“Lukas? Vulnerable?”
“Yep, I was shocked too.” Lisa tucked the lip gloss back in her bag. “Apparently, it’s quite the interview. Rebecca said I’ll want to read it. I assume you will, too.”
“Sure.”
“Now,” Lisa said, leaning forward and clasping her hands together on my desk. “Let’s talk about how we can put that brother of mine to work.”
My cheeks burned. I have a few ideas of how I could put him to work.
I was about to answer Lisa’s question when the office door opened.
Lisa twisted in her seat and clicked her tongue when she realized it was Lukas blocking the sunlight streaming through the glass door. “Well, well, well,” she said, “speak of the devil.”
Lukas’ jaw tightened at the sight of his sister and I knew immediately he hadn’t expected her to be here, which meant he was here to see me.
Why? What do you want?
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple slid deliciously up and down his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” Lisa asked, pressing an innocent hand to her chest. “Why shouldn’t I be here? I’m visiting my best friend. Why are you here?”
Lukas’ eyes darted to me. “I wanted to discuss the charity food drive with Kayla.”
“Food drive?” Lisa twisted back to me. “You never mentioned a food drive.”
“Lukas and I had only discussed it,” I said. “We hadn’t committed to it.”
Lukas cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels as he slid his hands in his pant pockets. “I was just in the neighborhood, so I figured I’d pop in and say hello. We haven’t seen each other since the gala.”
I licked my lips. “No, we haven’t.”
Lisa looked back and forth between her brother and me. “Well, aren’t you going to sit down then?”
Lukas shook his head. “No, you two chat. I couldn’t stay long anyway.”
“Then why pop in?” Lisa pressed.
Lukas scowled at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re insufferably nosy?”
Lisa grinned. “All the time. It’s part of my charm.”
“Charm,” he scoffed as he turned back to the door. “Keep telling yourself that, little sister.”
I stood up. “Lukas, I—”
“I’ll catch you around,” Lukas said, and then he was gone.
I stood there like an idiot staring after him while Lisa frowned up at me.
“Did you do something to piss him off?” she asked.
“I don’t think so.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s going on with him lately. I guess I never know. He’s all over the map. One minute, I think I have him pinned down, and the next, he pops in to your office saying he was just passing through the neighborhood.” She let out a sarcastic laugh. “As if anyone in their right mind would just pass through this neighborhood?”
I swallowed my frown at my friend’s insensitive remark. Clearly, Lisa was becoming just as out of touch with her roots as Lukas had. Since when did she consider herself too good for this neighborhood?
My neighborhood?
“Anyway,” Lisa said, leaning back in her chair so she could kick her red-soled high heels up on my desk. “Let’s talk about what’s next for you and Lukas.”
“What’s next?” I asked innocently. Ever since sleeping with Lukas, I was on high alert about everything his sister said. I couldn’t help it. I constantly thought she was trying to suss it out of me that I’d hooked up with her brother—when in reality, she was just carrying on with life as usual.
“Yes, I want something with great visuals. Something that will photograph well. You know, like how the orchard did? We need something hands-on and exciting for Lukas to tackle. Something others haven’t done before.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek and considered what she was asking me for. “Hang on. I have a list of upcoming charity events. You can pick whichever one sounds like a good fit.”
I rummaged through my filing cabinet drawers and did my best to ignore the look of judgment on Lisa’s face. I could hear her own thoughts screaming in my head: if you’d just clean your office, you wouldn’t have to look for things.
She didn’t understand. She could never understand. I was busier than I’d ever been in my entire life and my mind was overflowing with information I didn’t know how to handle—like how good Lukas was in bed.
“Here we go,” I said as I pulled a yellow sheet of paper out of a file. I moved to the desk and laid it flat in front of Lisa. “The first twenty-four have already happened, so you can choose from the remaining ones left for the year.”
Lisa pulled the paper closer and squinted down at it. “Toy drives, food drives, and Thanksgiving brunch at the soup kitchen. These are all so mundane. We need something colorful and vibrant. Something that marketing can really run with. Something like—” She broke off and grinned. “Here. This one.”
Lisa spun the page around so it was facing me and pressed the tip of her red fingernail toward the bottom of the list.
I leaned over the page and read the word. “The haunted house?”
“Yes. The haunted house. Can’t you picture it? Lukas dressed up in a costume, scaring kids, working in the house, making people scream? Better yet, if someone can get a good scare out of him. If that doesn’t humanize him, I don’t know what will. And look, the funds go directly to a local homeless shelter. It’s the perfect event.”
“It’s not an event, Lisa. It’s a fundraiser.”
“Same, same.”
I grimaced.
Lisa popped up out of her chair. “Okay, you know what to do. Make it happen. I’m going to call Rebecca and Meredith and make sure the duo is there to photograph and interview. Oh, shit!”
“What?”
“It’s this weekend!”
“Yes.”
Lisa rushed to the door. “Call Lukas. Make sure you
