Page 68 of Her Favorite Fumble
I bet Lavinia wouldn’t mind if you died. I think Jacob was a little young for her.
This time he laughed loudly, and Theo wasn’t put off with a shrug. “Who are you talking to?”
“None of your business.”
“So Lucy then,” his brother said, and then he smirked and went back to his phone.
Stop trying to hook me up with the dead whoopie pie lady. What’s left on our list?
Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain and going out on a boat.
So the two hard things, then. The initial burst of hope because he had a reason to see her again faded as he realized the only things left on their list were things he might not be able to pull off.
I’ll see what I can do, but don’t hold your breath or you might have to get up to shenanigans with Jacob.
She sent back what looked like every different laughing emoji the keyboard offered, but then that was it.
He wasn’t ready to be done, though.
There’s supposed to be quite a storm day after tomorrow, so you should put the cushions and umbrella for the patio set back in the shed.
I will.
You should write it on the to-do list on the fridge.
Don’t be bossy or I’ll come up with something else to put on our shenanigans list.
He could think of a couple shenanigans he’d like to get up to with her, but he just sent her back one smiley face emoji.
It helped, he thought, laughing with Lucy, even by text. It helped him get over the shock he’d felt earlier when he stopped by the hardware store and Don told him Helen was back in town.
In some ways, her earlier than expected arrival was for the best. He’d have longer to wean himself away from craving Lucy’s company before she packed up her car and headed to Miami.
But he thought he’d have at least a couple more nights in her bed before he went back to sleeping alone. He thought there would be time for them to talk about whether they’d have bad ideas together once her grandmother returned—though somewhere else, of course. He hadn’t figured out where exactly that somewhere else would be, since he didn’t want his brothers making assumptions.
His hand covered the phone sitting on his thigh. For right now, though, Lucy wasn’t gone. And he’d probably be able to sleep tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
The morning forecast warned about the storm coming in and the potential for lightning and damaging windows, but so you know, Dolly was seen meowing on Edna’s porch until she was let in. It’s going to be a bad one, folks. Secure your garbage bin lids.
—Wayward Harbor Online Community Group
Storms were a lot more fun when Lucy was a child.
When she was a kid, thunderstorms and wind buffeting the house were exciting, like an adventure she was caught up in. As an adult who owned things, understood the potential for damage, and knew dealing with insurance companies wasn’t a fun way to pass the time, she wasn’t a fan.
And yet, there was something hypnotic about watching a storm over the ocean. It was gorgeous and terrifying, and she wanted nothing more than to be curled up on the porch next to Nick, watching the lightning strikes in the distance.
Unfortunately, the winds were driving the rain almost sideways, and everything on the porch was soaked. And Nick didn’t live there anymore.
Lucy missed him so much. She’d known it would be a little sad when the temporary little life they’d built was over, but she hadn’t anticipated feeling the lack of him in the cottage so deeply.
“I can hear you sighing over the wind,” Gran said from her seat at the kitchen table. She’d decided to take the stormy day to sort through the mail that had accumulated while she was away, which mostly meant flipping through the magazines she subscribed to.
And Lucy was taking the day to do nothing after Billy had told her not to bother coming in because nobody else would. She moved away from the window, sighing again. “I was thinking about how storms are fun when you’re a kid, but not as fun when you’re adult.”
“That’s a fact.” She closed her magazine, giving Lucy one of those face-searching looks mothers and grandmothers did so well. “They don’t sound like nostalgia sighs, though.”
