by Julia London
“Jesus,” Harry muttered.
“Mallory, I’ll help you,” Lola said. “Of course I’ll help you.”
“I don’t want you to help me!” Mallory shouted. “I can’t pay you!”
“Who said anything about money? I’ll help you because you are my friend.”
“No you won’t,” Mallory said, and dissolved into a fit of hiccups and tears as she sank onto her side across the back seat.
“How much did she drink?” Harry asked softly.
“Buckets?” Lola whispered back.
By the time they reached the lake house, Mallory had drifted off into la-la land, and it took Lola and Harry’s combined strength to maneuver her out of the car and into the house. At the door, Harry grew impatient with Mallory’s wobbly legs. He scooped her up in his arms. “Where do I put her?”
“My bed,” Lola said, and hurried behind him as he carried a giggling Mallory down the hall into the master suite. He deposited her on the bed, on top of the dresses she’d brought from New York, and shook his head. “She’s going to regret this in the morning if she remembers.”
They left Mallory on the bed and walked out into the living area, the two of them standing awkwardly at the end of the kitchen bar. Harry seemed to be thinking. Probably how to deliver the bad news.
“Well . . . thanks again,” Lola said, folding her arms across her. “For going with me tonight. And for helping me with Mallory.”
“I’m glad I was there. I don’t think you could have managed her on your own.”
Lola nodded. “You keep helping me, Harry. But you don’t have to, you know. Seriously, I think I can handle it from here.”
Harry gave her a look of bafflement. “Handle what?”
The way he had looked at Melissa kept flashing in her mind’s eye; she felt a burn in her belly and glanced down, unwilling to look at him just now.
“Lola?” He touched her face.
Lola held her breath. Maybe now he would say it had been great, but . . . Melissa. She almost wanted him to say those things so they could stop pretending that there was really something between them and go back to being temporary roommates.
“We should talk about Lissa.”
And now her heart was falling, sinking. She drew a deep breath.
“I know tonight was something of a surprise,” he said. “I know that must have come as a big shock to you.”
“To me? What about you?”
Harry combed his hair back with his fingers and looked away for a moment. “It was a shock to me, too,” he said.
“How do you feel about it?” she asked, and dug her fingernails into her palm as she waited for his answer.
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I thought—”
“She’s a great girl, Harry,” Lola blurted. “I can see why you love her.”
Harry looked at her strangely.
“You should totally get back together. I mean, it’s obvious that you still have feelings.”
“It is?”
“And Melissa, too,” she said, as she mentally tried to wrap steel bands around her fragile heart. She’d lost her footing somewhere tonight, and she had to find it again. She had set herself up for heartbreak and if there was one thing Lola knew how to do, it was to retreat from that. “I mean, I know she does. She told me at the Cantrells’ party.”
“She did?”
“She was talking about her ex, but yeah . . .” Lola shrugged. She glanced over her shoulder toward her bedroom. “I better keep an eye on Mallory.”
“How do you feel about it, Lola?” Harry asked, touching her face again.
He looked a little bewildered. But Harry understood the rules of friends with benefits and he knew that emotions weren’t supposed to get in the way. “Me?” Lola forced a smile. “Great! It’s great! What . . . are you worried about us?” She smiled and flicked her wrist dismissively. “Don’t be! Everything is cool. This wasn’t going to last much longer anyway, right?”
“Come on, you don’t mean that,” he said, and tried to draw her into his arms, but Lola resisted.
“I totally mean it,” she said. “You didn’t think that I . . . that I was falling for you, did you? I’ve really enjoyed it, and maybe in another place and time, sure. But I never thought this was anything more than friends with benefits. Honestly, once I’ve finished my book, I’m out of here.”
“But I—”
“I’d love to chat about it, but I better make sure Mallory is still breathing.”
Harry’s hands slid away from her. He clenched his jaw and stared at her, looking slightly annoyed. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Okay. I’ve got to get out of here early tomorrow. I’ll see you tomorrow night?” He sounded uncertain.
“Ah . . . sure,” Lola said, sounding just as uncertain.
Lola left him standing there and walked—fled—to her room, where Mallory was snoring like a pack of dogs. Why couldn’t she have met him a long time ago? Before Will, before Melissa? Why did it seem she was always one beat behind?
Twenty-two
Harry couldn’t sleep. He tossed around, periodically punching his pillow into a shape that never felt right.
At four in the morning, he couldn’t take it any longer and sat up, rubbing his face. Too many conflicting thoughts were skating around in his head, crashing into each other. Not the least of which had to do with the extraordinary meeting of the legendary Everett Alden last night. Not only had Harry met him, he’d had dinner with him, laughed with him, talked music and life with him. On any given day, he would have been ecstatic about that, calling up friends to tell them about it.
Unfortunately, that once-in-a-lifetime meeting had been completely overshadowed by the surprise appearance of Melissa.
And on the heels of that, the disappearance of Lola.
