One night stand in, p.20
One Night Stand-In,
p.20
“Hey,” Lucas says, then extends a hand. “I’m Lucas.”
“I feel like I know you already,” I say.
“And you do, in many ways,” he says.
The dark-haired woman offers her hand, and we shake. “Weirdly, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says.
“Weirdly, indeed.” I invite them in, and they follow my lead, heading inside.
Lucas tilts his head, then scratches his jaw. “So, you wrote a book about that wild-goose chase you sent us on?”
I hold my arms out wide. “Screw that one-month novel-writing camp. I wrote it in five days. Top that!”
Lola laughs. “Can’t beat that.” But then her expression turns more serious. “But I want to know something. Was that whole breakup letter to Luna and Rowan designed to get us together?” She points from herself to Lucas. “Since I’m presuming you heard about us during their many fights?”
A laugh bursts from my chest. Are they for real? They think I’m a matchmaker? “Are you kidding?”
“No. I’m serious,” Lola says, her lips ruler-straight, her eyes intense.
“Did you actually read the story?”
She shakes her head.
“One, it’s not a love story. Two, it’s not about the two of you. And three, why the hell would I try to get you two together?”
“As a novel idea?” Lucas offers.
I laugh again, louder, deeper this time. “Take a good look at the man in front of you.” I hold out my arms and turn in a slow circle. “Do I look like cupid? Do you see wings? A bow and arrow? A diaper?”
Lola has the good sense to look sheepish. “Obviously not.”
I tap my chest. “I’m not a secret matchmaker. I’m not any sort of matchmaker. Plus, happy endings are unnecessary. The guy doesn’t always get the girl, because he doesn’t need the girl.” I raise my chin. “My book is a personal journey. A comedy about a man figuring out what he wants in life. His happiness. Not happiness with another person. I don’t need to have lovers smooching at the end.”
They laugh, and Lola wraps an arm around Lucas. “Well, thanks anyway. That was an accidental by-product, then, of that time you kicked out the Love Birds.”
“Wait. You two got back together?” I ask with a groan.
Lucas drops a kiss to her cheek. “We did. So, thanks, even though you didn’t mean to do that.”
I drop my face in my hands. “That was never the goal,” I grumble.
“What was the goal?”
I raise my face. “It was for me. It was the first time I was inspired in ages. I wrote about a man finding his place in the world.”
“Through a breakup letter to his noisy tenants?”
“Yes. It was restorative. It was everything I needed. I had no idea when I wrote that letter. I wrote it for payback, but as soon as I started dropping off their things, it unlocked my story. I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote.”
“Good,” Lucas says with a grin. “Looks like it worked out for all of us.” He turns to leave but stops and swings back. “One more thing. How did the dance lessons work out?”
My traitorous heart hammers as I picture Angeline, the captivating, clever dance instructor who taught me the first steps of tango. Whom I invited to dinner. Whom I saw tonight.
Whom I’ll see tomorrow. “They’re working out great.”
Lola lifts a brow. “Maybe that’s your ending.”
I sneer. “Books don’t need happy endings.”
“No, but sometimes life is better with them,” she says, then waves goodbye. “Thanks again. Perhaps you do have a touch of cupid in you.”
They turn and leave, holding hands.
Something in me burns with annoyance.
I’m not the guy who writes romance.
I don’t believe in it.
But when I return to my couch and find a message from Angeline telling me she’s looking forward to tomorrow’s dance lesson, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t mind a happier ending for me.
33
Lola
A few months later
* * *
Angeline was right.
Lucas and I rock at tango.
We take lessons a few times a month.
And when we finish tonight’s lesson with a flourish and a dip, Angeline claps. “Bravo! You’re fantastic.”
Lucas offers a hand and pulls me up. “You are fantastic,” he says to me.
Angeline strides over to us and sets a hand on his shoulder, then mine. “I told you, you had couple’s energy. I was right.”
“You do have crazy lovebird energy!” That’s Rowan, chiming in from the other side of the studio.
“Yes! They have so much of it that it’s like a new perfume,” Luna chirps.
