Sleeping with Beauty (18 page)

He’d found women who turned him on. He’d found women who stimulated his brain. He’d even found women who were sharp and funny and vibrant. He’d just never found one who had it all in one package, who called to his heart like Lucy Harper.

He carefully avoided catching Jana’s eye. He kept his expression neutral, but she probably knew this was far from easy for him. He didn’t need her to tell him that maybe the reason he’d never fallen in love with anyone else was because he’d never stopped loving Lucy. Truth be told, other than his aborted attempt at leaving her behind when he’d gone off to MIT, he hadn’t even tried. It seemed like a wasted effort. Besides, how does a person fall out of love without a concrete reason to make him feel differently?

In the back of his mind, he’d always kind of hoped that someday some woman would just step into his path—maybe crash into it, just to get his attention—and his feelings for Lucy would mutate back into friendship as his feelings for the love of his life grew. It wasn’t like he was blocking women from doing just that. Not in any real sense. Because, if Woman X was his soul mate, it wouldn’t matter what he did, right? A true soul mate would have to connect, shake his heart loose, demand his full and complete attention.

“Earth to Grady?”

He jerked his head up from where he’d apparently been contemplating his navel to find Lucy standing in front of him, arms folded. The godmothers had retreated. Jana had already gotten back in the car. In the backseat, he noted with a scowl.

“So, can we get this show on the road?” She cocked her head. “You really do hate it, don’t you?”

“Hate” was a strong word. He felt pretty strongly. “What do you think about it?” he asked instead. “Is it what you wanted?”

Her response surprised him. Her smile took its time emerging, almost a bit warily. “Honestly? I . . . well, it’s still taking some getting used to.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

The smile grew stronger. “Good. I’m pretty sure, anyway,” she added, self-deprecating to the end. “You know I’m still the same person on the inside.”

Actually, that’s what bothered him most. The exterior overhaul was startling enough, but she had changed in less obvious ways, as well. And that’s what really terrified him. Earlier wobbling notwithstanding, she carried herself entirely differently, with a bit more grace, and most definitely a new attitude. Soon other people would see that change in her, too. Some of them men. One of them, Jason Prescott. And act accordingly. Then what the hell would he do?

He did not, under any circumstances, look at Jana.

“You have every right to do whatever you want to yourself if it makes you feel better,” he told her, striving for polite, fair, decent. Happy with not shouting, growling, or begging.

“I just wanted to be more comfortable in my own skin.”

He couldn’t help it, his gaze traveled down her body, then back up again. Christ. She looked amazing. “And are you?”

She lifted a shoulder. An elegantly suited, slender shoulder. “Getting there. It takes some getting used to, the superficial stuff. But I’m liking the changes so far. I feel . . . I don’t know, more confident, I guess.” She grinned suddenly. “Maybe not about the heels. I’m still pretty sure I’m going to do major damage with those. But I do like the idea of them, of how they make me feel. I’ll get better with practice.”

She didn’t say it, but he knew she was looking for confirmation from him. As they often did with each other when embarking on some new venture or path in life.

He forced a hint of a smile and it cost him more than she’d ever know. “I’m sure the first wolf whistle will make it all more bearable.”

She waved off his comment, so certain he had to be kidding.

He so wasn’t, but perversely it was that momentary peek at the Lucy he knew and loved that brought the first honest smile to his face. “You underestimate the power of the wand,” he told her, when what he’d always thought was that men had always underestimated the power of her. He pushed off the car and walked around to the passenger side, opening her door with a flourish. “Your economy-size carriage awaits.”

She took a bit longer than usual to catch up, but he privately thought she was far more balanced on those towering sticks than she let on.

“Hey, I’m already starting to see the perks. I guess Vivian was right about the heels.”

Grady glanced up, realizing he’d been staring at her legs. “What’s that?”

She grinned as she stepped between the open door and the waiting seat. “You’ve never opened a car door for me in your life.”

“Or stared at your legs like a man just emerging from a long prison stint,” Jana offered oh-so-helpfully.

“I have to,” he said, caught off guard by the ambush. “Open your door, I mean,” he added with an uncustomary stammer. Christ.

Grady stood holding the door in silence as Jana and Lucy swapped grins over his tongue-tied state.

Lucy gripped the edge of the car door as she lowered herself in, and without thinking, Grady automatically reached out to block her head from hitting the frame, but, still chattering with Jana, she dipped down and sat, then swung her ever-so-long and shapely-looking legs expertly into the car. She reached for the handle as he straightened, stupified by the natural act of grace and coordination he’d just witnessed. The Lucy Harper he knew could never have pulled that off, not without breaking one heel, ripping her hose, and likely ruining that tight and far-too-short skirt.

