* * *

  Peyton: You’re right. The confidentiality of ass tattoos is too easily compromised. How about this? What did Lola recommend I keep an open mind about when I was in the midst of the Project Sexy Scenes research last fall with Tristan?

  * * *

  Lola: Lube! Also, I do not have an ass tattoo. Or any tattoos for that matter!

  * * *

  Peyton: You passed!

  * * *

  Amy: It’s you! You’re safe! Hallelujah!

  * * *

  Lola: Yes, you devils. It’s me. I’m fine, and everything is fine, and we are making progress.

  * * *

  Amy: Define “progress.” Are you: A) Fighting with him? B) Rolling your eyes at him? C) Wondering what he looks like naked?

  * * *

  Lola: All of the above, but I’m not acting on C. We’re going to Pin-Up Lanes for guitars.

  * * *

  Peyton: Get the rosemary fries there. They are delish.

  * * *

  Lola: I know! I don’t ever resist rosemary fries from Pin-Up Lanes.

  * * *

  Amy: Words to live by. But before the great French fry consumption begins, what is the status of your efforts to tango horizontally with the one who got away?

  * * *

  Lola: I never said he was the one who got away.

  * * *

  Amy: You don’t have to. That’s what we call him on your behalf. When we aren’t hating him for you.

  * * *

  Peyton: Do you need a sexy new bra-and-panty set first? Because I can messenger one from my store to your place stat.

  * * *

  Lola: No bra-and-panty set is necessary for fry-eating because there will be no removal of clothes. We are on our way to a freaking bowling alley.

  * * *

  Amy: You’re going to get naked with him there? Like, at the ball return? In the restroom? Or will you do it on the scoring table? Also, does this mean the hating is over?

  * * *

  Peyton: Nudity at a bowling alley ought to make for an interesting Friday night.

  * * *

  Before I can tap out another response, we pass a cheese shop.

  “Stop!” Lucas shouts.

  The cab squeals to the curb.

  “What the hell?” I ask.

  “The Star Wars shirts,” he says, a smile lighting up his face. “The note said: Because your Star Wars T-shirts are where you argued over where you first met! Hint: there was cheese involved, you little hipsters.”

  And my expression matches his. “Yes! She loves going there.”

  The sign on The Grater Good says it closes at eight, so we rush in with three minutes to spare. This feels like how we were. This was us back in college before everything went belly-up—having fun, playing games, exploring the city together.

  Lucas marches over to the bearded man in a leather apron who’s arranging handwritten signs in front of the cheese display. “Friday night cheese craving? I can solve that,” the man says with a smile.

  “Excellent. I’ll take some Gouda and whatever the lady wants if you tell me you’ve got a bag of Star Wars T-shirts with our name on them?”

  The man smiles. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  And we leave a minute later, with Star Wars T-shirts, a wedge of Gouda for him, and some Manchego for me.

  And cheesy grins on our faces too.

  Two down. Five to go.

  The guy with the vest and horn-rimmed glasses lugs two guitars out from behind the counter at the bowling alley, and I clap my hands with excitement. Progress rocks.

  “Thank you so much,” I tell him.

  “No problem. But I’m not gonna lie. I didn’t think you’d make it tonight,” the guy says, shaking his head. “Even had a bet going with Harrison when he dropped these off.”

  I furrow my brow. “You did?”

  “Hell yeah. We played a round, he bowled three hundred, then asked me to store these things. And I said if you weren’t here by the end of tonight, he’d owe me a six-pack.” The man smiles ruefully. “Kinda wish you’d shown up later.”

  Lucas laughs. “I’ll send you a six-pack myself as a thanks for keeping these safe”—Lucas scans the name tag on the man’s tweed vest—“Parker.”

  Parker’s gray eyes light up. “Yeah? You would?”

  “Sure. You kept these safe for my brother. What’s your poison and when does your shift end?”

  Parker says midnight and names his favorite IPA while Lucas taps his phone. He swipes a few more times. “Done. Delivery for you coming at midnight. Thanks again.”

  “That’s awesome.” Parker gives him a thumbs-up. “Rock on.”

  “Same to you,” Lucas says, and it’s funny that a self-proclaimed “yeller at people” is actually so good with people when he needs to be.

  “Thanks, Parker,” I call out as the man returns to the counter to check in a new group of bowlers. Then to Lucas, I say, “Amazing how happy a few beers can make a guy.”

  “Beer—the universal man currency,” Lucas says.

  “Chocolate—the universal woman currency.”

  “I’ll have to remember that.”

  “Yes, please store that safely away.” I point to a free table in the restaurant section of the alley. “Sandwich?”

  Lucas smiles. “I’m starving.”

  I nudge him with my elbow. “And I thought you said you weren’t hungry.”

  “Guess I worked up an appetite,” he says wryly. “Also, it’s my treat.”

  “You don’t have to pay. We can go dutch.”

  “C’mon, Dumont. You were the first to say ‘Pin-Up Lanes.’”

