Lucie hitched her eyebrows under her bangs and looked at her beer. “I’d rather drink it if it’s all the same to you.” She might be a lightweight when it came to wine, but she could hang pretty well with beer from years of practice with Vanessa since their college days.
“I’m not encouraging alcohol abuse. I’m telling you to tell me what’s up with you and the hottie staying in your apartment. I waited patiently all during lunch for you to bring him up, but you were sadly close-mouthed about your new houseguest. So prepare for the witness stand.”
For the second time that day Lucie choked on her drink. Oh, for shit’s sake. You’d better learn to control yourself or eventually you’re going to need the Heimlich if you dare to eat again. “No need for cross-examination or whatever, Nessie. Nothing’s up with him. He’s Jackson’s best friend and I’m helping him out, that’s all.”
“Is he seeing anyone?”
“No.” Wait a minute. She didn’t really know that for sure, did she? He hadn’t mentioned dating anyone, but she hadn’t really asked either. There hadn’t been any reason to. They were just two friends who were helping each other. But the definition of “helping” had changed drastically in the course of a week. “At least, I don’t think he is. But he’s not your type anyway.”
“I wasn’t planning on pursuing, but out of curiosity, why not?”
“Rule number three.”
“Really? What does he do then?”
“He’s a fighter like Jackson.”
Vanessa scrunched up her nose like someone had just shoved smelly socks in her face. “Oh, one of those guys. God, how barbaric, not to mention completely irresponsible for planning one’s future. No thank you.”
Lucie didn’t bother defending Reid’s and her brother’s choice of career to her friend. There’d be no point. Vanessa lived by a very strict code of rules and refused to veer from them for any reason. She’d gotten the idea one night when they were just freshman, drunk, and watching the television drama, NCIS. The main character of the show had over thirty rules he lived by, and Vanessa, in all her inebriated wisdom, decided she needed the same strategy to avoid following in her parents’ dysfunctional footsteps. Rule number three was “never date a man who isn’t gainfully employed in a successful career with longevity.” Athletes with the potential to permanently injure themselves at a young age, effectively ending their careers, did not qualify as dating potential.
“But why don’t you date him? I mean, come on, the man is a total hunk of man-beef.”
“Ew!” Both girls fell into a fit of laughter. The alcohol was already loosening them up from their long weeks. “What the hell is man-beef? Stick to legal jargon because you obviously suck at complimentary descriptions.”
“Don’t avoid the question. What about dating him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not like that.”
“But it could be.”
“Just drop it, okay, Ness?”
Vanessa’s dark lashes practically twined together as she dissected Lucie’s face. Shit shit shit. “What aren’t you telling me, Lucinda Maris?”
It always touched Lucie when her friend refused to call her by her married name. She’d told Lucie she should “sever every tie she had to that bastard,” but she hadn’t wanted to. She needed it as a reminder to guard her heart more carefully. Relationships based on a foundation of heady passion and quick courtships were doomed for failure. What she needed was the exact opposite: a foundation of mutual interests and goals, complemented by mild attraction, and at least two years of dating followed by a long engagement.
She drank half of her beer in several big gulps and then placed the glass on the bar with a resigned sigh. Once Vanessa suspected she wasn’t being told “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” she was like a pit bull. “Reid needs to complete his recovery and get ready to fight for this big rematch he has in two months.”
“And?”
“And I agreed to take my vacation weeks to give him special around-the-clock attention to make sure he could fight if he did something for me.”
“And that something would beeeeeee…”
Lucie looked around as she bit the inside of her cheek before finally leaning in to make sure her friend was the only one who could hear her. “That he teach me how to seduce Stephen.”
“What!”
“Shhhhhh! Keep your voice down, you nutbag.”
“I’m the nutbag? Luce, when are you going to realize that that guy does not deserve you? Is that the reason for your new wardrobe? I mean, you look fabulous, but if that douchebag didn’t notice you before the clothes and these lessons then it’s his fucking loss.”
“Yeah, I know, you’ve mentioned something like that before once or twice,” Lucie replied wryly. The truth of the matter was Vanessa hadn’t approved of her crush on the good doctor when he failed to make a move after they’d worked together a year. “Look, can we not talk about this anymore? It’s harshing my buzz.”