Page 44 of Sharp Lies

CHAPTER 20

LILY

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I WAS JUST SITTING down with a glass of lemonade, about to force myself to start reading the book I’d been promising myself I’d read for weeks now and focus on it, dammit, when I heard the sound of an engine in the driveway next to ours. I grew still and cocked my head, listening, and moments later I heard something else: the sound of the door to Warren’s house slamming.

I was up and moving before I even marked my place in the book—not that it mattered, since I was still on the first page. I hadn’t seen Warren all day, and I was anxious to hear where he’d been and what he’d been doing. I also wanted to tell him what Madison had said and the thoughts I’d had about it.

Mostly, I wanted to see him. He hadn’t been at his house when I went over and knocked on the door this morning, and I’d been feeling sort of hollow and baseless ever since, like my ability to move forward somehow depended on him being where I thought he should be.

Yes, it was stupid. Yes, I suspected it meant I was getting too attached to a man I barely knew. And no, I hadn’t looked at it any more closely. I had enough drama on my plate with the Tony McCarthy question. I didn’t need to add ‘Figure out why you’re so attached to Warren’ to the list.

Yet.

I was already halfway through the front door when my mother called me from the kitchen. “Are you going to Warren’s for dinner, then?”

I smirked. “He just got home. I’m going to see what he’s been doing all day. I have no intention of inviting myself to stay for dinner.”

“Good. In that case, invite him back here. I bought enough corn to feed an army, and there’s no way we’ll eat it all before it goes bad.”

I pushed through the door grinning now and loving my mother for her ability to take things in stride. A week ago I’d barely even been on speaking terms with Warren and had thought he was nothing more than the cranky old man who lived next to us. Now I was running to his house the moment he got home from wherever he’d been.

And she was making sure I invited him back with me for dinner, like she’d had the whole thing planned since the day he moved in.

Wait.

I stopped and turned to stare back at the house, but then shook my head and continued on my way. There was no way she’d had this planned. That would have required her meeting him and deciding he’d make a good husband for her daughter who didn’t even live at home, then somehow realizing that something would happen to bring me home, and further, guessing that something would happen to bring Warren and me together and that we’d get along so well that we wanted to make a go of it.

My mother was good.

She wasn’t that good.

Besides, I didn’t even know what was happening between Warren and me. I liked him, I knew that much, and he made me feel safe and secure when he was around. I thought he’d help me if I needed help, and I already knew I’d run to him if I thought he was in trouble, because I’d done it several times.

But aside from that, he was still just the cranky guy who lived next to us.

The incredibly handsome, well-built, sexily cranky guy who lived next to us.

I stifled the smile—and the butterflies—that thought brought up and increased my pace, wanting to get to his house and give my mind something to think about other than all the ridiculous stories currently flowing through it. I slid through the gate that now connected our yards and made my way toward the patio, pausing to glance at his truck as I passed. It looked fine, but he’d parked diagonally rather than straight-on with his patio, which was his normal style, and that front door had definitely slammed when he went through it.

What had happened that had him so riled up?

I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so I opened it and peeked around the edge, scanning the front room for his broad-shouldered form. “Warren?” I called. “Are you here?”

Stupid. Of course he was here. I’d just heard him enter the house.

Instead of answering, he stepped from the kitchen and turned to stare at me, a bag of frozen peas covering half his face.

I gasped and ran to him, putting a gentle hand to the spot right under the bag of peas. “What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. “Just... got hot. Figured frozen vegetables would help me cool off.”

I narrowed my eyes. “The sun is down, and you’ve got air conditioning in this house, but you’re hot and need frozen food to cool you off?”

I grabbed his wrist and pulled, and after a moment of struggling, he let his hand fall, exposing skin that was red from the frozen vegetables and an eye that was already swelling.

Warren had been in a fight, and someone had punched him right in the eye.