Chasing Forever (The Forever Series #1)(26)
“There was that girl two years ago, the cute little blonde. What was her name?” Drew waved his hand in Lucas’s direction.
“Mia.” Lucas folded his arms across his chest.
“You brought nice, soft-spoken Mia to some event. Olivia spilled red wine on her white shirt.”
“That was an accident.”
Drew raised his eyebrows. “If you say so. Then there was Rachel.”
Lucas rolled his eyes. “Rachel dumped me after that charity event.”
“Didn’t you notice Olivia cornered her for nearly thirty minutes at the beginning of the night?”
“So what?”
“Olivia subtly informed her that you two had an understanding.”
Lucas slammed his hands on the table. “Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Drew shrugged. “I figured you knew Olivia pulled that crap all the time and you didn’t care because you never did anything about it.”
Not only did Lucas care, the idea that Olivia may have repeatedly interfered with his relationships made him furious. Lucas looked up at the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I had no idea.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Confronting Olivia wouldn’t be easy. She would never admit to anything. He could ask her some subtle questions, but what happened or didn’t happen in the past wasn’t relevant. He needed to make sure Olivia understood they would never be together and hopefully she would stay out of his personal life.
Thirty minutes and one Giants win later, Lucas and Drew waited outside their neighborhood bar for a cab. Lucas tipped up the collar on his black overcoat to minimize the effect of the wind and drizzle. Days like today, he missed the Texas heat. Even when the sun made an appearance, he still felt cold.
Drew hadn’t mentioned Olivia again, and he truly appreciated it. He realized he had to deal with Olivia. He invited her back into his life to preserve harmony between their families, and at the time, he believed Olivia wanted the same thing. Apparently, he read her wrong again. Dinner with Olivia when he returned from Colorado on business would be interesting and possibly explosive, but this had to end.
When a cab stopped by the curb, Drew and Lucas both climbed in. They’d lived on the same street since they graduated from law school, not intentionally, but coincidentally. Lucas knew he should invest in his own place rather than continue to rent. Now that he was on the verge of making partner, it seemed to silly to continue living in a two bedroom flat when money wasn’t an issue. His mom constantly hounded him about living a transient lifestyle, but he didn’t see the point in buying something when he worked so much that he hardly spent any time at home. It was a place to lay his head, nothing more.
“So why are you making such an effort with Regan? She’s working with you for a couple months and then you probably won’t see her again. I can’t imagine that either of you wants to work for the same firm indefinitely,” Drew questioned.
To avoid making eye contact with Drew, Lucas looked out the window. They had been friends since the first day of college, and he trusted him implicitly, but he didn’t think he could verbalize why Regan’s approval and acceptance meant so much to him. He could hardly understand it himself. “I don’t know. I guess I feel bad about what happened between us.”
“Bullshit. It’s more than that. You have plenty of ex-girlfriends, but I’ve never seen you bend over backwards to make them comfortable or spend an entire evening analyzing every word exchanged between the two of you.”
“I don’t see most of my ex-girlfriends on a daily basis. I’d like to eliminate the awkwardness going forward.”
Drew rolled his eyes. “Since when do you care about that? You aren’t still attracted to her, are you?”
Lucas turned to face Drew. “Our relationship ended badly. One minute we were together and the next….” Lucas shrugged. “It was over, and I never saw her again. Normally, when you’re dating someone, the attraction fades, you realize you don’t have much in common, you don’t want to spend time with that person anymore and then things end.”
“Are you saying you need closure?” Drew chuckled. “You sound like a girl.”
“Fuck you,” Lucas responded without heat. Maybe he did need closure or maybe he wanted her back, but he didn’t want to share any of that with Drew. When they were together, even if their relationship started as a lie, he had never felt that way about any woman and the sad truth was he hadn’t felt that way since. Acknowledging that fact was a real mind f*ck.
“Be nice to her or don’t. You’re her boss for a couple months. Get over it unless you want to be something more than her boss.” Drew pulled out his phone. Apparently, he was done talking. “And in that case, you have your work cut out for you.”
The taxi stopped, and Lucas leaned forward to pay the driver. When they were both on the sidewalk, Drew raised his hand. “See you later. Call me if you want to meet on Saturday for drinks.”
Lucas started walking in the opposite direction then stopped. “Hey, Drew.”
Drew stopped in front of his building, a narrow three story, colorful Victorian divided into four flats like the rest of buildings on the block. “Yeah?”