Page 77 of Badd Daddy

Lucas slid out of the truck, heading for the bed of his truck. “I’ll bring your luggage up.”

“You don’t have to.”

He grinned. “Don’t you know I been dyin’ to see the inside of your condo?”

I laughed. “It’s not that exciting.”

“Maybe I’m easily excited.”

I giggled. “I think it’s best I don’t follow that line of conversation.”

He wiggled his eyebrows at me—silly but suggestive—as he set our luggage on the ground. “Scared of impropriety, are you?”

“I’m notscaredof it, Lucas, I’m just…proper.”

He snorted. “Over-fucking-rated.” He settled the duffel bags crossed over his chest, tucked a suitcase under each arm and one suitcase in each hand, and headed for the door. “You need to loosen up a little, Liv. Life is too fuckin’ short to be proper all the damn time.”

I couldn’t get his words out of my mind as I opened the door for him, called the elevator, and led the way to my condo. He waited until I opened the door and followed me in, setting the luggage on the floor just inside the door, and then taking a long look around at the open concept floor plan.

Cassie limped slowly inside, taking it in as well. “Nice place, Mom.”

Lucas nodded his agreement. “Funny—it’s pretty much what I would have imagined your place looking like. ’Course, I don’t have the imagination to see exactly this, but it just fits you, I guess.” He gave my place one last look around, waved at Cassie, and then paused next to me, brushing his cheek against mine in a ghosting tease of a not-quite cheek-kiss. “See you,” he whispered.

I leaned against him for the briefest instant, and then pulled back. “Bye.”

He was gone, then, leaving a lingering breath of woodsy male scent in his wake.

Cassie perched on the edge of my couch and smirked at me. “A friend, indeed.”

I pointed an index finger at her. “Not a word, Cassandra.”

In typical Cassie fashion, she ignored me. “You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to, but I say go for it. He’s huge and crude and vulgar and uneducated, but he’s clearly smitten with you.”

“He is not smitten,” I muttered.

Cassie shook her head at me, snorting gently. “Mom, he’s bananas for you. If you don’t see that, you’re being willfully blind to the obvious.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Cass, please.”

She lifted her bad leg and extended it across the ottoman that matched the couch. “Mom,youplease.”

I stared at her. “I have no idea what you mean.”

She closed her eyes tiredly, spoke without opening them. “You’re as goo-goo for him as he is for you. Why you’re pretending to be oblivious, I don’t know, but it’s not like you. You were the one who taught the five of us to face facts head-on.”

I had no response to that, so I set about unpacking my things, and then Cassie’s, while she fell asleep on my couch.

Goo-goo?

Was I goo-goo for Lucas?

Was he bananas for me?

Was I pretending to be oblivious?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

Maybe it truly was time to face facts head-on.