Me: He doesn’t remember, so I played it off. He asked if he woke me up when he came home last night.
I hated that I felt so let down by the fact that Lucas hadn’t remembered anything. Jen texted back almost immediately.
Jen: I call bullshit. He remembers. He’s playing a game. You have to outplay him.
I fell back onto the bed. Jen had always been a hopeless romantic. I knew she had hoped that Lucas and I would end up back together. It was clear that was never going to happen. Even if I didn’t want to admit to myself how much I had wanted that, too. And I was already growing tired of this game. Why had William done this? Thrown us together with unrealistic expectations? The only good thing that had come out of this was that Lucas had broken up with Bianca. Not that it had benefitted me any. Okay, last night it had for the briefest of moments, but I needed to forget that anything had ever happened. If Lucas didn’t want to admit to it, I sure as hell wouldn’t either.
I resolved that from here on out I would attempt to move on. Put my past—including Lucas—exactly where it belonged.
Lucas
MILO RUBBED THE back of his neck as he stared at me. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed, or just unsure of what to say.
“Why did you pretend to not remember what happened?”
I laughed. “She wasn’t going to acknowledge it, so why should I?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Dude, you came on to her, pretended to be drunk, then acted like it never happened. Even for you, that’s a dick thing to do.”
“She told me to stop. I stopped. She rejected me. Do you really think I want to have her rub that shit in my face? We both know she would.”
“What’s with the games, Lucas? This was never your MO. And do you really think Paige would bring that sort of shit up? The Paige I knew wouldn’t.”
I knew he was right, but didn’t want to admit it to him, let alone myself. “I had too much to drink, she was dressed in those fucking sexy pajamas, and I simply wasn’t thinking straight. It was a mistake, a mistake that is best forgotten. Clearly, she realizes that, too. Why make things awkward?”
“Dude, you didn’t have that much to drink, and you lied to her about driving home. You came in your dad’s truck and left in it after what, two beers?”
“It doesn’t matter. She’ll forget it soon enough.”
He nodded. “Can you forget it though?”
I scoffed. “I was horny, that’s all. It didn’t mean anything.”
I hated the way Milo was looking at me, as if he could see my truths flashing on a bright neon sign over my head. That kiss meant a fuck ton. I hadn’t been able to sleep last night because all I kept doing was replaying the way her hands slid up my chest and into my hair. The way she moaned when I pinched her nipple. The way her heat felt against my hard cock.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Then the asshole laughed. “Dude, if you want to lie to yourself, go for it. We may not have hung out together the last few years, but I know you. You wanted something to happen.”
I rolled my neck, popping a few spots where the tension had been building. He was right. About everything. I had wanted something to happen. The moment I saw Paige in the kitchen, dressed in those fucking pajamas, hair pulled back into pigtails, my cock had gone hard.
“Well, it’s a good thing she said no. I had a moment of insanity. I need to get my head back into the game and figure out a way to get Paige to sell me her half of the house. That’s all this is about. Her walking away from what is rightfully mine.”
“She’s never going to sell. Just cut your losses, Lucas, you don’t need the money. And the fact that you even want to sell your granddaddy’s house makes me question just how much you’ve changed. You loved that place, man. You dreamed of raising your family there.”
I huffed. “Yeah, with the woman who currently owns half it.” I sighed. “And I have no intentions of selling it. That was just me pissed off. I would never do that to Granddad.”
He raised a brow. “Work something out with her, Lucas. This isn’t you. You know how much that house means to Paige. How much it meant to William.”
Glancing around the office of Milo’s shop, I sighed. “I think I’m going to head on back to the house. If I’m going to find a solution to this problem, I need to start looking for the damn chest Granddad was talking about.”
Milo wore a look of disappointment. “I’ll be by the house tomorrow. Paige needed help painting. I told her I’d cut her a deal on the interior if she helped do most of it.”