“Reed Fucking Luca.”
I winced as I lifted the hand not clasped with Lola’s and greeted my favorite coffeehouse owner slash barista. “Hey, Tony.”
His eyes lingered on mine for only a moment before straying to the woman attached to me. In an oversized gray sweatshirt that hung off of her shoulders, cutoff olive-green shorts, and her maroon-colored glasses, Lola looked like everything a comfortable woman should—poised, genuine, and a little bit tired from staying up late with me.
It’d been a couple of weeks since she’d admitted to our sex being anything but casual, and there’d only been a couple of bumps in the road. More like speed tables than anything, they’d both revolved around our columns and the root of their purpose—disagreeing with one another.
Of course, for me, the more I knew about her, the more I liked, and as a result, it was getting harder and harder to see her perspective separately from my own. But I’d been trying. I liked what we had, I liked where we were, and a small part of me was scared it would go away if we didn’t have any kind of underlying antagonism to fall back on.
She hated me, and I entertained her. It was what we did.
“I’m still not really sure if I should strangle you or give you a big hug,” Tony said.
“Always the hug. Love is everything.”
Lola scoffed, and with a huge smile, Tony pulled her into a hug instead of me, whispering loud enough that I could hear. “I don’t know anything about you, but if you’re good at identifying his bullshit for what it really is, I already love you.”
Lola laughed, kind of a rolling giggle as Tony held her close and patted his hands from the top of her arms to the bottom for way longer than either of us anticipated.
When he finally let her go, her eyes were round and she mouthed, “Wow. Awkward,” right in my face.
I smiled at the sheer uninhibited nature of her expression. Tony took my smile as an insult, pointing and lecturing me on my smug nature. “You’re lucky you didn’t come in here a couple of weeks ago.”
“What? Why?” Innocent was a nice role to play, but no one would ever accuse me of playing myself. I knew what he was talking about.
“The Reed Luca discount?” Tony answered, and I laughed.
“Come on, Tone. I bet you had a healthy percentage increase in customers. Enough to make up for a little innocent incentive?”
Lola, standing to the side and pulling her hair into a high ponytail, piped up. “This is kind of like Selena.”
“Selena?” I asked, completely lost. “The singer?”
Tony nodded knowingly, his pointer finger settling into a wag. “Ah, yeah. The movie.”
“Exactly,” Lola confirmed excitedly.
My face must have been as blank as my mind because she rolled her eyes and started to explain. “She gets married on the sly to a guy her father doesn’t approve of, and before she can tell her father herself, the radio announces it. He’s a total hothead and is completely outraged, as she expected, so she puts off going to go see him until he can cool off a little.”
“And when she does go back, her father has had time to gain perspective on the situation and welcomes her husband to the family,” Tony added.
“And this is like me, how?” I asked. Quite frankly, I wasn’t getting it.
The speed of Lola’s dictation told me she was losing patience with my ignorance.
“You’re Selena, Tony is your father, the discount is the marriage, the video’s unexpected success is the announcement on the radio, and the time you’ve taken to come in here since then is the cooldown period.”
“Oh.” Wow. Okay, so she had it all figured out.
Tony and Lola looked at one another like I was the crazy one in this scenario, and I don’t know, maybe I was.
One thing I foresaw for my future pretty clearly was a forced movie-watching by Lola.
“How do you know so much about Selena?” I asked Tony teasingly.
“Because she was the goddamn American dream, Reed.” He turned and walked to round his way back to his post behind the counter, calling over his shoulder as he went, “And she had this unmistakable quality that made everyone like her even when she was getting into some sort of trouble.”
“Sounds familiar,” Lola mumbled, and Tony nodded. Both looked from one another to me.
I didn’t know what they expected of me or what reaction they were patiently waiting on, but this was literally one of the best days of my life.
Lola was here, in one of my favorite places, getting along with someone I respected on a human level and finding common ground with him over something completely unexpected. Not to mention the two of them were using all kinds of skills and perspective I’d been planting in their minds since the day I’d met them to confront their affection for me.
I felt like I was on top of the world. My smile reflected that.
“You want to go ahead and order?” I offered, putting my hand on the small of Lola’s back. “I’ll grab a table so we have enough room for the four of us.”
Thanks to Tony’s good business and my random video, the place was packed. But we’d finally gotten around to the coffee date with our sisters, and I didn’t think mine, in particular, would take kindly to standing for even a second longer than she had to.
“Uh, sure. What do you want?”