  “But you figured out the cheese shop,” I point out, smiling inside because we’re mostly getting along. That will make it easier to make it through the long night. All we have to do is focus on the present, because rehashing the past makes me see red.

  “But the bet was for the first clue,” he adds. “Ergo, the meal is on me.”

  I hold up my hands in surrender. “My stomach won’t let me turn you down.” We head to the table, and he angles the two guitar cases against the wall. I nod at the instruments. “I live a few blocks away. We can drop those off after this so we don’t have to lug them around all night.”

  “Good plan,” he says, then opens the menu on the table, closing it one second later. “Burger for me.”

  “And a portabella mushroom sandwich for me,” I say, remembering fondly all our meals together in school, and how when we got along, we were a freaking house on fire. “They’re the best. Especially with the rosemary fries.”

  He groans. “Damn. Just tempt me a little more.”

  “Fries were always your weakness,” I say. “Even the cafeteria ones.”

  “And do you blame me? Those were insanely good. I think they seasoned them with some intoxicating drug designed to make you eat them every night.”

  “I believe it’s called salt and carbs.”

  “Ah, yes. That’s definitely a designer drug, and I’m addicted to it.”

  “I’d sell my soul for those rosemary fries though. They’re that good.”

  “Let’s make it a double, then.”

  A waiter swings by, and we place our orders, adding a beer for Lucas and a gin and tonic for me.

  When the waiter leaves, Lucas stares at me, an intense look in his dark eyes. It’s a look I remember from when we used to go to museums together and check out the art, studying it from different angles, trying to find hidden meanings in it. Back when we were friends.

  I furrow my brow. “Is everything okay?”

  “I was just thinking about tonight. It’s kind of funny that they argue about where they met. Whether it was the party or the button shop or the comic shop. I think maybe they saw each other at those other places, but they didn’t”—he stops to sketch air quotes—“officially meet till the party.”

  “That makes sense with Luna’s version of the locked eyes across the button shop.”

  “And neither one of us figured out the correct answer to the first clue because we were both too distracted at the party to notice they’d even been there for a few minutes.”

  “Speak for yourself. I wasn’t distracted,” I say, goading him because I can.

  His gaze locks with mine. “I was speaking for myself. I was definitely distracted by you at that party,” he says, and my skin sizzles as he does that thing again with his voice, letting it dip low and sexy. “But hey, if you don’t want to admit you were distracted, that’s fine. I’ll keep your secret, Dumont.”

  I groan. “You’re infuriating.”

  “So are you. Especially since you refuse to admit how sidetracked you were by my fireman costume, when I’ve already opened my heart and told you how I felt about your pussycat.”

  “Oh my God, that’s hardly opening your heart,” I say, laughing.

  He smiles. “Maybe it is though.”

  “Okay. Your big fireman’s heart was so distracting,” I tease.

  “Thank you,” he says, straightening his shoulders. “I had a feeling it was. What with my heart being covered in concrete and all.” He pats his pecs. “Your words, darling.”

  I roll my eyes. “Like I said, you’re infuriating.”

  “And I’ll take it as a compliment, since you’re exactly the same way,” he says, but then he drops the teasing like it’s a hot poker. He leans forward and scrubs a hand across his chin, like he’s deep in thought. “But here’s the other thing that’s funny. We kind of argued over the same thing way back when. How we met. Do you remember?”

  You bet I do.

  8

  Lucas

  I can still picture the day perfectly. I can recall how we chatted during our graphic design studio class junior year and finally exchanged names.

  “It was Professor Trumbull’s Wednesday afternoon studio design class,” I say, picturing Lola in her jeans and pink T-shirt with a sparkled skull design on the front, extending a hand. “We were paired up on a project, and that’s when I introduced myself.”

  “Yes, and you said, I’m Lucas Xavier from São Paulo.” She gestures for me to speed the story along.

  I tap my temple. “And I thought to myself, if she’s half as interesting as she is pretty, then I am going to be so fucked for the rest of the semester.”

  She furrows her brow like my answer doesn’t compute. “That’s what you thought?”

  I lean closer. “I make no bones about it. I’m a designer, like you, and it’s both my passion and my job to look for beauty. You were and are beautiful. I saw it in you then and was drawn to it.” I say it matter-of-factly because it’s the truth.

  I’ve never not been attracted to her. I just didn’t act on it for a long time because we were friends. Because I valued that friendship deeply. But that kind of intel stays in the vault.

  These details though? It’s hard to keep them locked up tonight, especially after Baxter kicked that door open. But what’s the harm in her knowing I think she’s stunning?

  No harm, no foul.

  She parts her lips but doesn’t seem to know what to say. Which is rare for Lola. Soon enough, though, she finds her voice. “Thank you for that interesting answer.”

  “Why is it interesting?”

  “Because it’s deeper than saying, Hey man, she’s a babe,” she says in a bro voice.

  “You’re also a babe. A smoke show. A total fucking fox,” I say, lest she think I’m simply an art aficionado, when I’m definitely still a red-blooded man. “But stop distracting me again. Point being, that’s when we met—in class—but you argued with me incessantly over that point.”