He swung the door shut with perhaps a tad more force than necessary, but only earned a quick glance and thank-you smile before she continued to shift around to look at Jana so she could continue her story.

Grady trudged around the back of the car, trying not to snarl. She already didn’t need him anymore. When she wasn’t self-conscious about her new skills, she didn’t so much as wobble on those heels. In fact, he’d bet she was far more practiced with her new wiles than she’d let on. It was probably only because she’d been worried about them seeing her for the first time, not wanting them to give her too hard a time about her dramatic makeover, that she’d done that tripping thing earlier.

“Safe journey,” someone called out from behind him as he opened the driver-side door. He turned to find Vivian waving from the base of the porch stairs. He stared at her for a moment, not quite sure why, except she seemed to be staring at him. Hard. Despite the cheery grin. Or maybe “cheeky” was a better word. That woman had to be a handful.

“Take care of our girl,” she called out.

He didn’t know what to say to that.
Our girl.
If only that were still true. He sketched a light salute, then ducked into the driver’s seat next to Lucy.

He’d ridden beside Lucy any one of a million different times in any one of a million different circumstances. Like the time in their sophomore year when they’d taken the debate team road trip down to North Carolina and had been crammed on a school bus bench seat together, along with their overnight bags.

He’d been so excited when they’d won the regional title and advanced on to the East Coast championship. Three days away from home and the stifling and ever-increasing tension had been a godsend to him.

He’d lived with his uncle Frank back then, his mom’s older brother and only sibling. He’d taken over as sole caregiver after Grady’s mom died when he was ten. Grady had never known his dad. Even though Frank hadn’t been completely receptive to fostering his sister’s kid—Frank was a dedicated bachelor and cop who had no idea what to do with his egghead nephew, or kids in general, for that matter—he’d tried hard, under what Grady realized as he got older, had to have been difficult and painful circumstances.

They had next to nothing in common, and Frank’s clumsy attempts at bonding had left Grady feeling even more like an outcast than he already did. As he’d entered his teen years, the tension between them had mounted. And any excuse to be gone for a few days was cause for major celebration. Spending those three days with Lucy Harper made it even better.

Until he’d been crammed on that bus with her. It had turned into a miserable trip for him. Lucy chattering away, oblivious to the fact that when he’d woken up after a night on the bus to find her sleeping against his shoulder, he’d been awarded with a mortifying hard-on that would not go away . . . and the sickening realization that from that point on, being “just buddies” was going to be a lot more difficult for him. Guys didn’t get that excited about being with their best friends. But they definitely got that excited about spending time with a girl they were falling in love with.

It had been three days of agony, with part of him wanting to just grab her and kiss her and let her deal with his feelings for her, and the other wiser-than-his-years part telling him that if he did, he’d likely freak her out completely and ruin their friendship, which, along with knowing Jana, was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Funny how as much as things change, they stay the same,
Grady thought, not remotely amused. He didn’t glance over at her as he slid on his seat belt and put the car into gear.

Something told him this ride home was going to be even more brutal than that stupid bus trip.

Chapter
13
                                                                                                                                       

W
here’s Grady?” Lucy looked behind Jana as she let herself into her own apartment and bumped the door shut with her hip.

Jana waggled the six-pack of Diet Coke at Lucy. “Not coming,” she said, juggling the pizza box, her purse, and a bag of Milano cookies.

Lucy took the Coke and nipped the cookies off the top of the pizza box.

“Hey!”

She shot Jana a smug smile. “Don’t whine. We only have to split them two ways.” She tore open the bag. “And without Grady here to lecture us on appropriate pizza-eating protocol, we can eat the cookies first.”

“True,” Jana said, then flopped down on Lucy’s couch with a deep sigh. “God, I’m beat.”

Lucy snagged a chair from her breakfast-nook table and dragged it close to the couch. Her Alexandria apartment was small by any definition, except perhaps when compared to those in New York City. It consisted of one great room that was living area, breakfast nook, and tiny kitchen (separated by a counter with no room for stools on either side). A single bathroom and her bedroom finished out the place. She also had a standing-room-only balcony overlooking pretty much nothing, but if she leaned to the side of the railing and craned her neck really far, she could get a glimpse of the Potomac River. Well, almost. Were it not for the row of buildings blocking the one shred of river view left. But she knew it was there, right behind them.

Her decorating style was Early Schoolteacher, meaning bookcases large and small took up most of the wall space (bathroom, bedroom, and hallway included), each of them crammed with pretty much everything she’d ever read, dating from The Baby-Sitters Club onward, plus all of the many additional volumes she’d picked up over the years and had every intention of reading someday. She easily bought three titles for every one she read, and even her students could do that math, but that didn’t keep her from compulsively snooping through every library and garage sale, usually coming away with a cardboard box full of new treasures. Okay, so it was a geeky addiction, but a harmless one. It wasn’t like she collected cats. Yet.

