“I’m not worked up,” I lie, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks.
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh really? You’ve been glaring at me like you want to rip my head off since I walked in.”
“Because you’re infuriating,” I bite out.
He shrugs. “Some might call it charming.”
“They would be idiots.”
He grins, that infuriating, cocky grin that makes me want to simultaneously scream and—no, I’m not going there.
“No, you’re definitely not," he says. "You’ve always been…special.”
I narrow my eyes. “Special? That’s rich, coming from the guy who thinks he’s God’s gift to golf.”
He laughs, a genuine sound that throws me off for a second. “Not even I can convince myself of that these days.”
For a moment, there’s a strange silence between us, filled with the tension of unspoken words and too many shared memories. I shake my head, determined not to let it affect me.
“Seriously, JT, just go. I’ve got work to do, and I don’t need you lurking around, distracting me.”
He leans forward slightly, his expression softening just enough to make my heart do an unwelcome flip. “Lila, I’m not here to distract you. I’m just trying to figure things out too.”
I scoff, leaning back into the couch. “Figure things out? Like what? How to be more insufferable?”
He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “No, how to be less of a screw-up.”
That throws me for a loop, and for a second, I don’t know how to respond. But I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me soften.
“Well, good luck with that,” I say, standing up and brushing past him toward the kitchen. “Maybe consider flying to your golf tournament early instead of bothering me here.”
He watches me go, and I can feel his eyes on my back, the weight of whatever tension lies between us growing heavier. But I refuse to look back, even as my heart races with the mixture of anger and something else I can’t quite name.
***
“Don’t do this to me!” I plead into the phone.
On the other end of the line, Jameson and Bryn both laugh. I sneaked out of the house this morning after getting ready for work in complete silence, choosing not to make myself breakfast or coffee out of fear it would call JT to the kitchen like a smoke signal. But now I’m hangry, uncaffeinated, and on speakerphone with two happily in love people. It feels like the world is ganging up on me.
“Lila, the guy needs somewhere to be,” Jameo replies.
Bryn continues as if they are part of a hive mind now, “He’s been playing like shit recently, and he has to sit out due to an injury. You don’t want him sitting at home with his horrid mother stewing, do you?”
“Bryn!” my brother chides his girlfriend lightly. “You’ve never even met his mom.”
“Yeah, well, she sounds like a real piece of work from what you’ve told me. And JT is the sweetest guy ever.”
“Hey!” Jameo says, before the sounds of a scuffle and good-natured laughing come through the phone. Ugh. People in love should have to keep their cuteness locked down until at least ten in the morning. I hear Bryn say, “You know I would never want to be with the sweetest guy ever.” I consider hanging up on the two of them, but instead, I yell, “Back to me, please!” directly into the phone, startling the woman walking on the other side of Main Street from me.
Great. Now I’m going to be the crazy new girl who yells into her phone—not the image of professionalism and poise I’m hoping to maintain.
“I’m one minute away from my first day of work, and you have not taken care of the pest problem at your house yet.”
“Just be nice to him, Lila. He’s going through a rough time. And you two were once buddies, remember?”
I hate when my brother decides to be all logical about things. But if I keep complaining now, I’m going to look like a petulant child who is throwing a temper tantrum.
“Fine. He can stay,” I say.
“And you’ll try to be nice to him?” my brother prompts.
“And I will do my best not to kill him or destroy his already fragile ego.”
“I suppose that’s all I can ask. Okay, Sis, well, I’ll let you go. Have an awesome first day of work.”
“Say hi to everyone for me!” Bryn yells as I hang up on them.
I am so excited about my job, but at the same time, I don’t love that I’m working for my brother’s girlfriend’s sister and, on top of that, working in the same office as her other sister and other sister’s best friend. It just feels like a lot of nepotism at play, and since the marriage portion of my life plan isn’t going well, I feel like I need the professional half to really step it up. I’m worried people are going to think I got the job because of Jameson—something I’ve been trying to avoid my whole life. I guess I’m also the tiniest bit worried that I actually did only get the job because of Jameson. I hadn’t even known what a project manager for a cybersecurity firm was until I met Kelsey a few months ago, let alone what one actually does. I feel woefully unprepared for my job, though I’ve been doing my best to project confidence and competence.
I walk into the office to find Izzy and Becca already there, dressed in business casual and in deep conversation with one another, looking to all the world like the successful consulting business owners they are. Seeing the two of them like this makes it a lot clearer why Flat Roads Consulting is being pursued by multiple venture capitalist firms.
“Morning,” I say, slipping my backpack off my shoulders and moving toward the empty desk. “This one mine?”
Both women jump up from their seats, rushing toward me to say hello. Their desks sit next to each other with their backs to an exposed brick wall and about five or six feet of space between them. My desk isn’t far away but is set with the back to the wall opposite of the front windows rather than perpendicular to them like theirs.
“Morning!” they both say as Izzy leans in to give me a quick hug. “You remember my friend Becca, right?” she says by way of introduction.
“Of course. Hi, Becca.”
“So excited to have you as a new officemate, Lila.”
“I picked up some coffee and scones from the coffee shop for us,” Izzy says, moving back to her desk before handing me a to-go coffee cup like the absolute queen she is.
“Oh, this is just what I needed,” I moan as the first splash of coffee hits my bloodstream. Taking in the lack of branding on the side of the stark white cup, I say, “I guess when you are the only coffee shop in town, you don’t have to have your logo on your cup.”