She hadn’t physically disappeared, but she may as well have. She’d withdrawn from him, clearly avoiding him after Melissa had arrived. It frustrated Harry that he couldn’t read Lola. Frankly, that came as no great shock to Harry—he’d always sucked when it came to understanding women. But he’d wanted to address Melissa’s surprise appearance with her, and unfortunately, Mallory had chosen this night to drink herself into oblivion. By the time they had wrangled her inside and into bed, Lola was distant and even a little short with Harry. Nothing overt, but noticeable to him.
And then there was Melissa. Melissa.
Harry got up and went into the office to work.
He opened his computer, stared at some figures, but what he was seeing was Melissa walking through that door. His heart had hitched a little when he’d seen her. She’d looked fantastic, and he was reminded of the first time he’d met her, likewise at a party, and he’d been bowled over by her beauty.
“How did you know I was here?” he’d asked her when they’d had a moment to talk.
“I didn’t know you’d be here, obviously. I’m here because I’m taking over Birta’s publicity tour.”
He frowned with suspicion. “Seems a little too convenient.”
“All right, Hazel told me you were in East Beach, and Andy told me who was on the guest list. Please don’t judge me, Harry. Is it a crime that I wanted to see you? I wouldn’t have come tonight at all if I’d known you’d already moved on.”
Had he moved on? The only thing Harry knew was that he’d always been so certain about Melissa . . . but he was terribly uncertain about her now.
Melissa had sensed his reluctance, his distance, and had touched his hand. “I’ve wanted to call you. I’ve been thinking a lot about us lately, and I wish . . . I wish we could give it another go, Harry.”
“Melissa—”
“If you don’t want to, I totally understand. But I really want to try again. I was so wrong about so many things,” she said, clasping her hands at her breast. “I want to prove to you that I am more understanding now and I want to help you realize your dreams. I should have been more supportive, I know I should have. I really miss us. Don’t you?”
No, he didn’t. He hadn’t missed Melissa in a few weeks and frankly, he hadn’t thought of her at all in the last two weeks. He stood there, gazing at the woman he thought would be his wife, wondering if he’d really moved on so quickly? Had he been so wrong about his feelings for her?
“You don’t have to give me an answer right now, obviously,” Melissa said. “But I’m asking you to think about it.” She lifted her gaze and locked it on his. “Just think about it. I love you, Harry.”
But Harry didn’t love Melissa anymore . . . at least he didn’t think he did. After years of doggedly pursuing his company, and failing thus far, all it took was one small plea from Melissa for him to question everything he wanted from life. He realized he’d had some questions he’d been ignoring. Those questions really had nothing to do with Melissa—and they had everything to do with Lola. She was the fresh air in his life.
Jesus. Somehow, some way, his world had been uprooted by a pair of women who were nothing alike.
Harry looked at his ledger again. He was leaking money, and dangerously close to being out completely. It occurred to him that he’d once been so certain of everything in his life—his woman, his business. Now, he was uncertain about everything. If he’d been so wrong about Melissa, maybe he’d been wrong about bridge construction, too.
Harry was in a black mood when he left for work before dawn. He walked quietly down the hall to the kitchen. The lights were out, but he could see Lola’s figure on the couch. She didn’t rouse in the least as he went into the kitchen and gathered a few things. He made coffee, picked up his things, and tiptoed out.
When Harry arrived home from work that night, Lola wasn’t there. She’d left him a covered dish in the fridge. It was labeled King Ranch Chicken. Help yourself. It was not the funny little note she typically left.
While Harry was wondering about Lola, Melissa was texting him. Thinking of you! she texted, along with a picture of her in one of his old T-shirts. And then, Remember the time we did this? and attached a picture of them at a ballgame.
Harry didn’t respond to her texts. He felt manipulated by them. Melissa had asked him to think about reconciliation and he didn’t think it was fair that she was trying to influence his thinking. Not that it mattered—he had no idea what he was thinking.
Half the week went by before Harry actually saw Lola, mainly because he was racing against the clock to finish his job and staunch the flow of money. That, and he didn’t know if he could be in the same house with Lola while Melissa was texting him notes and selfies while out with their mutual friends.
Ah, but Harry missed his roommate. He missed the smell of something delicious wafting through the house when he came home from work. He missed the banter, he missed her charming, dimpled smile, he missed her crazy little notes. By Thursday, Harry had finished his job, had lost money on it, and had nothing lined up.
He was as dejected as he’d ever been when he returned to the lake house.
He perked up when he saw Lola bobbing around in the pool on the big yellow rubber ducky.
“Hey, you,” she said when he walked out onto the terrace.
“Long time no see.” He squatted next to the pool. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d been avoiding me.”
“Really? I was thinking the same thing about you.”
She sounded like her old self, which was encouraging. “So where have you been?” he asked.
“Everywhere. For your information, I have gone from having no jobs to having two jobs. Well, except for today. Today I went into the city to pick up my nephews from summer day care and ride home with them, and I just got back. Ty was in a bind.”
Seemed a long way to go to pick up two kids from summer day care. Harry dipped his hand into the warm pool water. “Mind if I join you?”
He detected a slight hesitation, but Lola smiled brightly. “Sure!”
