Page 50 of I Think He Knows
I turn my head to check that Donovan Senior and Constance aren’t in earshot, and I spot them on the porch with Lana Mae and Allegra. Lan has a hand on Allegra’s head, affectionately stroking her daughter’s hair. The way her eyes are shining with pride and her mouth is pulled up at the corners, I’m sure she’s talking about one of Allegra’s recent achievements. She always lights up when she talks about her.
It’s beautiful to watch. And for just a moment, I let myself imagine how different this night would be if this was real. If I stopped all the casual dating crap because Lana really wanted to be with me, and we were really engaged to be married, and she was really mine. How, when everyone else went home, I could tuck that stray lock of hair behind her ear and tell her I loved her. Listen to her say those same three little words back to me, then tug her towards me and kiss the living daylights out of her. Tasting each of them on her tongue…
Where the hell didthatcome from?
I take a deep breath and yank myself out of my runaway daydream before it runs so far that I won’t be able to catch it again. Then, I face her brothers and hold up my hands. “It’s not real.”
“Yeah it is,” Luke scoffs.
“I’m serious, it’s not. It’s a long story, but my manager set up this stunt where I was pretending to date Freya DiMauritz—”
“Hot,” Luke interjects helpfully. Liam rolls his eyes.
“—but when I tried to get out of it, I kinda botched it, and the press got hold of the wrong story.”
“Well, yeah, we figured something like that had happened. Our sister wouldn’t justforgetto mention that she had a serious boyfriend that she was considering marrying,” Luke says reasonably. LikeI’mthe one missing the point here. “But what I mean is… itisreal in that, even if the story was fabricated, it was obviously meant to happen.”
“I dunno if a deception that was meant to help out my public image but ended up mistakenly involving Lana Mae and Allegra was ‘meant to happen’,” I reply a little glumly. “I didn’t want to drag Lan into this, but for some reason, she’s insistent that we go along with it.”
Luke smiles, all coy. “‘Course she is.”
“Why were you trying to get out of dating Freya in the first place?” Liam asks.
“Because I don’t feel that way about her.”
“Precisely.” Liam retrieves the tongs from my hands without asking, then starts removing the ruined meat from the grill. “And yet, you’re saying that it’s not real with you and Lana Mae, but I don’t see you trying to get out of it.”
Luke nods along like this all makes perfect sense. “You guys are clearly more than friends, and now, you have an actual reason to take things to the next level. Like with Mindy and me—we were friends first and Mindy actually liked another friend of ours. It wasn’t until she saw that guy with another woman that she started to look at me differently. See me as more than a friend.”
I step back from the grill, the acrid scent of smoke clinging to my shirt. I’m not sure Luke has a point. Lana Mae said herself that this would be a sort of trial run for when she finds the real thing. No matter how many of my old feelings for her have been coming to the surface lately.
“Nah,” I say with a shake of my head. “Sorry to break it to you guys, but Lana doesn’t see me like that. Never has, never will.”
“Bull,” Luke singsongs.
Liam shuts the lid of the grill and sinks into a nearby chair. “I’m no expert on this stuff, but the girl hasn’t so much aslookedat another guy since she met you. She spends any time she can with you. Talks about you all the time. And if that’s anything to go by, I’d say you’re very, very wrong, my friend.”
I sit down in the chair opposite Liam’s. “What about her dating? She’s been out with a ton of guys lately.”
“No offense,” Liam says with a shake of his head. “But I think that might be because she’s sick of watchingyoudate all the time.”
I frown. My years of casual dating never seemed to even be on Lana Mae’s radar; she’s never so much as asked me about anyone I was dating. My heart might want to do a funny little leaping motion in my chest at Liam’s words—at even thethoughtthat they might be true—but I keep it together.
I buried my feelings for a reason all those years ago. Lana Mae was dealing with a lot at the time. And her first love was a guy who shattered her heart and left her pregnant and alone. I might’ve had feelings for her back then, but I would never have acted on them. At the time, she was vulnerable and scared and needed me as a friend. Needed someone who would, and could, never hurt her like Steven did.
And what I wanted came second to what Lana Mae needed.
Today, that sentiment still stands.
“Even if Landidhave feelings for me, I could never make a pass at her,” I say resolutely. “I vowed to be there for her as a friend a long, long time ago, and I could never go back on that.”
Luke gives me a hard look. “While we appreciate how good a friend you’ve been to Lan over the years, especially after our mom died… well, with all due respect, you are being a complete and total dumbass right now.”
That sentence didn’t end the way I was expecting it to.
I blink at Luke. “I’m being a dumbass how, exactly?”
“You promised an eighteen-year-old girl who had just lost her mom and just become a mom herself that you’d be there for her as a friend. And you kept that promise. But aren’t you missing the tiny little detail that an entire freaking decade has passed since then? Lana’s now a twenty-seven-year-old woman who’s actively dating again.”