And then. And theeeeennn.
Locke leans forward and winks at me. “Getting close isn’t an issue. Right, babe?”
Babe.
Is he—?
Damn.
Locke said it himself—babe goes in the flirty bucket. He knows exactly what he’s doing here, but I don’t know what the hell it’s supposed to mean.
Babe is something new.
Babe is a question mark.
Babe feels like it could change everything.
Because babe might be one little word, but the smile on Locke’s face is one hundred percent genuine.
If we hadn’t made this agreement as friends, I’d be pretty sure Lachlan Mills is flirting with me. For real.
8 Locke
“Hey, asshole. Quit staring into the distance.” Maggie kicks my feet under the wooden top of my mom’s kitchen table, and the impact sloshes beer up the neck of the bottle I’m holding to my lips.
The hoppy liquid—and the kick—startle me out of my thoughts.
I lower my bottle to the table and wipe beer off my mouth as I glare at my sister. “Jesus, Maggie.”
She grins at me in that loving-but-also-annoying older sister way. “Don’t waste precious undivided sister time stuck in your head. God knows you live there enough as it is.”
It’s the last Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, and we’ve commandeered my mom’s kitchen to share a final beer before Maggie packs up the kids and heads twenty-five minutes to her house in Shoreline.
My mom and aunt promised the rugrats a movie, meaning they’ll be spoiled with popcorn and candy and slurpees by the time they get home from the theater in an hour. Right now, though, the house is quiet and still, with my brother-in-law sprawled out in the living room, asleep in my dad’s old recliner in front of a football game. Patriots vs. Broncos. The muted sounds of the announcer’s commentary filter into the kitchen in a dampened background noise.
Maggie takes another draw of her beer, grimaces, and sets the bottle on the table. “Mooning over your girlfriend?” she asks.
“She’s not—” I start, but the thing is, to my family, Greer is my girlfriend, or at least I let them infer it. That omission gives me the freedom—the permission—to imagine her in that role. To talk about her like she’s already mine.
I squirm in my seat, caught. “Maybe a little,” I admit.
Only every single moment since Greer walked out of her bedroom four days ago and blew apart every expectation I had of what Thanksgiving might be.
I think of her eyes, no longer hidden behind her glasses—wide and blue and hopeful. I think of her curves, highlighted by that unassumingly sexy sweater dress. Of the bow of her lips and how soft they must be to kiss. And, most important, I think of the way her skin felt under mine as I dropped my hand to her knee, the unexpected flush of pleasure on her cheeks, and the way her eyes held mine as I tried out the word babe and found that it fit.
My sister draws a finger through the condensation on her beer bottle. “I like her.”
My throat feels thick with longing. “Me too.”
“I mean, if anyone can put up with Mom’s over-momming and win over Grandma’s picky palate, they also win in my book.”
I groan and sink my face into my hands. “For the love of god, please don’t mention the cranberry sauce.”
Maggie chuckles. “It will forthwith be known as the Great Cranberry Sauce Debacle of the Mills Family.” She points a finger at me, her skin still damp from writing her name on her bottle. “You know, I hope she’s a keeper for you. That sauce was already requested for next year’s feast.”
My heart lunges in the tight cage of my chest. It feels so wrong to talk about Greer this way—to want her this way—when it’s not real. But god, it also feels good and hopeful.
The thing is, I can see it. I can see Greer in my life, in that way, and I don’t think I was entirely misreading her excitement. But I could be. This could all be for fucking show. I mean, that’s what I asked for, right?
I set my forehead on the edge of the table and take a deep breath. I can feel the grain of the wood imprint its shape on my skin.
“Hey.” Maggie kicks me again, and I grunt in protest. “Why the frowny face?”
I lift my head an inch. Do I tell her?
“Lachlan,” she warns.
When we were little, Maggie used to squish the crap out of me to get me to confess all my secrets. Where did I hide my allowance? Which one of my friends put the frog in her boots? She’d tickle me until I was defenseless and then sit directly on my chest and breathe into my face with Dorito breath until I begged for mercy and inevitably spilled.
I’m six inches taller than her, now, and I outweigh her by a good thirty pounds, but somehow I have a feeling she’ll still grill me until I break.
I sigh and lean back in my chair. “WanderWell is considering me for a promotion.”
Maggie’s eyes widen. “Oh.” She leans forward and squeezes my forearm. “Oh, Locke, that’s good.”
I grimace. “On the surface, it could be a great opportunity.”
“What would they have you doing?”
“Managing a team of twelve people. Some writers, some designers.”
“That sounds amazing. You deserve to finally get recognized for everything you do.” She waggles her eyebrows. “I assume the pay will be good?”
I nod. “I’m sure it will. They’re talking a partner-level path for me.”
“Holy crap, Locke.”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s the catch?” I glance up at her sharply, and she shrugs. “You wouldn’t be so grouchy if there wasn’t a catch.”
Sometimes when it’s me and Maggie alone together, I forget that she’s a mom. That she has kids and a life and a husband. But there’s no better reminder than when she cuts to the chase with a single, quick assessment like I’m a kid too. Motherhood has carved her into an efficient negotiator with a staggeringly accurate
