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She pulled back, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Matt. I’m sorry for so many things. Can we try again? Can we?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t, because she answered for him by smothering him with another kiss.
Chapter 6
Maybe it was stupid, ridiculous, and completely dumb to get this excited about going for a ride with a random man. Okay, the guy was hot; she would give him that. He’d also been right about the fact that Lucy had been checking him out.
Lucy had put on some leather pants she’d probably had for three years but had never worn. She’d thought about doing aGreasenight for one of the town parties and dressing up as Sandra Dee, but it hadn’t happened yet.
The past two months since Matt and Tatum had left, her world had fallen apart. Not that anyone would know. Lucy had put on a front as she went on with parties, sold art, and helped her friends with their lives and their children. Not to mention the current biggest time-suck of her life: Dawn’s wedding.
Dang, she shouldn’t think of it as a time-suck. That was rude, wasn’t it? After all, she’d volunteered to do it. And she wanted to help. Lucy was so excited that Dawn had finally met her match, and they all liked Trevor. The guy was a complete hunk, not to mention funny. He and Dawn were rocking the indie music world together. She was making the music, but he was officially her writer these days. They were a funny couple, but so happy.
Lucy was good. Fine. Great. Except she was lonely.
Matt hadn’t tried to reach out. She knew that was Matt’s way. A gentle soul, as Mrs. Roxy always called him. And that was what she’d liked about him: he was gentle, he was giving, and he was funny when you got him one on one. He was witty and smart, but he was more the “stay in the back” type who quietly got things done.
Maybe that was why he’d gotten along so well with the Stone family. They needed guys like Matt and Tim to offset their alpha roles.
When Matt and Lucy had first started dating, she remembered sitting on the floor with Matt and Tatum for a tea party. They’d all been in Tatum’s newly painted mermaid room, which Lucy had helped decorate. Tatum had treated her and Matt to tea and cookies. The cookies came out of the package, the tea was just water, and the cups were from her tiny tea set, but they’d all laughed and played and acted the parts. Matt had adopted an atrocious British accent and acted like the king, calling Lucy his queen. That was when Lucy had fallen for him—this big, hunky construction worker who, despite his broken heart, had endless time for and patience with his cute daughter.
It was stupid, but Lucy found a tear leaking down her cheek. Somewhere along the way, as she’d worked her business and helped Matt build his, she’d also taken on the role of third parent to Tatum. She’d fallen hard for both of them and it hurt so badly now that they were gone.
She smacked the counter and broke the eyeliner vial she’d been using. “No!”
Cursing, she threw the eyeliner in the trash.
No. no. no. She wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t have a mini Matt breakdown, as Ava, Kensi, and Kat called them.
She stomped away from the bathroom and sucked in a long breath. In, two, three; out, two, three. In, two, three; out, two, three.
Her phone buzzed and she walked over to the bed, grabbing a tissue to clean her knuckles—they’d gotten bloody when she’d smashed her hand into the counter—and tapped the screen.
It was a text from Matt. Wait. What? And there was a text from Tatum, too.
Lucy couldn’t believe that Matt had texted and she’d missed it. She dropped everything and texted him back.I can talk.
Then she read Tatum’s text. It said the same thing:Can you talk?
Her heart soared. The little girl was still a sunny spot in her life. They’d spent a lot of time talking through how to approach new friends at school, how to handle not having friends, and how to tell her mom that she was disappointed in her for not showing up.
No response from Matt. It looked like Matt’s text was almost two hours ago. Hmm. Lucy wanted to call him, but she felt like she should call Tatum first.
Tatum answered on the first ring. “I don’t have a lot of time to talk, but I wanted to tell you I sat by three of the popular girls at school today.”
“You did?” Lucy was so happy for her. “How did it go?”
“Well, I was shocked when they asked me to sit by them, but then I did, and they asked me all kinds of questions, and it was like they really wanted to get to know me.”
Lucy could just picture Tatum’s cute mouth full of braces as she ate a banana—her favorite fruit—and talked to the girls. “That’s so great.”
Tatum said, “So, Mom and Dad are downstairs talking.”
“Oh.” Lucy knew she was just a confidant to Tatum, but her heart was breaking a little bit.
“Yeah. We had dinner together, then played games. It was fun.”
Anger rose inside her, but she smothered it. “I’m so glad you had a good day and then got to enjoy your parents.”
