Page 61 of Just My Luck

”Listen, Morrissey. Take it from me, you shouldn’t get involved in all this. Those billionaires are not to be trusted.”

“Aw, son, are you worried about me? I always come out okay. I’m Lucky Lou, the undefeatable. Even when my sailboat sank on me, I was fine. Went to prison, escaped. Got sent back, but here I am. Can’t keep Lucky Lou down.” He waved his hand in the air, realized it was empty, and dug in his pack for another joint. “Did Zara ever tell you those stories?”

“No, but I can tell you plenty of stories about how ruthless billionaires can be. I’ve seen it firsthand, and I’m warning you⁠—”

“Wait.” Lou stopped midway through digging in his pack. “I got it. Are you a gigolo?”

“A what?” Had he heard that right? It was hard to know, since his brain was operating at maybe half its usual speed.

“You don’t seem like a nanny to me. You didn’t even fold those clothes right. So what are you doing in all those rich people’s houses? Yeah, I nailed it, didn’t I?”

Lincoln debated for a ludicrously long moment about what was better, Zara’s father knowing he was a billionaire or thinking he was a gigolo. Could he just go with alien?

Deadpan, fighting to control his expression, Lincoln finally said, “Please don’t tell Zara.”

“She probably couldn’t afford you,” Lous said sadly. “My little Zara’s a fabulous girl, but she’s terrible with money. Do you know how many of my opportunities she’s turned down because of ‘ethics’ or ‘principles’ or ‘integrity’? What does any of that shit have to do with making your fortune? Don’t answer that, you probably wouldn’t know, Mr. Manny.” He coughed hard into his fist, then paused at the sound of footsteps on the lanai.

“Shit, she’s back.” He snuffed out the tip of his joint with his wet fingers. Jumping to his feet, he pulled out a can of air freshener and dashed around the room, spraying the chemical scent of “Ocean Breeze” wherever he could reach.

“We never talked, you understand?” he told Lincoln. “We never smoked. We never discussed a deal. All we did was clean up in here and we did a damn fine job, if I do say so.”

29

Oh sweet lord in heaven. Zara had known she was tossing Lincoln into the deep end by leaving him alone with her father. She hadn’t expected the “getting him high” part. How the heck had her father gotten weed between the prison and here?

Poor Lincoln’s eyes were red from all the marijuana smoke hovering in the air. Maybe the hastily sprayed and completely ineffective air freshener had something to do with it too. The whole house reeked.

She went around the room, opening windows.

“You’re stomping all over my buzz with that frown of yours, honeybee,” her dad complained. “Come here and have a puff with me. I missed you. And boy do I have some stories to tell. I’m about to have the Hollywood producers after me again.”

She ignored him, and discovered she could barely look at Lincoln. Her cheeks burned with hot embarrassment. She imagined the women Lincoln must usually date. Poised, polished, classy, wealthy. The idea that he’d be interested in Zara, the hot mess with the fraudster dad…ludicrous. What had she been thinking?

She banished all thoughts of tumbling into bed with Lincoln. The best she could hope for now was to get him out of here so his brain didn’t rot from the industrial-strength weed her father had somehow acquired.

Grabbing Lincoln by the hand, she dragged him toward the front door. “Make yourself at home, Dad. We have to get out of here.”

“You’re leaving? Zara, baby. You can’t leave now!”

“I know you, Lucky Lou. You’re going to conk out in about three minutes. You can sleep on the couch or in my bedroom. If you really wanted to go to Bermuda, you shouldn’t have smoked so much. I don’t make the rules.”

Her father tried to get up off the couch, but didn’t get far before slumping back down. “But wait. There’s something…I gotta ask…” He swiped his hand across his forehead and peered up at the ceiling. “Can’t remember right now. Ask the gigolo, he knows.”

“The gigolo?”

Zara looked at Lincoln, who gave her a goofy grin and wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Sweet sandaled lord in heaven. This situation was dire. Lincoln was stoned out of his gourd.

She managed to get him into the Mercedes, then drove to the Seaside Paradise. Lincoln kept leaning out the window to wave at the other cars. Was he singing to them too?

At the hotel, he walked up to one of the palm trees outside the entrance and insisted on giving it a nice long hug. “I love you, tree,” she heard him murmur. She waited impatiently until he finished whispering to the tree trunk, then snuck him through the side door.

“How much did you smoke?” she hissed at him as she punched the elevator button.

“Me? Nothing. I swear.” He flashed a boy scout vow signal, then parted his fingers to turn it into something out of Star Trek. Oh my God. If this was only a contact high, he must have no tolerance whatsoever.

He giggled. Giggled. She’d never heard anything like a giggle come out of this man’s mouth before.