Harry returned a few minutes later in swim trunks and eased into the water. He swam across the pool and latched onto Lola’s ducky. She looked happy and pretty. Those sparkling blue eyes always got to him. “So you’ve got two jobs, huh?” he asked.
“I do. I’ve been seeing Birta for a couple of hours every day, and then I go to Mallory’s shop for a few more hours. She wasn’t kidding about dyslexia,” Lola said. “It’s really bad. Or, she skipped math altogether. I’m no mathematician, but I can at least add. Mallory? Not so much,” she said with a shake of her hand. She took a tumbler from the cup holder and drank through a straw.
“If you’re spending time with Birta and Mallory, when do you have time to write your book?” he asked curiously.
“Well,” she said, wincing slightly, “I hit a bit of a snag. I’m mulling over Sherri’s fate. I can’t decide if I want her to get away with it or get caught. Guess what? Birta looked at my pages.”
“And?”
“And she liked it! She said they showed real promise. And then, of course, she wanted to know what Hunky Harry thought of them.” Lola playfully splashed him. “Harry Westbrook, the object of every woman’s desire.”
He smiled wryly. “Not every woman.”
“Who doesn’t drool when you walk by?” she asked cheerfully, and held up a hand. “Birta,” she said, folding a finger. “Mallory, Melissa—”
“You don’t.”
“Me?” She splashed him again. “You’ve clearly forgotten our arrangement.”
“I haven’t forgotten a moment of it,” he said. “But it seems you have. You’ve been a little distant this week, Lola.”
To her credit, Lola didn’t deny it. She sighed and said, “I guess I have.”
Her honesty was both surprising and slightly alarming. “Mind if I ask why?”
“Really?” she said, splashing him playfully again. “Maybe because your ex came waltzing back into your life. Don’t you get it? I’m trying to give you space to reconnect, Harry,” she said grandly, and swept her arm across the surface of the pool.
“Who said I’m reconnecting with my ex?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
Harry groaned and dragged his hand over his hair. “I’m not.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Thanks. Listen, Lola, I—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Harry,” she said quickly. “I knew what I was getting in to.”
“Say what?”
“We hooked up, that’s all,” she said flatly.
He did not care for the way that sounded. So . . . impersonal. So mechanical. So meaningless. “Is that really what we were doing? Is that really the way you feel about it?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” she said, nodding adamantly. “You and I sat on the terrace right there and you said it, no strings attached.”
“Yeah, I did,” he admitted. “But I really like you, Lola. A lot.”
“Great. Thank you,” she said pertly.
“Hey,” he said, his voice full of warning.
Lola sighed. She pinched her nose between her fingers, as if staving off a headache. “Here’s the thing, Harry. I really like you, too.” She dropped her hand. “But if Will had ever once said he wanted me back, I would have been ecstatic. No matter what had happened between us, all the hurts, all the betrayals . . . if he’d wanted me back, I would have gone back to him. So I get it. I understand. There is something about that big love you can never let go.”
“You’re kidding,” Harry said. “After what he did to you?”
“Well, of course, that all changed after the puppy. But Melissa didn’t bring you a puppy. She brought you herself. And I saw how you looked at her.”
Harry started to shake his head, but Lola kicked away from him. “I don’t hold it against you at all, you know. But you don’t need the complication of me in making that decision.”
“You’re not complicating my decision,” he argued. “I don’t want to go backward, Lola. I would like to see where we go,” he said, gesturing between
them. “But I want to know what you want.”
“I want friends with benefits,” she said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
He didn’t believe her. He could see it in her eyes even now—she was lying, and he didn’t understand why. “Why are you saying that? Why can’t you admit to your feelings?” he asked softly.
“Why can’t you?” she returned. “You can’t tell me that a part of you doesn’t want to be back with Melissa, in New York, with your friends and the life you built there.”
Harry was momentarily stymied by the tiny kernel of truth in that. It wasn’t that he wanted Melissa—he didn’t. What he wanted was the life. He wanted the picture Lola had just painted. “We could have that life, too, you know.”
Lola laughed. “Are you serious? You don’t know me, Harry. You think you do, but you don’t.”
But wasn’t that the point of being with someone? To know them?
Lola misunderstood his hesitation. “You’ll thank me for it someday. Oh, I almost forgot,” she said as the ducky twirled in circles. “Mallory is hosting a barbecue so you can meet Albert Cantrell.”
Harry smiled a little lopsidedly. “Thanks, but I think we already tried that.”
“No, this is for real. It’s part of the deal I made with her. I told her I would help her with the candy shop, but she had to make that meeting between you and her dad happen.”
There was something all wrong with this little chat they were having. Lola was being too understanding, too giving. “You did that for me?”
“I owed you. But don’t thank me yet,” she said lightly. “It’s possible that he won’t like you at all, you know. You don’t have the same effect on men as you do on women, I’ve noticed. You’re too good-looking for guys, I suspect.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Definitely. You’ve got that Men’s Health thing going. You look like a cover model trying to pretend he’s a big bad bridge guy instead of a gym rat. Oh, and Birta is coming. She’s been asking about you all week. I thought I should toss her a bone and invite her, too, while I was at it. You’re welcome.”
