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She pulls out the chair on the opposite side slowly, sinking into it while eyeing the sugar-loaded monstrosity warily. “I can’t believe you remember my drink.”
“Kind of hard to forget sugar coma in a cup,” I scoff.
Her mouth twitches in a smile. Her smile causes the cute little dimple she’s always had to deepen, and I’m struck with the realization that while it used to make her face more babyish, more angelic even—now it just accentuates how stunning she’s become. It makes me feel strange to acknowledge that, even in my head.
Not that it’s kept me from noticing, because fuck have I noticed.
The Lila I remember was all elbows and skinny legs, but this Lila—it feels almost wrong to refer to her as a kid, even for nostalgia’s sake. This Lila is pouty lips and luscious curves and a smile that makes me wish I were wearing tighter underwear, and fuck me these are not thoughts I should be having, but my brain hasn’t gotten the memo yet that this is Lila. Jack’s little sister and my old friend.
I try to think back to the time when I last saw her—she had to be, what, seventeen? Between the draft and her going to college out of state, and then moving to France…it feels like a lifetime since I sat this close to Delilah Baker. Looking at her now, it seems like she’s lived a lifetime since I last sat across from her. Save for her big brown eyes that are just as wide and clear as they were back then, I can’t see much left of the scrawny kid I used to know.
This Lila isn’t a kid at all, that’s for damn sure.
“You know,” she chuckles, tearing me out of my inappropriate tumble of thoughts, “I haven’t had one of these in forever.”
“Finally started caring about your glucose levels?”
She rolls her eyes, pulling the plastic cup closer. “In France, it’s all about espresso. I got addicted to it.”
“Oh, I can get you something else,” I try.
She shakes her head. “This is good. Really.”
She wraps her lips around the straw, and I watch for a second too long as she takes a drink. I clench my teeth as I force my eyes away toward my own cup, bringing it to my mouth to sip if for no other reason than to distract myself from the urge to stare.
“Mm,” she hums. “Okay. So that’s still amazing.”
I glance up, but the sight of her pink tongue flicking out to catch some stray whipped cream on her lip sparks that same strange feeling in my chest. My heart rate seems to be as slow on the uptake as my brain, if the way it jumps at the sight is any indication.
I clear my throat. “So…France? That must have been a trip.”
“Oh, it was amazing. A fucking dream, actually. The pâtissier I studied under—Olivier—total grump, but he’s brilliant. I think I saw him smile maybe…twice? In three years? But the man can bake macarons that’ll make your taste buds orgasm.”
My ears heat, and I have to hope that they’re not peeking out of my hair. It’s the second time in fifteen minutes that she’s made a sex reference to food. It’s doing nothing for the me who’s trying desperately to rein in my brain’s confused reaction to her being so…grown up. I don’t know how to navigate little Lila making sex references of any kind.
My eyes flick to her chest as if they have a mind of their own, and I have to hold back a snort.
Little. Right.
“That sounds great,” I mumble, tilting my cup again for another swallow of my coffee. I rattle the ice after awkwardly. “Your brother sent me a few pics when you first left, but you know how Jack is with keeping up with people.”
Maybe I would have been better prepared, I think bitterly.
She laughs, her dark brown eyes glinting. “Yeah, he came over my first year. I’m surprised you got that much. I bet it was the worst photo too.”
“Half your head was cut off.”
“That tracks.”
“It was a very cute half of a head,” I tease.
She visibly stiffens, and it takes me a second to hear what I’ve said. It’s something I would have said to her when she was a teenager and sulking. Innocent. Without meaning. Does it sound like flirting now? Jesus. It’s been too long since I’ve interacted with a woman outside of a meaningless one-night stand. The easy air between Lila and me that we once had is dryer now, harder to manage. Maybe it’s simply because it’s been so long? It sure as hell isn’t helping that she looks like…Well, that she looks like the way she does.
I clear my throat. “Was the language barrier an issue?”
“Oh God,” she says in a sort of laugh-scoff. “It took me months to even be able to have a decent conversation. Olivier refused to talk to me in English. He always said: ‘If you want to cook like the French, you have to speak like the French.’ ”
“He sounds like a dick.”
