Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(20)

“Oh, uh…” Ryan hesitated, taking a few loud swallows Lizzie could hear through the phone. Gross. “Well, as you know, Mom and Dad’s anniversary is—”

“No,” Lizzie cut him off. “Absolutely not.”

Ryan let out an exasperated groan. “Don’t be so dramatic, Lizzie. Mary is planning their thirtieth-anniversary party for the end of summer. You’ll be there anyway, why not bake the cake?”

“Who says I’ll be there? I’d rather burn the hair off my head than go to that.”

“You have to.”

“Oh yeah? Says who?” Lizzie’s voice was rising.

“It’s just … I don’t know. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to go to stuff like that.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been great at doing what I’m supposed to do, have I?” Lizzie said, hopping out of bed and pacing her room like a captive cheetah. She hated being told what to do, especially when it came to family bullshit. She’d been so caged in by the dos and don’ts of unspoken family rules that the thought of being back behind those bars made her blood pound through her body like it wanted to burst through the veins.

“I know you have issues with Mom and Dad”—Lizzie snorted at this massive understatement—“so think of it as helping Mary out. She’s always loved your baking.”

Ryan had gone for Lizzie’s Achilles’ heel. Nothing motivated Lizzie more than being needed.

“Mary shouldn’t even want me doing this,” Lizzie said, her shoulders deflating, the fire snuffing out of her as quickly as it started. “We both know something will go wrong, and Mom will lose her shit and then that will look bad on Mary. She should save herself.”

Ryan was quiet for a moment. “I told her that.”

The truth shouldn’t have stung, but it did. Lizzie hadn’t ever done anything to earn Ryan’s faith in her—leaning fully into the wild child role she’d always been cast in—but the confirmation of Lizzie’s shortcomings still felt like a slap.

“She said she knows you won’t mess it up,” Ryan continued, unaware of the tiny little knife he’d twisted between her third and fourth ribs. “She begged me to convince you to do it. So here I am, asking for this favor.”

Hearing that split Lizzie in two. Part of her rejected Ryan’s words immediately, yelling at her that he was lying, that no one had faith in her like that. But the other part of her practically purred at the praise. The idea that Mary found Lizzie’s talent for baking useful was a type of validation she was starving for.

“Ry, I highly doubt Mom even wants me there,” Lizzie said weakly.

“Of course she wants you there.”

“Noooooo,” Lizzie said in a goofy voice, trying to mask her hurt with humor. “She wants you there. You and perfect Mary. She does not want me there. I’m sure she’s afraid I’ll burn the place down. Again.”

“Come on, Elizabeth. Literally no one could believe you would burn a place down twice. And you were ten when it happened anyway.”

Lizzie’s lips quirked at the memory.

While the only casualties from her attempted bonfire on the restaurant’s back patio had been a few table umbrellas and a wooden bench, neither of her parents looked back on the incident with anything close to humor.

Lizzie thought it was funny as hell.

“Please just do it,” Ryan said, his patience running thin.

Lizzie chewed on the inside of her cheek, her thoughts swirling around her head, down her neck, and across her chest, tickling her heart. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could actually pull this off with no screwups and start to defy every low expectation her family held of her.

“Okay,” she finally said, her voice a tiny squeak. “I’ll do it. Have Mary text me about her ideas for it and stuff.”

Ryan blew out a breath. “Thanks, Elizabeth. Got to run. We’ll talk soon.”

And with that, he hung up.

Lizzie stared at the phone in her hand, her heart and stomach tumbling around her insides, each landing in the wrong place. Ingrained inadequacy pulsed beneath her skin, every instinct telling her that she was going to screw this up and sink even lower in her status as family clown.

She sucked in deep breaths, trying to knock down the rock that seemed to have lodged itself in her throat, repeating the words her therapist had taught her when she was twenty-two: Your brain was built different and that’s beautiful, never a burden.

Lizzie collapsed back onto her bed, exhaustion overwhelming her before her day had even really begun.

She’d been sleepy all week, but a sudden touch of queasiness made her squeeze her eyes shut.

She lay there for a few minutes, halfway asleep when some underused entity of executive function decided to do its job and suddenly jolt her internal alarm.

Her eyes snapped open as she grabbed her phone and looked at the time.

S.H.I.T.

Lizzie was running late. Like, really fucking late.

She tumbled off the side of her bed, speed-crawling across her floor as she searched for her work shirt and a clean pair of underwear. Ripping on the former and not able to find the latter, she slipped out of her pajama bottoms and hoisted her thighs into the closest pair of jeans.

Lizzie sprinted out of her room, her sock-clad feet nearly slipping out from beneath her as she dived for her shoes and hopped into them, grabbing her purse and continuing her breakneck speed out of the apartment.