Crazy in Love (Blue Lake #3)(14)

Us.

Lucy had met Cole Turner one time and they were already an “us”. He was definitely a charmer. Able to make every girl at his side feel uniquely beautiful. He was only in town for three more nights. Four days. There was no way she was falling for his games—or him—in that amount of time.

Why, then, was she so tied up about the idea of Lucy and Rhonda going out to dinner with him?

Because jealousy doesn’t listen to reason.

If she didn’t want to wind up heartbroken Sunday morning when Cole Turner left town like the rest of the men in her life, she’d have to keep her eyes on what was practical, her gaze trained on the attainable.

She fished her cell out of her pocket. “I’m going to text Joey now and tell him tonight will work.”

“You and Joey will be great together, you really will. He’s always looked at you that way.” Lucy swirled round and round, using the broom as a makeshift dance partner.

“What way?”

“Like he wants to lick you up and down.”

Rachael squealed, burying her head in her hands.

“Don’t try to tell me you couldn’t use some of that!” Lucy dipped the broom, stroked the bristles as if they were her lover’s hair, and pretended to lick the handle. “Does this mean you’ll come with us to dinner?”

Did she really want to let Cole get closer to her than he already was? If Lucy thought Joey glanced at her like he wanted to lick her, wait until she saw the way Cole looked her up and down. Rachael’s cheeks heated merely thinking about his hungry gaze.

Lucy swung at her with the broom. This time, Rachael caught it.

“If you stop using my broom as a weapon, yes.” Her heart sped. “I’ll go to dinner with Cole.”

“And me.”

Her eyebrows pinched. “What?”

“You’ll go to dinner with Cole and me,” Lucy corrected. “Don’t think you’re leaving me out of this, just because you two are shacking up.”

“Excuse me?” a gravelly voice said from the doorway. “Who am I shacking up with?”

Jolting off the bed, Rachael snatched the dust rag and pretended to be dusting the headboard.

“I was just say—saying,” Lucy stuttered. “That you two are sleeping under one roof. When you drop us off tomorrow night, it’ll be convenient since you’re staying here.”

“That will be convenient.” He strode across the room and checked the lids of the boxes in the corner. He stood over each of them, as if he was counting. “You didn’t go through these, did you?”

Rachael wasn’t curious about the boxes before, but she was now. What would he keep in them that made him so paranoid? He probably earned a couple million dollars last year. Surely he could replace whatever was in the boxes if the items were damaged or lost.

“We were cleaning,” Lucy blurted. “I may have accidently smacked the box with the back of my broom handle when I was beating Rachael with it.”

Cole smirked, the stress lines around his eyes vanishing. “I want to ask, but something says I shouldn’t.”

“Good call.” Rachael backed out of the room and motioned for Lucy to sneak out behind her. “We’ll leave you now. You probably want to rest.”

It was nearly two in the afternoon. Before meeting Cole and “his crew”, she would’ve thought musicians simply showed up before the show, played their numbers and went back to their hotels. Cole, however, seemed involved in the process.

He took off his coat and slung it over the chair in the corner. “What’s for dinner tonight?”