Page 2 of Love Out Loud

Chapter 1

Lark

Present Day

I’ve barely filled my mug with coffee when my phone rings from where it sits face down on the counter. I rub some of the bleariness from my eyes as I flip it over to see a picture of my best friend, Lennon Hollis, lighting up the screen. His eyebrows are raised, and he has shoved a marshmallow into his mouth. The white edge of it sticks out between his lips, and his cheeks are puffed out like a chipmunk. It’s an old picture from the last time I saw him—on my thirtieth birthday, about ten years ago. He hates it, which is why I made it his contact photo.

I glance at the clock on the sage-green wall of my living room as I swipe to answer the call. It’s six o’clock in the morning Michigan time, which means it’s three Los Angeles time. He’s probably just getting home. Sure enough, as his real-life face pops on the screen, I can see his bare shoulders and a pillow behind his head.

“Good morning,” I say brightly.

“Maybe for you,” he grumbles. “I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Aww,” I intone with mock sympathy. “No pretty woman to keep you company today?”

He levels a glare at the screen. “You act like I’m bringing home a different woman every night.”

I return the look he’s giving me in silence. It may not be every single night, but it’s frequent enough. Not that it bothers me per se, but it has led to more than one awkward phone conversation when some hot California blonde walks out of his bathroom wearing his shirt and not much more.

“Anyway.” He sighs and settles further into his pillows. “I just wanted to see how my favorite person is doing on this fine Monday.”

I lean the phone against the fruit bowl on the kitchen table so I can grab a banana from it. It takes me a few tries to get it to stay facing outward so he can still see me as I make breakfast. I spread peanut butter on toast and cut the banana so it lies in slices on top of it. “Things are good. Three more weeks until the term is over, and then dragging Devin across the finish line to her graduation.” I pause what I’m doing to give him a meaningful look.

Lennon chuckles, and his image shakes on the screen. “She’s a good kid.”

“Even good kids get senioritis.”

He glances behind me, his gaze bouncing over the white-washed space of my townhouse kitchen and snagging on a few of my plants that rest on top of the cabinets. “Is she still sleeping?”

I shake my head. “She just left for an early run with her friend. There are still a couple of track meets left, and they’re both determined to hit a personal best before the end of the year.”

Lennon narrows his eyes in disbelief. “She’s voluntarily out for a run at six in the morning—before school—and you’re going to accuse her of having senioritis?”

“Your memory is slipping in your old age. You of all people should know that senioritis is an affliction that only affects one’s academic studies, not one’s extracurricular activities,” I counter. I remember dragging a certain someone over that same high school finish line when we were seniors, even as he threw all of his effort into our final show together. From the look on his face, he remembers it, too, and he wisely decides not to push the issue.

“Speaking of the end of high school,” I continue as I slice another banana over peanut-butter toast on a second plate. “Are you planning on coming in for her graduation, or no? I have to make dinner reservations pretty soon.”

Lennon wrinkles his nose, and I know before he says anything that he’s going to decline. This is how it goes with him—he says he’s going to think about it, evades conversation about the topic until he can’t put it off any longer, and then he says he can’t. It’s definitely part of the reason why we haven’t seen each other since that marshmallow picture was taken ten years ago, though I suppose I’m just as much to blame as he is, not having the time or money to get on a plane and fly out to LA after using most of my extra funds to fly Devin out to New York when she was younger, sometimes staying for a few weeks if she asked me to.

It’s also why I’ve already made graduation dinner reservations without him.

“I can’t,” he says, then follows that up quickly with his explanation. “I’m working on a few projects that are supposed to wrap right around then, and I have to be available.”

I take a bite of toast and chew it slowly, letting him wince apologetically at me for a little while longer. After I swallow, I can finally speak. “Are you sure it’s not because Richard will be there?”

He raises a hand, palm out, but he has to move the phone a little farther away from himself so I can see it. The angle allows me to catch a glimpse of the tops of the trees on his tattoo—an outdoor scene that I know goes from his elbow to his shoulder—and his very defined pecs. His hours at the gym are paying off. The man works hard and plays hard—that’s for sure.

“I swear, it’s not. I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Dick again.”

I raise an eyebrow at Lennon’s use of Richard’s least favorite nickname but don’t bother correcting him. Richard and I dated in high school before getting married shortly after college, so Lennon has known him for almost as long as I have, and they’ve never really gotten along. My mom used to tease me that Lennon was jealous of him, but I’m sure that wasn’t it. I’ve always suspected Richard needled Lennon out of envy at our closeness, but not the other way around. Lennon and I have never been anything more than friends since we met during our freshman year. It’s not that I never found Lennon attractive, even when he was scrawnier and less muscular than he is now. It just never came to that, and when Richard and I started dating during our junior year, I figured it was fine. If Lennon had wanted to make a move, he surely would have by then.

But Lennon’s distaste of my ex grew even more when Richard and I went to the same college. Lennon always thought I should have struck out on my own. And based on the fact that I found myself pregnant just before graduation from undergrad, maybe he was right. The fact that Richard and I got married when we found out I was pregnant didn’t do much to change Lennon’s mind, and when Richard and I ultimately decided to split when Devin was seven, I think Lennon was mostly happy. And then, when Richard took a new job and moved out to New York, Lennon seemed relieved. Now that Richard is out there with his new wife and their five-year-old son, I really only see him when we exchange Devin at the start and end of the summer.

Whatever I was going to say as a retort is lost when the door to the townhouse opens and Devin comes in. She’s wearing a bright yellow sports bra and skin-tight black running shorts, and she’s dripping sweat. I grimace as a few drops of it hit the tile floor, but she grabs the towel she left at the door and dries herself off before slinging it around her neck.

“How was your run?” I ask her.

She grumbles something incoherent as she wipes her face off with her towel.