Page 38 of Lilly
Chapter Nine
Lilly
The week has flown by.It seems like one minute we were in London and the next I’m getting ready for dinner with Joe and Natalie. Nothing has been mentioned about Lucas’ past since Saturday night, and for the short amount of time I have seen him, he has been his usualself.
He spent a few days here before disappearing back up to Yorkshire to try to deal with some stuff going on up there. He tried to make me sleep at the hotel with him but I refused. I needed to get home so I could sort stuff out for uni and generally get some sleep. I hadn’t had that much over the weekend and I was suffering for it. I only had a couple more weeks left before everything needed to be handed in—it was the final push. I’ve worked hard for almost three years; I’m not going to let Lucas distract menow.
I managed to pin Taylor down on Thursday afternoon so we could go shopping for something for me to wear tonight. He helped me choose a light floral summer dress, seeing as the weather is still unseasonablywarm.
Taylor spotted immediately that I’d put weight on and he was beyond excited for me that I now had boobs again after the amount I’d lost after Jake. He made sure the dress we chose showed off my new assets to theirbest.
Taylor still isn’t the same bubbly person I first met. Something is weighing him down which is so unlike him. I know his parents often take their toll on him with their overbearing opinions of how he should live his life. I can’t imagine that’s changed, but this is different. He won’t tell me though, and it’s bugging the hell out of me. Especially when he insists I tell him everything about Lucas. I’m more than happy to tell all, but it irritates me a little that he won’t do the same. I can only hope he will when he’sready.
I’m just doing my lipstick when the buzzer starts ringing. I quickly finish it off before giving myself a once over in themirror.
“Wow, you look beautiful,” Lucas says as soon as he seesme.
“No—lipstick,” I say, putting my hand up when he leans in to kissme.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ll make up for it later.” I smile to myself as the memory of Lucas covered in my lipstick in the hotel last weekend springs into mybrain.
“You’d better,” he grumbles. “Have you packed for theweekend?”
“Yeah, it’s on my bed if you want to grabit.”
I watch him leave the room. I wasn’t sure how fancy the place was going to be tonight, but I’m a little relieved to see that Lucas is only wearing trousers and a shirt. If it was really fancy, he’d have a suiton.
“Come on then,” he says once he’s got my weekend bag in his hands. I might have got away with not staying with him overnight at the beginning of the week, but I didn’t stand a chance thisweekend.
The smiles on Joe and Natalie’s faces when we walk towards the table are hilarious. When we get close enough, they both totally ignore Lucas and greet me. It’s like he’s not eventhere.
“Oh my God. We’re so excited to meet you, Lilly. We never thought we’d see the day. We’ve nagged him for years to—” Lucas interrupts Natalie’s excitement by clearing histhroat.
“Oh, hey, Luc. How are you doing?” Joeasks.
“Oh, so you did notice I’m here,” he says with a laugh as he pulls a chair out forme.
Joe starts asking Lucas details about the fire. I begin to listen but Natalie starts asking questions. All the usual ones, I guess. What do I do? Where did we meet? All that kind of stuff. I answer everything she throws at me and I soon find that I like Natalie a lot. She’s really sweet and it’s obvious she cares aboutLucas.
“So have you guys all known each other a long time then?” I ask once our starters have been clearedaway.
“We all went to secondary school together in Gloucester, but we weren’t friends then. Nat and I were the goodie two shoes kids. Luc, on the other hand…well…wasn’t,” Joe answers, but then gets a little unsure of himself at the end. I guess he doesn’t know how much I know about Lucas. And in all honesty, I don’t know that much, but I know enough to presume he probably wasn’t a goodie twoshoes.
“It’s okay, you can say it,” Lucas says with a laugh, letting Joe know he’s not going to ruin his reputation withme.
“Okay, well Luc was either in detention or skiving. It was only by accident that we stumbled across each other a few years ago when the Dalton family accountant died onthem.”
“Literally,” Lucasadds.
“Uh…explainplease.”
“Dad and I were having our end of year meeting with him and he had a heart attack and died right in the middle of themeeting.”
“Oh my God. What did you do?” I ask inshock.
“Well, I got online to find another accountant and the first one I rang was Joe. Although I didn’t know that until we met later thatweek.”
