How (Not) to Fall in Love(64)

“Friends who need to get to their next appointment,” Lucas said from the hallway.

I looked up, horrified. How long had he been standing there? His eyes seemed to bore into my very soul. I dropped my gaze, wishing once again that I hadn’t used my outside voice.

I jumped up from the couch. “I’ll take the cups to the kitchen.” Lucas’s eyes followed me like I was his prey and he was about to pounce. I could feel his anger all the way into the kitchen. Why was he angry, anyway? I was just speaking the truth about him and Heather.

Damn it. This was going to make things awkward again. I could have apartment-shopped on my own, but it was hard enough that we were moving. Doing this part with Lucas made it much more bearable.

“Please don’t get up,” Lucas was saying to Mrs. Sandri when I returned to the living room. “We’ll let ourselves out.”

I took a breath. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Sandri. You have such a lovely home. I’m sure my mom will like it. I’ll be in touch with you soon.”

“You have my number?”

“I’ll give it to her,” Lucas said, smiling through gritted teeth.

As soon as we were on the sidewalk, Lucas took my elbow. “What the hell was that?”

I shook my arm loose from his grip. “Don’t grab me like that. What was what?”

“You’re way too smart to play dumb with me, Darcy. Knock it off. You know damn well what I mean.” His beautiful eyes were practically shooting sparks.

“The perfection part? About you and Heather looking like you belonged on top of a wedding cake?” If I was going down, I might as well do it in a blaze of glory.

He closed his eyes and his nostrils actually flared. Then his eyes snapped open and pinned me with a fierce gaze. “Not that, but yeah, that was idiotic, too. I meant the other thing you said. About me being so…so distracted by Heather that I didn’t notice anyone else if she was around.”

I spoke quickly, determined to figure out once and for all what he felt for me. “You can’t deny it, Lucas. When she was around, the aliens could’ve landed and taken all of Broadway hostage and you never would’ve noticed.”

He glared at me, his lips drawn in a thin straight line. His intensity made my stomach flutter. “Okay, so maybe you’d have noticed if the aliens took Pickles. Maybe.” I waited for him to crack even the tiniest smile, but he didn’t.

Instead, he stalked down the sidewalk. I hurried to catch up with him. At least we’d changed the subject. Painfully so, but at least we weren’t talking about the utter humiliation of him overhearing me go on and on about how perfect he was. And how invisible I was.

And he hadn’t denied what I’d said, about not noticing anyone else when Heather was around. Maybe I really had misinterpreted everything, like what he meant when he said he aimed high. Maybe he didn’t mean me at all.

“Let’s just get this over with, Lucas. How many more places do we have to look at?”

He stopped and pinned me with the spark-shooting glare again. “So you want to leave? I’m so full of my…perfection…that I’m a pain in the ass to spend time with?”

I felt like he’d sucker-punched me. How had things gotten this twisted around? One minute we were practically best friends and the next minute we were fighting like alley cats.

“God, you’re so—” He ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m so what, Lucas? So annoying? So clueless? A one-woman tornado of craziness? Quick, pick one before you lose a turn.”

“Stop it,” he said, his voice low.

“Stop what?”

“Stop doing that. Getting snarky. You do it when you’re upset.”

I gaped at him. He had no idea how snarky I could be. I narrowed my eyes. “Come on, Lucas. You know you’re only doing this to win points with Charlie. You don’t really care where my mom and I end up.”

The words hung there between us, like the slow-motion bullets in an action movie. But no one was dodging these bullets, and I wanted desperately to snatch them back. His hands clenched into fists. I had the feeling that if I were a guy I’d be lying on the grass, writhing in pain. That sounded preferable to enduring his frozen stare.

He spat out his next words. “If we actually are friends, Darcy, then guess what? I’m going to be honest with you.” He laughed, but it was bitter. “You’ve already been honest about your opinion of me.” He paused. “When I picked you up this morning, I didn’t think we’d end up fighting. I was hoping maybe—” He stopped and ran a hand through his hair. He blew out a frustrated breath, then his eyes latched onto mine. “I was stupid enough to think we’d hang out like we always do. Maybe even have fun, while you’re trying to figure out what to do next.” He looked away from me, his jaw tight. “God only knows where I got that crazy idea.”

My eyes filled with tears. If this were a romance novel, this was when he’d sweep me into his arms and kiss me passionately, telling me he loved me.

But this was real life. This was the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. Hip hop music blared from the house across the street. Little boys played basketball in the driveway next door. Mrs. Sandri peeked out the front window, watching us argue. Across town, my mom sat in some dingy, abandoned house hoping someone would make an offer so she could redeem herself in Pam’s eyes.