What little room was left over was filled with whatever furniture she’d been able to snag from her parents’ place, combined with Marlo clearance items and more garage-sale finds. She viewed her decorating taste as whimsical bordering on eclectic. Other people would probably use a less-flattering description. Rummage Sale Kitsch came to mind.

Fortunately, those “other people” were just Jana and Grady, who had both long since gotten used to her off-center approach to decorating. From her retro metal lunch box collection and the rack of vinyl record albums she was continually adding to, despite the fact that she had no turntable on which to play any of them, to the six-foot-tall stuffed ostrich she’d won on a fluke basketball throw at the Virginia State Fair her sophomore year in college. It was the only thing she’d ever won—and while ostensibly playing a sport, to boot! Naturally, she was very proud.

Crunching on a Milano, she sat and offered the bag to Jana.

“Thanks.” Jana slid out a cookie, but didn’t snarf it down like they usually did with their Pizza Night contraband.

“So, did Grady give a reason?” Lucy asked, kicking herself as soon as the question was out. This made two Pizza Nights in a row he’d missed, but she already knew what the reason was, and she’d sworn she wasn’t going to say anything if he didn’t show. Again. She shouldn’t force Jana to cover for him by putting her on the spot, but it was like the two of them had some kind of unspoken understanding about his recent no-show status, and she was feeling a bit miffed about being left out.

Even though she knew
she
was the reason.

“Never mind,” Lucy said, crunching on another cookie. She’d been looking forward to this all day. Hell, all week. Since returning from Glass Slipper, her life had been hectic, to say the least. She was still adjusting to the new Lucy, and school had begun, as well. She was still trying to get a handle on her new students, and the always stressful Back-to-School night was looming. As was the reunion.

She wanted to obsess over the upcoming dance much as she would about any final exam; meaning ad nauseam, until even she was sick of talking about it. She wanted to examine every minute detail, from what she should wear, to how she should make her entrance, or even if she should make one. She’d thought about striding in like some kind of towering Runway Barbie, getting a collective gasp from the crowd as they realized it was nerdy Lucy Harper all grown-up. But then, she thought, maybe it would be even better to slide in undetected, then spring up,
pow!
, smack in the middle of the dance floor, right in front of Jason.

Even the steady pressure of starting up a new school year and getting to know her students, dealing with the administration, and attending the endless staff meetings hadn’t kept her from spending almost every other waking second—and most of her sleeping ones—thinking about the dance.

But she knew better than to go there with Jana. While she hadn’t been as obvious in her lack of enthusiasm over the new Lucy as Grady had, they had known each other forever. So her real feelings were hard to mask. Though at least Jana was making an effort.

“Tough day at the office?” Lucy asked, scooting around to snag the Coke.
Absolution in a can,
she thought, still munching her last Milano as if the zero calories in the drink made up for the fat-saturated calories in the cookie. But hey, the equation worked for her. She opened two cans and handed one to Jana, who took a healthy slug, then burped before answering.

“Ah, sweet Coke buzz,” Jana said, then let out another deep sigh.

It was then Lucy noticed the fatigue lingering around Jana’s eyes, the pinched corners around her mouth. And she immediately felt like the leading candidate for Worst Friend Ever.

She knew she’d spent the past two weeks in All-About-Lucy Land, but given the big changes she’d made, it had been kind of hard not to be. Unleashing her new self on the world had been both exciting—and exhausting. Perversely, that made accepting those changes herself that much more difficult. It was sort of like having your arm in a sling and having everyone question you endlessly about what happened.

Old acquaintances took very satisfying double takes, and a surprising number of new people paid attention to her. Sometimes at night she’d lie in bed and wonder why appearances counted for so much, why having blonde streaks and a perfect arch to her eyebrows made such a difference. Which was silly because she knew damn well they did, having been on the other side all of her life. So all this attention should be making her feel wonderful. And mostly it did. But it could also be surprisingly disconcerting. Sometimes it even kind of pissed her off, which made no sense whatsoever. She’d wanted the self-improvement makeover and was thrilled with the results.

And yet, she was the same Lucy Harper inside, and no one had cared to get to know her before. The same guys who smiled at her now, with her tan legs and shorter skirts, wouldn’t have given her the time of day before. She tried to think of it as having come up with an improved marketing plan for meeting people. Sort of like slapping a new cover on an old brand of cereal. She’d just improved her odds of getting picked up off the shelf, that was all.

To quiet her silly, niggling concerns, she’d naturally turned to Jana. Jana might not agree that the makeover had been necessary, but even she had to admit that Lucy 2.0 was the better model. Not that Jana had come out and said so, but, well,
duh.
Just look at her.

