Good Lord! Maybe I’ll try reading the want ads instead. Oooh, Page Six, the gossip section! I’ll just take a quick look before I get to the job listings—
—New York high society is all abuzz about the impending nuptials of John MacDowell, sole heir to the MacDowell real estate fortune. The bride, Jill Higgins, is an employee at the Central Park Zoo. The couple met at the Roosevelt Hospital emergency room, where Miss Higgins was being treated for a back injury she received while lifting a seal that had escaped its enclosure, and where John MacDowell was having an ankle wrapped after twisting it during a polo match—
Oh! How romantic! And what a fun job, working with seals! If only I could—
Luke’s key is turning in the lock! He’s home!
Thank God I peeled off my Spanx two hours ago. The red marks must have faded by now.
And I’m not wearing them anymore. Luke is going to have to love me for me—the real me—or it’s over.
Except… look how adorable he is, in those faded jeans and that nice button-down shirt I picked out for him to wear! Maybe it’s all right to wear my Spanx just a little longer… until I’ve lost those fifteen extra pounds I brought home from France. Which I’m sure to do soon, given all the walking you have to do in this town. Plus, I completely ignored the baguettes at Eli’s…
“Hey,” he says. There’s a big smile on his face. “How’s it going?”
Hey, how’s it going. This is what my boyfriend says to me, ten hours after asking me to move in with him. It’s clear he hasn’t exactly been agonizing over my answer.
Or maybe he has and is trying to play it casual.
“What’s that smell?” he asks.
“Garlic,” I say. “I’m marinating a couple of steaks.”
“Great,” he says, putting down his keys on the little marble-topped console table by the door. “I’m starved. How was your day?”
Wow. How was your day? This is what it’s like to live with someone. I mean, a guy. It’s a lot like living with a girl, really.
Except that instead of waiting around for my answer, the way Shari used to when we were roommates, Luke comes over, puts his arms around my waist, and gives me a kiss.
Okay. Not so much like living with a girl. At all.
“So,” Luke says, grinning down at me. “When are you going to break the news to your parents?”
Oh, okay. The reason he hasn’t been agonizing over my answer to his question is that he already knew what my answer was going to be.
I drop my arms from around his neck, stunned.
“How did you know?”
“Are you kidding me?” He’s laughing now. “The Lizzie Broadcasting System has been hard at work all day.”
I glare at him. “That’s impossible. I haven’t told anyone! Anyone except—” I break off, flushing.
“Right,” Luke says, playfully flicking the tip of my nose with one long index finger. “Shari told Chaz, who called to demand my intentions.”
“Your—” Now I’m not just flushing. I’m blushing. “He had no right to do that!”
But Luke is still laughing. “He thinks he does. Oh, don’t look so mad. Chaz thinks of you as the little sister he never had. I think it’s sweet.”
I didn’t. In fact, I was going to give Chaz a very unsisterly piece of my mind next time I saw him.
“What did you say?” I can’t help asking, curiosity overcoming my anger.
“About what?” Luke’s found the bottle of wine I’d bought and opened to let breathe, and is pouring us each a glass.
“Your, um, intentions.”
I’m trying to keep it casual. And light. Guys don’t like it when you get too heavy, I’ve noticed. They especially don’t like it when you try to talk too much about the future. They’re like little woodland animals. Everything’s well and good when you’re just doling out the nuts and everything’s cool.
But the minute you bring out the net to try to catch them—even if it’s for their own good, like to help them escape a forest fire—all hell breaks loose. No WAY was I bringing up the C word with Luke. Two months into a relationship might be early enough to consider moving in together. But it was WAY too early to start bandying about the word “commitment.”
Even if one of us did have wedding dresses permanently on the brain.
“I told him not to worry,” Luke says, handing one of the wine-glasses to me. “That I would do everything in my power not to sully your reputation.” Luke clinks the edge of his glass to mine. “Also that he should be thanking me,” he adds with a wink.
“Thanking you?” I echo. “Why?”
“Well, because now Shari can move in with him. He’d asked her to before, but she said she couldn’t abandon you.”
“Oh.” I blink a few times. I hadn’t known that. Shari had never said a word.
But if she’d only been moving in with me out of pity, why had she reacted the way she did when I’d told her about Luke’s offer?
“Anyway, I was thinking we could go out to celebrate,” Luke was going on. “The four of us. Not tonight, obviously, because you picked up steaks. But maybe tomorrow night. There’s this fantastic Thai place downtown I know you’re going to love—”
“We need to talk,” I hear myself saying. Whoa. Where did that come from?
Luke looks surprised, but not offended or anything. He sinks down onto his mother’s white couch—I am so not sitting there with food or drink in my hands—and looks up at me with a grin.
“Sure,” he says. “Of course. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff we need to figure out. Like where you’re going to put all your clothes.” His grin gets broader. “I gather from Chaz that your collection of vintage wear is somewhat impressive.”
Except it isn’t my clothes I’m worried about. It’s my heart.
“If I’m going to live with you,” I say, moving to sit on the arm of the couch… there’s less chance of catastrophic results if a spill occurs there. Plus, I’m far enough away from him that he can’t distract me with his manliness. “I want to split the cost—utilities, groceries, all of that—fifty-fifty. You know. So it’s fair. To both of us.”
Luke isn’t grinning now. He’s sipping his wine and shrugging. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever you want.”
“And,” I say, “I want to pay rent.”
He looks at me oddly. “Lizzie. There’s no rent to pay. My mother owns this place.”
“I know,” I say. “I mean I want to pay something toward the mortgage.”
Luke’s grinning again. “Lizzie. There’s no mortgage. She paid cash for the place.”
Wow. This is way harder than I thought it would be.
“Well,” I say. “I have to pay something. I mean, I can’t just sponge off you for free. That’s not fair. And if I’m paying to live here, then I get some say in what goes on with the place. Right?”
Now one of his dark eyebrows has slid up. “I see what you mean,” he says. “And are you planning on doing some redecorating?”
Oh God. This is not going at all the way I’d hoped it would. Why did Chaz have to call him? I get accused all the time of having a big mouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.
“Not at all,” I say. “I love what your mother’s done to the place. But I’m going to have to move some stuff to make room.” I clear my throat. “For my sewing machine. And things like that.”
Now both of Luke’s eyebrows are up. “Your sewing machine?”
“Yes,” I say, a little defensively. “If I’m going to start my own business, I’m going to need my own space in here to do that. And I want to pay for that space. It’s only fair. What about… is there a monthly maintenance fee? You know, that the building charges for upkeep?”
“Sure,” Luke says. “It’s thirty-five hundred dollars.”
I nearly choke. It’s a good thing I’ve sat on the arm of the couch, or I’d have spat all over it, and not the parquet floor, which is the recipient of a mouthful of red wine.
“Thirty-five hundred dollars?” I cry, jumping up and hastening to the kitchen for a dish towel. “A month ? Just for maintenance ? I can’t afford that!”