How (Not) to Fall in Love(63)

The elderly woman who opened the door flashed a bright smile at Lucas. “Hello, sweetheart. It’s good to see you.” She turned her watery eyes to me. “And this is your girlfriend who needs a place to live? She’s very cute, Lucas.”

“I’m not his—”

“She’s not my—”

“Girlfriend,” we said in unison.

“Oh my. Pardon me, dears. I misunderstood. When Lucas asked me, I just assumed…” She stepped back and opened the screen door. “Where are my manners? Come in, both of you.” She held out her hand to me. “I’m Mrs. Sandri. Would you like something to drink? I made tea.”

“No thanks.” I shook her hand, staring at the floor and willing it to swallow me up.

“Yes, please. That would be great,” Lucas said.

Of course his composure was better than mine. He was as poised as my dad.

“I’ll be right back. Feel free to look around.” Mrs. Sandri left the small living room, disappearing under an archway. The place was like a dream cottage. I wondered if Snow White lived here, too.

“It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Lucas asked.

I nodded, still unable to look at him after the misidentification. His voice echoed in my mind. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

The living room was small, but there was a fireplace in one corner. Looking through the archway, I saw a tiny dining room with a non-scary chandelier. I heard cups clinking and guessed the kitchen was beyond the dining room. I followed the narrow hallway off the living room and found two bedrooms, both decorated with ruffles and flower-printed fabric. There was a bathroom between them. It was small, but not as small as the one in Pinky’s apartment. The house reminded me of Liz and her fairy cave.

Returning to the living room, I found Mrs. Sandri settled in a wing chair by the fireplace. Lucas sat on a small sofa across from her, drinking from a teacup. The delicate china balanced in his strong hand made me suddenly imagine him dressed in breeches, sitting in a drawing room, waiting to call on his lady. God, I was deranged.

I took a breath and sat next to him. The couch was so small that our thighs touched. The contact felt like fire shooting up my leg. I scooted over, leaving a few inches between us, and reached for my cup. Too bad it wasn’t iced tea so I could dunk it over my head to cool my burning face.

“So tell me, honey, do you think my little house might work for you and your mom?” Mrs. Sandri smiled at me.

“It’s a lovely house. But don’t you live here?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Not for much longer. I’m moving to a home for seniors next week. That’s why almost all the furniture is gone.” She took a sip from her teacup. “The house is just too much for me to keep up on my own, even with Lucas doing the yard work for me and fixing everything that breaks.” She winked at him. “He even came by late one snowy night when my washing machine overflowed and flooded the laundry room.”

I glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, remembering his text the night I’d babysat. Helping out a neighbor.

He mirrored my eyebrow lift, then focused again on his teacup. But he was smiling.

“I don’t want to sell it just yet,” she continued. “And my sons don’t want me to, either. So we’re hoping to find some good people to rent it out. At least a year, maybe longer. Someone steady and responsible, which Lucas assures me you are. He speaks quite highly of you. Tells me you’re in quite a pickle with your dad on the run. And all that nasty business about him on the news.” She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “And your mama working so hard she doesn’t even have time to come look at places with you. You poor dear.”

I shot him a look. He was still fascinated by his teacup.

“And of course I adore your uncle; known him forever. So if you think you’re interested you’d be at the top of my list. Though I would need to meet your mother, of course, since she’d be the one to sign the lease.”

I set my cup on the table with a shaking hand. “Yes, of course. Mom would need to see the place first.” I shot Lucas another look. “And we have a few other places to look at, don’t we, Lucas?”

He set his cup on the table next to mine. “Yes, we do. Mrs. Sandri, may I use your bathroom please?”

“Of course, dear. You know where it is.”

After Lucas left the room, she turned toward me with a conspiratorial smile. “Honey, I’m sorry I mistook you for his girlfriend. But I just assumed, because I know he has a girl. Of course he does, a handsome, sweet boy like that. And when he came around asking about the house, the way he talked about you and your situation… He just seemed so worked up that naturally I assumed…”

Worked up?

“It’s okay, Mrs. Sandri.” Something about her chatty concern made me feel I should reassure her. “Trust me, if you saw the type of girl Lucas dates you’d know why it was so, um, funny you thought I was his girlfriend.” I swallowed as I forced a smile, because it wasn’t really funny.

She frowned at me. “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

I sighed, then gave voice to all my insecurities, the ones that drowned out the memory of the night at his house. “You should have met his last girlfriend. She looks like a supermodel. The two of them were like a perfect matched set. Trust me, when she was in the room, Lucas didn’t even know I existed.” I took an unladylike gulp of tea. “Anyway, Lucas and I are just friends.”