“Wild Brews gave it up a few years ago now. Much cheaper this way,” Becca responds. “Plus, everyone just refers to it as ‘the coffee shop,’ so why bother?” She shrugs her shoulders before continuing, “How is your morning going? How’s the house?”
“Great!” I force a smile onto my face.
“Really?” asks Izzy. “Because word on the street is that JT Johnson is also staying out at Jameson’s place. And if I remember Phoenix correctly, there’s a lot of…tension…between the two of you.”
“Ugh.” I let out a groan and sink into my new office chair, taking a sip of coffee to steel myself. “How can you possibly already know that? I just got off the phone with Bryn.”
Izzy laughs. “Oh, you poor, na?ve newbie. This is Wild Bluffs. I don’t need Bryn for this information, though, if we’re being honest—which I always like to be—she told us you might both end up staying out there like a week ago. No, we ran into Mary at the coffee shop this morning.”
Becca must notice the confused look on my face, because she says, “Mary is the manager and concierge out at WBCC. I guess JT got lost on his way last night and had to call for directions.”
I giggle and file that away to torture JT with later.
“Sooo?” Izzy asks.
I drop my head into my hands. “It’s so much worse than you could possibly imagine.”
“Oooo. This sounds juicy. Tell us everything,” Becca says, settling back into her chair behind her desk. Izzy does the same, and I notice the three desks are situated so the occupants can easily see and chat with each other, the computer screens positioned to offer a view between them.
“Oh, it’s my first day of work. I don’t think I should be exposing all my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Now I know it’s juicy,” Becca says.
“You don’t work for us,” Izzy adds. “Not that that would stop us from prying into your personal life, but we would feel worse about it.”
“We aren’t prying, Iz,” says Becca. “If she doesn’t want to tell us, she definitely doesn’t have to.”
I know I shouldn’t tell them about JT and me. We are way too connected, and they literally just demonstrated how fast gossip moves in this town. But, at the same time, Elise is also just starting her new job, so I’m not sure when we are going to be able to debrief this whole JT thing. I feel like if I don’t tell someone, I’m going to explode. And, based on the way Jameson and Bryn have been acting toward each other lately, Izzy and I are essentially sisters-in-law in everything except name.
Still. “I don’t know…”
“Fine,” says Izzy. “I won’t pressure you. But just know, if you do want to talk about anything, like, say, the fact that you and JT disappeared for a while at the same time in the bar in Phoenix but then acted like you hated each other when you came back, Becca and I actually can keep a secret. We can gossip with the best of them, but if we are ever told something is a secret, our lips are sealed.”
I take a deep sip of my coffee and then look at my watch. I arrived fifteen minutes early today, so I should have enough time to at least give them the highlights. But where to start?
“Well…if you’re sure you can keep it a secret?”
“Of course,” says Becca. Izzy pantomimes locking her lips and throwing away the key.
“Well, to really understand, you have to start a lot farther back. JT and Jameson knew each other when they were playing in Juniors and then both ended up joining the same college team. They became inseparable, and Jameson would invite JT home every holiday and any time we were having a party or some family event. He’s been to every Thanksgiving of ours for the last ten years.”
“Does he not have parents around?” asks Becca.
Izzy shushes her. “That’s a question for a different day, Beccs!”
“They are both still around,” I say, answering her question anyway. “They are just…different from my parents or the Harpers. They…” I trail off, unsure how to describe the complicated relationship between JT and his parents. “...have different priorities, I guess.”
“Okay, now we have to dig into that later,” Izzy says. “But for now, keep going. We are like ten years away from the juicy details.”
“Well, long story short, JT and I became friends too. He was around at every holiday, and he would let me tag along with him and Jameson even if I was four years younger than them and a very mediocre golfer. And sure, I had a little girl crush on him, but who wouldn’t? I mean, you’ve seen the man. They’ve literally published articles about how good-looking he is.”
Becca nods her agreement, but Izzy shrugs. “I see his appeal, but the blonde surfer boy look has never really done it for me.”
I gape at her with wide eyes and notice Becca doing the same.
“I…I don’t know how to respond to that. Though there is a not-small subset of the romance community who would agree with you. They hate blonde main characters for unknown reasons,” I say.
Breaking apart one of the scones from the bakery, I continue my tale, purposely downplaying the horrible party where everything went wrong when I was 18, and focusing on the enemies-to-elevator-kissing-to-banging-in-Vegas story.
“And we went back to fighting about everything. I think it was our most insufferable Thanksgiving yet,” I conclude with a sigh.
“Bryn may have mentioned something about that,” Izzy says, and I’m not sure if she’s joking or not.
“It wasn’t my best moment.” I wave my hand as if my intentional goading of JT to fight with me about our hookup could be dismissed as nothing. Maybe it was nothing. He definitely never took the bait.
“And then we were at that bar together in Phoenix. And, well, you were there, Iz. We all had a few beers waiting, and I had had a few before that, and we just happened to pass each other in that little hallway back by the bathrooms. And I swear, our shoulders bumped, and it was like a switch inside me was flipped. All of a sudden he was pulling me into the dark back corner, or shit, maybe I was pulling him, but either way, we were making out with some serious hand action. And then one of the bartenders pushed into the back door and…we weren’t anymore.”
“And then?” Becca asks.
At that moment, Kelsey walks through the door, carrying her laptop and the world’s smallest cup of coffee.
“And then nothing,” I say. “The next time we talked was last night when he showed up unannounced and declared we’re going to be roommates for the next six weeks.”
But maybe, just maybe, I have a plan for how to get rid of him sooner.