Vivian had been right about one thing, though. It was all a matter of finding her inner rhythm. Even Jana had given her that much. But she wasn’t confident enough to let go of the surface changes and hope that her newfound rhythm would garner her the same kind of attention straight hair and spike heels did. Then there was Grady, who was no help whatsoever. He wouldn’t even give the new her a chance. She had to believe he’d come around in time. He had to. Because otherwise who was going to help her get a handle on it?

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a rotten friend since I’ve gotten back. No talk about Glass Slipper or any reunion crap tonight. Scout’s honor.”

Jana snorted. “Neither one of us was ever a Scout.”

“Only because Andrea Steiner’s mother was troop leader. And I still say we should have joined. God, could you imagine their faces when we bumbled in, in all our divine dorkiness, right into the middle of the Junior League of Brownie Troops?”

Jana just shuddered. “I’d rather not, thanks.”

“So, tell me what’s up with you. I know Dave was thrilled to get the chance to go to Europe to play those exhibition games, but it had to have been hard having him gone. I still say it sucks that you couldn’t go with him. First I abandon you on our annual beach trip, and then that.”

“I couldn’t get the time off from work then, anyway. I would have lost whatever toehold I had on covering the opening of football season.”

“Well, you must be happy to have him home finally.”

“Yes, definitely happy.” She’d said it easily enough, and sounded as sincere as ever, but then she looked away, then down at her uneaten cookie.

Though Jana was good at putting up the tough-chick front, Lucy knew it was hard on her when Dave was traveling. Jana wasn’t used to leaning on anyone, but Lucy had watched her best friend fall hopelessly in love, and as much as it had thrilled and excited Jana, it had also rattled her pretty badly. Jana had grown up with a mother who found true love every Friday night around closing time, leaving her a bit shaky on concepts like intimacy and commitment. And yet with Dave, Jana had finally found something real.

Lucy had envied her as much as she’d been in awe of the personal strength she knew it had taken for her best friend to reach out and grab on to what she wanted. Especially when it was a long-term relationship with the first man she’d ever truly loved. It came easy to Jana when it was about a career move, or telling someone else—namely Lucy—how to run her love life. But this had been the first time she’d been confronted with such a personal emotional challenge, and the concept of trying and failing was terrifying.

And though it wasn’t easy for Jana to admit she loved him as much as she did, much less that she’d somehow found herself leaning on him, counting on him, depending on him . . . they’d made it work. And Lucy had never been prouder of her, or happier for her. And, sure, a little envious, as well.

So the idea that there might be trouble in paradise pinged at her heart and her conscience. God, just how far up her ass had she stuck her head, anyway? It’s no wonder Grady was in absentia. “Is everything all right between you two?”

Jana’s lips curled a little, but since she was still staring down at her lap, Lucy couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a grimace. “Everything is fine,” she said.

Lucy leaned down to catch her eye. “Really?”

Jana finally glanced at her, and her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “Really.”

Lucy gasped. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

Jana, who never cried, not even when they’d skipped school—twice—to see a matinee of
The Last of the Mohicans,
sniffled. “Nothing. Everything.” She hiccuped as she tried to stifle the tears. “Dave and I are fine. So take the Worried Mama Look off your face, okay?”

“Okay,” Lucy said, knowing she couldn’t. “So, if you and Dave are fine, what’s with the tears?”

“I seem to be doing that a lot lately. But don’t worry, they are tears of joy. Terror-filled joy,” she added, more under her breath, “but joy.”

“So, you’re happy.” It was, understandably, a tentative statement. When Jana merely nodded, sniffled, then downed a whole Milano in two bites, Lucy shook her head and said, “You wanna buy me a vowel here or something?”

“Didn’t Grady tell you?” she said around the crumbs on her lips.

“Grady and I have spoken a grand total of twice since he dropped me off here two weeks ago. Neither conversation lasted longer than five minutes. Apparently, he’s extremely busy.” Her tone made it clear what she thought of that excuse. “I know he’s probably neck-deep in some top-secret, hush-hush project, but when isn’t he? And since when has that prevented him from making time for his two closest friends?” Or one of the two.

And she knew the answer to that one. Since one of those friends turned herself into something he could no longer identify with.

Jana looked shocked. “Really?” she said, the word muffled by the last of the cookie crumbs. “When you said you hadn’t talked much, I didn’t realize—” She broke off, sighed. “Jerk. All men are jerks.”

Lucy frowned. “That’s usually my line. After which you tell me that all men are jerks except for Dave, and the one who’s going to fall madly in love with me at some future moment in time. A moment, by the way, which I’m still waiting for.”

“So you think,” Jana muttered around another swig of Coke.

“What?”

Jana hiccuped twice, then burped. “Do you think guys have any idea that we belch better than they do?”