One Night Stand-In (Boyfriend Material #3) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,2
tumbling head over heels in love with art, but I still have to deal with this pending request and the dread crashing over me. “Is this going to be something as frustrating as that time I jimmied the lock on your storage unit to track down your good luck faux fur bolero jacket while you were on the road?”
“In my defense, I really thought I’d brought it with me, but it was the leopard-print one instead. I can’t go on tours without my lucky faux fur. And it worked! The Love Birds sang to sold-out clubs. I can’t ruin the luck. Luck is everything,” she says.
“Don’t I know it,” I grumble, since luck is my sister’s motto.
“But this is different. And so fun, I swear. Would I lie to you?”
“No.” That much is the truth. “However, you would definitely embellish. So, bottom line . . .” I cut to the chase—whatever she needs me to do, I’ll have to do it soon. Next week is huge for me. I’m competing for a book cover award at the prestigious Design-Off International, and I have a presentation to prep for the event. Not to mention my to-do list is ten feet deep and peppered with deadlines. “How much do you need for bail, and where do I post it?”
“No, it’s not that crazy. It’s about my landlord, Harrison,” she says with a groan. “And our stuff. And this terrible letter he emailed to Rowan and me this morning. I couldn’t even read the whole thing—I could barely read the first few lines. I was so upset, and I need you, Lo. I need you so much. I just can’t believe he sent this email right before we’re going to perform for a week. This is our big break, and he knows it. I thought he was a kindred spirit. A fellow artist who understood how hard it is to make it in this world. And to do this.”
My brow furrows as I try to make sense of what she’s saying. “To do what? What did your landlord send you a letter about?”
Her voice wobbles, and I can picture her lower lip trembling. Classic Luna move, and it almost always works.
I am the opposite. I am iron, but I have to be with a sister like Luna. Because she’s as soft as a baby duck’s down.
“All my stuff,” she says, her voice breaking. “I couldn’t read the details through my tears, but it’s about my stuff. My notebooks. My special notebooks with my song lyrics in them. And my clothes, even my plaid skirt with the special plaid buttons. And Rowan’s guitars. All his precious acoustics.”
I stitch on my best calm voice, the one I’ve used with her for years, ever since the first summer that Mom and Dad took off for a meditation retreat in the Rockies to reconnect with each other. Reconnecting with each other is pretty much all they’ve done since. “Where is your stuff? It’s just in your apartment, right? Like, on your bureau and in the closet?”
“It’s . . .” A sob floods my ears. “It’s everywhere.”
“Your stuff can’t really be everywhere,” I say, trying to soothe her. She’s prone to dramatics, but even for my sister, this is a bit much.
“It is. I swear. And I need it back. We need it back. This is our big break with the Love Birds, and we have to totally focus on performing. It’s not just picking it up from our place—there’s actually a little more to it. The landlord went a little, well, bananas,” she says.
I groan as she explains, semi-coherently, what went down. I was right to worry. This is next-level PITA.
“I don’t know if I have time . . .” I say with a heavy sigh.
“But I’ll help you! Well, you’ll have help.”
I frown. “Help? Why do I need help grabbing your stuff?”
She’s silent for an ominous moment. Then, in the most chipper tone of the whole damn early morning, she says, “Rowan asked Lucas to get his things.”
The noisy gym goes stiller than a crypt.
The only sounds I hear are the echoes of the past, of my one-time friend.
Then Amy’s sneakers squeak as she exits the locker room and heads toward me, an eyebrow cocked in curiosity.
Luna, I mouth to Amy. “You’re joking,” I say into the phone, forcing a calm I don’t feel, clinging to a tattered hope. But secret-code phone rings aside, Luna is not a trickster.