I roll my eyes, but they’re right. Those two lovebirds are definitely right. And even though they didn’t try to bring us back together, they’re happy as clams that we are.
We are too.
So happy, in fact, that sometimes the four of us take dance lessons together.
But we make sure to schedule them when Harrison isn’t coming by to see his girlfriend.
After all, there’s no need for Luna and Rowan to bump into the enemy, even though he’s not truly the enemy.
Better safe than sorry.
We say goodbye to Angeline and take off into the Manhattan night to grab a bite with our siblings.
Over sandwiches and salads, we catch up on the latest news from the Love Birds tour, and get the details about their new place in Queens.
Lucas lifts a fry, pointing it at Rowan. “You better be quiet in your new apartment. I don’t want to do another wild-goose chase.”
Rowan smirks. “But maybe you do?”
Luna squeezes Rowan’s arm and plants a kiss on his cheek. “I’m sure they do. They loved it. It brought them together.”
Lucas rolls his eyes, but simply shrugs.
It did bring us together, and I’d go on countless more with this man.
A few more months later
* * *
Our friends keep us busy with weddings.
We go to Amy and Linc’s ceremony in a park, where they read passages to each other from some of their favorite books. Then Tristan and Peyton celebrate in a gorgeous room at the Luxe Hotel, where Tristan’s brother is the best man and the bride looks more beautiful than she’s ever looked.
We dance and laugh and toast.
And when the weddings are done, we go home with each other, since we made the jump and now live together.
We’re sometimes irresponsible, and truth be told, I might not do a damn thing about being outrageously loud when Lucas takes me to new heights of pleasure every night.
But the walls are thick, and there are no complaints from neighbors. Or landlords.
Speaking of landlords . . . one afternoon, Lucas and I pop into An Open Book to pick up copies of That Time I Kicked Out the Lovebirds.
Amy asked Harrison to shorten the title, and he agreed it made sense.
She asked him, too, for a better ending, and though he grumbled, he added in a closing coda where the guy falls for his tango instructor.
Whether it’s art imitating life or life imitating art is anyone’s guess.
But inarguably it’s a damn good ending for his story.
I tap the cover—a fun illustrated design of a New York apartment stoop with guitars and notebooks strewn across it. Lucas and I designed it together.
When I flip open the page, I grin at the dedication.
To Lucas and Lola. I do not have a cupid in me at all, and we will never agree on that. But it does take two to tango, so thanks for that.
It’s fitting and so perfectly him.
After we purchase the books, we leave, heading for the train station, and I tell Lucas about my new clients. My firm is growing, even without an award to my credit. Peter remains a top client, and his YouTube channel’s popularity has soared. So has his love life with his new lady blader, and they make videos together sometimes.
Lucas and Reid moved into their office space at last, and that makes my man happier. He was never one for coffee shops, though he does offer a toast to a gal named Meg every time we grab a cup at Doctor Insomnia’s.
Life is good.
Love is wonderful.
And llamas and alpacas are even better on the afternoon we spend tending to the cousins at the sanctuary.
When we leave, Lucas stops at the barn door. “Hold on. I dropped something.”
I spin around to find him on one knee. I blink, surprise whipping through me as the man I love holds out a blue velvet box.
His brown eyes hold mine fiercely. “Lola Dumont, this is where I knew I was falling in love with you a second time around. In this place, we talked about halfway love, and that’s when I was certain, even though I didn’t know it at the time, that I wanted everything with you. It took me a few days to figure it out, but since I have, I’ve never looked back. And I only want to keep moving forward with you.”
My heart expands. My skin tingles. And I feel like I’m glowing all over.
“Will you marry me?” he asks.
I grin like an alpaca as I fall to my knees, joining him, letting him slide a gorgeous diamond on my finger.
I say yes to him, yes to love, yes to forever.
The next year, we’re married here at the farm. We ask for donations to the sanctuary instead of gifts, and Davina serves as our justice of the peace.
Frick and Frack are in attendance too, wearing bow ties.
And Lucas is still a little bit in love with them. And I’m all the way in love with him. There is nothing halfway about our love, or how we dance the tango for our first song.
* * *
THE END
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Lauren Blakely, One Night Stand-In
