Page 34 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

Chapter 8

PRESENT DAY

“We’re not doing so hot tonight,” I say when we get back to the limo…which has a flat tire.

After crawling back through the broken fence, we spotted Jackson crouched down, sleeves rolled to the elbows and a spare tire leaned up against the curb. He told us to hang out for a bit while he fixed it, and I offered to help, but the look he gave me basically said to back the hell off. So I took the time to stop the nosebleed.

Rian rises on her toes and kisses my cheek. When I look down at her with wide eyes, she says, “Do you believe in fate?”

I take the bloodstained material away from my nose. “Not really. You?”

She leans in and waggles her eyebrows. “I’m abigbeliever in fate.”

I thought she’d say something more, so I stand there like an idiot for a few seconds, waiting for her to continue, but she never does. So I start humming the tune to “She Was There” under my breath just to fill the silent air. I haven’t sung it since I was in the play in school. It was my senior year in college and I was nervous as hell, and I was in the apartment I shared with Landon practicing when he walked in with Lizzie and Theresa.

“Wow, keep singing,” Lizzie said as the door shut behind them. I sort of laughed it off and put my sheet music down.

“Sorry, didn’t expect company.” I scratched the back of my head to try to hide the blush I’m sure was making my ears red. I wasn’t exactly singing on key.

“But you soundedso good.” Lizzie plopped herself down on the edge of our unusually clean coffee table (really, that should’ve tipped me off that we’d be having guests, since Landon had sprayed the entire place with Febreze and wiped it down), and Landon laughed and gave her a look like he’d never before seen such a beautiful girl. My stomach jerked with surprise. I remember that perfectly. Because Landon had described his girlfriend as a goddess, I was expecting Aphrodite herself when I finally met Lizzie. And yeah, Lizzie is beautiful: blond hair and sweet eyes and a very young face (granted, she was eighteen at the time). But when they all walked in, I immediately thought Theresa was this goddess girlfriend. I saw these amazing wide, fiery eyes, long and unruly cherry Coke hair, and curves that just about gave me a heart attack where I stood. And she was smiling this crooked, amused smile that sent goose bumps up and down my arms. Ten thousand pounds of bro-code guilt was consuming me until I saw the look Landon was directing toward Lizzie, and suddenly I was a fumbling all-out mess because there was a possibility that this gorgeous girl was available.

“I…um…I don’t quite know the notes yet, so it’s just…” My eyes followed Theresa as she crossed the room, sat behind the keyboard we had set up in the corner, and placed her fingers on the keys. “A work in progress,” I finished weakly.

“The Scarlet Pimpernel,right?” she asked, and before I could nod she started playing the notes without music.

Landon sat down next to Lizzie, held her hand, and played with her knuckles while she waited for me to sing. They were all waiting. Yet I was captivated by the girl playing the piano.

“Tell me something no one else knows,” Rian says, pulling me out of yet another daydream.

“I can’t.” I shake my head at the cracked sidewalk. “There’s one person who knows everything already.”

“Everything?”

“I think so.”

She slumps against the crumbling brick of the building, crossing her arms and eyeing Jackson as he loosens the lug nuts. I want to punch myself in the face for being such a dud. Tonight was supposed to be about moving on, but all I’ve done is just moved around like a dog on a leash—going with her here and there and half-assing our conversation, daydreaming and moping—and I’m not going to do that anymore. She spent money on my sorry ass, and not only that, she’s not exactly aboringgirl. She was so real up there on the roof.

“I can’t whistle.”

Her eyes flick to mine. “Really?”

I put my lips together and blow. Nothing. Like always.

“Aww,” she says with a laugh, leaning up from the wall. “That’s so sad.”

“Only time it hurt me was during a play. They had to have someone whistle from backstage.”

She stifles her laughter, and Jackson drops the tire iron, drawing our attention to him again for a split second.

“I’d try putting your lips closer together.”

“Any closer and I’ll be imitating a fish.”

She rolls her eyes and puts her hand on my face. “Like this,” she says, squishing my lips together with her thumb and forefinger. Laughter barrels up from my gut, the first time I’ve felt it come from there tonight.

“Don’t smile!” she scolds, squishing my lips with more pressure. Once I’ve controlled most of my laughter she says, “Now blow.”

“Pbbsthhh.”

---