“Oh, Audra.” Lilly’s temper rose, as hot as a pepper. “Jacob is not worthy of you. And he’s certainly not worth a maudlin attachment to a swath of white lace.”
“White lace and promises.” Audra moved her food around, shoving a slice of sausage against a coin of bright green kiwi. “You know, like the song.”
“Which started life as a bank commercial,” Lilly said, ruthless now. “As a way to sell checking accounts to naïve young couples.”
Audra looked up. “Way to bust the romance.”
“My point is, there’s no reason to sentimentalize the dress you were going to wear to an event that didn’t happen.”
“I still believe in love,” Audra confessed.
“Of course you do,” Lilly affirmed. “I still believe in love for you too. But you have to get over this hump first. Get out of that now-grungy dress, put on something decent, and if you have to, yes, go out and be ‘bad,’ whatever you think that means.”
Then worried, she added. “But not too bad. No tattoos you’re not entirely certain of, nothing illegal, and if he’s riding a Harley, text me first and tell me where you’re going.”
Audra, finally, laughed a little. “Maybe I like the idea of the Harley guy. Can I stipulate that whoever he is works with his hands?”
“I give you permission to get your sexy back with a plumber, baker, or a cabinet-maker.”
Her friend pointed a finger, gave a grin. “Extra points for the Justin Timberlake song reference.”
In a nonchalant gesture, Lilly blew on her nails, polished them against her shirt. “I deserve them.”
But then Audra’s smile died. “There’s one hitch to getting on with the plan.”
“What’s that?”
“Con’s coming tonight,” she said, referencing her old brother, Connor Montgomery, big, brawny, bossy.
“Why?” Lilly liked him, considering him almost a brother too, but she wasn’t sure what positive role he could play during their sojourn at the Heartbreak Hotel.
“Before, he had to leave Santa Barbara right away because of work. Now he has a free couple of days and he said he’s coming to check on me.”
A sudden thought flew into Lilly’s head. “Maybe…” Half of her rejected the idea while the other latched onto it as the perfect solution. “He should take my room. Then I can head back to LA early.” Without leaving Audra here alone.
The move would put real distance between Lilly and Alec immediately. Today she could get back to her real life.
“No,” Audra was saying, her head moving back and forth. “You can’t leave me alone with Con, the man with the crazy ideas. He’s a force of nature, like a hurricane. A day alone with him and I’ll take off on a bicycle, lose my little dog, and end up doing drugs in a field with a scarecrow, a lion, and a tin man.”
“You’re talking about a Kansas tornado,” Lilly said, not sure if her heart was beating so hard because Audra refused to let her go or because she was going to stay for a few more days, too near to Alec for peace of mind.
“That. But speaking of upheavals…” She sent Lilly a guarded look.
Her stomach flipped over. “What is it?” she asked slowly, her belly tightening.
“Yesterday I got a call from Frank.”
“My cousin, Frank?” As if they knew another. Red tinged her vision. “What the hell was he doing calling you? How does he even have your number?”
Audra shrugged. “He was looking for you. Said he knew you were out of town but that you weren’t picking up your phone.”
Lilly grimaced. It had been dead when she took it from her pocket before her shower. “Block his number,” she told her friend now, and headed for the bedroom where her own device was charging. “I promise he won’t bother you again.”
The dick picked up on the first ring. “Cuz,” he said, in an unctuous voice. The word defined the man himself, with his oily hair and his smarmy attitude. He’d bullied her when she was small—petty cruelties like breaking her pencils and balling up her homework. When he was a preteen, a couple of times he’d tried barging in on her when she was in the bathroom showering, a blatant attempt at trying to see her naked body. The second time she’d thrown a full shampoo bottle at him, catching him in the eye, and his howl had brought his mother running.
Her aunt had seen the score and hauled him off by the arm, with threats about what happened to pervy boys in prison. Later, she’d muttered under her breath about Lilly keeping the —broken—door locked, but she’d already devised her own solution. When next she put her cousin’s clean underwear away in the drawer, she’d pierced the stack of tighty-whities with a butcher knife, front and center.
Sometimes she tried to convince herself her early years hadn’t been that bad, that Frank and her aunt and uncle had done their best with a neglected child thrust into their bare-bones existence, but she had only to hear her cousin’s voice to recall the stark loneliness of her existence punctuated by the dread of being abandoned by the very people who frightened her.
“Cuz?” Frank said again now. “Are you there?”
“I’m here, Frank,” she said, hardening her voice. “And you’re to lose Audra’s number immediately.”
“Aw. I was just trying to get in touch with you.”
“Lose Audra’s number immediately.”
“Jeez. You’re so touchy.”
“I am,” Lilly said. “Now what do you want?”
“We haven’t seen you in a while. Dad’s truck—”
“I heard about that.”
“My tooth—”
“I heard about that too.”
Frank cleared his throat. “We just need a little more to get us by, honey.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said, her jaw clenched.
Her cousin huffed out a sigh. “It’s a simple request.”
“Yeah. Simple.”
“I could make it simpler for you,” Frank said, sounding eager. “I hear you’re at that fancy place, The Hathaway?”
Oh, no. “Frank—”
“We really need the cash, Lilly. I could drive up there, you could take me to lunch and—”
“No.” He didn’t have