  She slams her palm against her forehead. “Oh my God, Lucas! We didn’t meet in that class. We met at the freaking museum. We were both looking at a Jackson Pollock, and we had a long and detailed conversation about whether abstract art could truly represent a real thing.” She crosses her arms in conversational victory. “Don’t try to deny it. We talked about Pollock’s work and the other expressionists and the whole idea of representation. And later we discussed it constantly over study sessions, over lunch in the cafeteria, over coffee, and so on.”

  I hold up a finger to make a point, enjoying this trek down memory lane. “I remember meeting you at our favorite café, ordering a black coffee for you, with one packet of sugar. And I vividly recall those torturous study sessions when we had to prep for the brutal exams in our business principles class.”

  “I had to poke you to keep you awake in the lounge as we studied,” she says, stretching across the table and stabbing her unpolished fingernail against my arm. The lack of polish shouldn’t affect me one way or the other, but I’ve always liked that Lola’s a low-maintenance kind of gal. She doesn’t doll herself up to an unrecognizable degree.

  “I still have the flesh wounds from your efforts.”

  “You have the passing grade from my efforts, mister. I saved your ass in business principles, Lucas Xavier,” she says, narrowing her eyes, though her tone is full of jest, full of friendship. Like she was before that weekend. Before I fucked things up. Before I said things I shouldn’t have and didn’t say the things I should.

  If I’d been more honest with her the weekend I went away, things might have been different. But when you spend a weekend with a bunch of college guys, you aren’t always thinking straight about how to communicate all the crazy feelings you have for a woman.

  And at twenty-one, I hardly knew what to say. Honest affection, open communication—those weren’t classes my parents taught. Hiding, avoiding, denying—that was what I grew up seeing.

  That had been familiar, and I’m not sure I’m much better at communication now.

  But at least one thing is different nearly ten years later. Even though we’re arguing, we’re having fun as we do it.

  And hell, do I ever miss this.

  This is what I’ve missed most since our friendship did a Humpty Dumpty all that time ago. There was no putting it back together again, so we splintered into enemy factions, weapons always drawn.

  Tonight though? We’re friends again. It’s a one night stand-in, and I’ll take it.

  “Fine, you saved my sorry ass,” I concede. “But my point, woman, is this.” I slap a hand on the table for emphasis. “We met in class, but you insisted on arguing about whether we actually met at the museum. It was this long, ongoing thing.”

  “Because we met at the museum,” she says, laughing. “You yourself acknowledged we met there.”

  I shake my head, digging in like the stubborn bastard I am. “Nope. We never exchanged names at the Pollock. Therefore, it was not an official meeting.”

  She tosses her hands in the air. “See? You are exasperating. Why does it need to be official? We talked for ten minutes before your lacrosse buddy—the guy with red hair, Jimmy or whoever he was—rolled his eyes and pulled you away with an art is boring line or whatever.”

  “Jimmy was the boring one. Which explains why I never stayed in touch with him. Anyway, Boring Jimmy pulled me aside before we exchanged names, which means that you and I didn’t officially meet till the graphic design class.”

  She shakes her head, but she’s clearly amused. “It’s a wonder we were ever friends at all.”

  What I wonder more about is what would have happened if we hadn’t fallen out of friendship.

  But that’s the past, and it ought to stay where it is, since my present is just fine, thank you very much.

  “Fine, we’ll agree to disagree over our first meeting. Just like we did back then,” I say with a smile as the waiter brings our drinks. We thank him, and then I clink my glass to hers, the sound drowned out by a ball toppling all ten pins somewhere nearby. When it quiets, I say, “To agreeing to disagree.”

  “I’ll drink to that. Besides, I suspect if Harrison heard us arguing over where we met, he’d throw out our stuff too.”

  “He’d definitely have grounds to,” I say, chuckling. “For a split second this morning, I did wonder whether this was all some big practical joke staged by Rowan.”

  Her brow creases. “Like a setup for some reason? Or a prank?”

  “Yes. But that thought lasted all of ten seconds. He’s not a prankster.”

  “I thought the same thing for about the same amount of time. But Luna’s not like that either. It’s too much work.”

  “Agreed. Rowan would never play that sort of joke, and if he was trying to get us to talk to each other . . .”

  I trail off. Because if Rowan wanted me to reconnect with Lola for some reason, he’d just tell me to. He saves his energy for songwriting, Luna, and his volunteer work. Not for games. At least, not beyond Monopoly. I swing the conversation in another direction. “I wonder . . . if Harrison had thrown out our stuff—would Luna and Rowan have gone hunting for our things?”

  Lola smiles, and it’s a knowing kind of grin. “Ah, that raises another question, though, doesn’t it?”

  I know what she’s getting at. “Why do we both look after our brother and sister like they’re our kids?”

  She taps her nose. “Yes, that one indeed.”

  Because for all the bonding we did over the misery of our required business classes, for all our wonderfully meandering conversations about the meaning of art, the thing that connected us most was our shared background.

  Or rather, the sense of responsibility we each came away with.

  Different reasons. Same result. We look out for our younger siblings.