Page 46 of The Fall Back Plan
I pull out my phone.
JOLIE:Need to run to the library. Can I chat with you for a minute while I’m down that way?
LUCAS:Sure. I have a meeting in thirty min, but I’m free before that. I’ll tell Becky to send you back.
I don’t love the idea of going into the station to talk to him. What will Becky think? Or his deputies? Also, maybe it’s extra rude to reject someone in his own office? Seems like yes.
JOLIE:Want to consider it a mental health break and meet me on the sidewalk in a few minutes? Fresh air or whatever?
LUCAS:Sure
I hop down from the truck. It’s stupid that it’s lifted. I know that. I don’t need a lifted truck. No oneneedsa lifted truck. That’s sort of the point. But I bought it when I was mad at Phillip and the Freaking Horsleys. I don’t know if my brain was anything more than white mist when I walked into the Chicago dealership, but if I had an internal monologue, it probably sounded like “You think I’m an unpedigreed redneck who will embarrass you at your country club? I’ll show YOU redneck.” And then I paid cash for the pickup every boy in my high school would have loved to have driven.
Do I regret it almost two months later when I have to climb in and out of it?
No. Not even a little. Maybe the Horsleys were right about me. Or maybe it’s an awesome truck.
I cut to the sidewalk through the bar so I can leave my purse, then I’m heading down Maple toward my lip wax and bonbon.
Lucas comes down the station steps as I approach and waits for me, hands resting on his belt. What anti-feminist part of myself finds a man in uniform hot because suddenly he hasauthority? Lucas needs to come around wearing regular clothes sometimes so it’s less distracting.
“Hey, Jo,” he says.
Ry calls me Jo, so Tina and Precious call me Jo. I’m sure Daniel will be doing it before long, and no doubt Bonnie will pick it up over time too. I kind of love it. No one but Ry has called me that before, but he’s so laidback with me that it’s infecting everyone in a good way.
I don’t like it when Lucas calls me Jo because I like it too much when Lucas calls me Jo.
Maybe I need to find a self-help book at the library for women whose brains stop working when a good-looking man in a uniform comes around. Just because he makes really good apologies and he’s sweet with his niece and he’s always trying to look out for me even when I don’t need him to . . .
Wait, why am I here?
“You wanted to talk?” he asks.
Right. To tell him I’m not looking for any of those things in a man. Because I’m not looking for a man. So I’m not going on a date. Okay, okay, my speech is coming back to me.
I draw a deep breath, and his eyebrows fly up. “Sorry it was so busy when you came in yesterday,” I say.
“No problem. It’s not like I wanted—”
“You’re a really nice guy, Lucas.” I cut him off in the middle of his sentence, and he stops talking, his mouth slightly open for a second. Um, he really is so handsome in his uniform in a young Raylan Givens/Justifiedkind of way. Why am I hyperaware of this now, when I’m planning to push him permanently out of reach?
I have to do this before I forget to do this.
“Not words I ever thought I’d say to you at one point, but I guess we all grow up and change.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“But I can’t go out with you.”
His forehead furrows.
“I get why that’s confusing, but it’s not because of high school or anything. I just think it’s a bad idea because of Brooklyn.”
He looks even more confused. “Brooklyn?”
I nod. “I’d like to mentor her, if that’s okay. Kind of like a Big Buddy thing but not official. If you think she’ll go for it.”
He gives his head a small shake like he’s trying to clear it. “I hadn’t thought about it, but probably?”