I waved her off and smiled at Tony. “He knows.” Lola looked uncertain, but Tony quickly confirmed with a nod.
“Okay, perfect. I wanted to buy anyway.”
I shook my head and flexed my fingers into the fabric at her back. “Just put it on my tab, LoLo.”
“Do you ever actually pay your tab?” she asked sarcastically, and the realization struck me like a spark. I guess we still had a lot to learn about one another. The prospect was exciting—I was always hungry for new experiences and information.
“Of course I do.”
She pursed her lips and examined me closely, and I let her. I’d let her stare at me all day if she did it that closely, like she was trying to really learn something about me.
Alas, she shook it off quicker than I would have liked. “Okay. But I’m treating today. It makes me feel empowered, and I need as much power around you as I can get.”
I laughed at her frankness and leaned in to touch my lips to hers. “Okay.”
That decided, I weaved my way through the crowd to a table in the corner and cleared off the trash that had been left behind. Apparently, not wanting to deal with other people’s messes, customers had left the table vacant for that very reason. But a little garbage didn’t scare me. At least, not nearly as much as my almost-fully-baked pregnant sister.
Lola squeezed through the crowd shortly behind me, two hot cups of coffee in her hands. “Gah. Hot, hot, hot,” she chanted as she set them down on the table in front of me. “I just have to go back for my card.”
“Uh,” I heard from behind her, Tony’s voice hesitant. “Actually, Lola. Your card was decl—”
“Oh, shoot!” she snapped under her breath before he could even finish his sentence. “The Louboutins. I forgot.”
She grabbed her little bag on her wrist and begun rummaging through it, but I stopped her with a hand on top of hers. “Just put it on my tab for now, Tone.”
Lola huffed.
I put my lips to her ear and lowered my voice to one of consolation. “You can treat next time, but this place is mobbed, and letting this be over will be altogether easier for Tony.”
It wasn’t a decision she gave in to lightly, I could tell, but finally, she nodded. Tony looked relieved, smiling and shooting away in a rush.
Left to our twosome in his wake, Lola looked embarrassed. Over the situation or the money or maybe losing the power she spoke of needing around me. Flushed red with wet in her eyes, she looked down to conceal it. But no matter the reason, I wanted to make sure she knew she didn’t need to be.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked softly.
She huffed a surprised breath, then shook her head. “Definitely not.”
“Why?” I asked earnestly.
“Because it’s fucking embarrassing.”
“Things are only embarrassing if they’re going a way you don’t want them to go.”
“Ugh, Reed! Not fucking now with the lectures.”
I put up both hands in surrender. “I’m not. I swear.”
She sighed, and I watched her go silent, her mind spinning its wheels and mulling everything over. She needed a moment, and I had no problem giving it to her.
“You know, you can tell me anything, LoLo,” I said after a good five minutes had passed. “I’ll never judge you.”
“I mean, it’s embarrassing that my card was declined.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger. “I’m a sad fucking excuse for an adult, aren’t I?” she asked—and then immediately took it back. “Wait…don’t answer that.”
Her eyes searched my face for a reaction, but I didn’t give one. Judgment wasn’t my thing. And when it came to Lola, I was already biased. Hell, I was probably her biggest fucking fan.
“I’m pathetic,” she muttered. “It’s like I’m missing the gene that allows you to become a real live adult. Some things I can manage just fine, but others, like finances, I’m just winging the fuck out of it. No game plan. Just pure, old-fashioned winging it.” She dropped her head to the table with a thud. “I don’t know how to be a grown-up.”
I fought the urge to chuckle at her adorable display and took a more resolute, direct approach instead. “Do you want to live like this?”
Her head popped up off the table, and she narrowed her eyes in my direction. “With my credit cards too maxed out for a cup of coffee?” she asked sarcastically. “I think not.”
I nodded. “Then I’ll help you change it.”
She rolled her eyes, took a sip of her coffee, and then cursed as it scalded her. It sloshed as she pushed it away as though it had offended her. I suspected she was picturing my reflection in the top of her cup. “It’s not that simple. Debt doesn’t just change. You have to pay it off and change your lifestyle, and that stuff, I’m not really willing to do.”
“I bet it’s easier than you think,” I hedged gently.
She didn’t look like she thought so.
Turning my hand upside down on the table, I gave her a gentle prompt. “Hand me your cards, will you?”
“Why?” she questioned immediately, and I smiled.
After a couple moments of consideration, she gave in. “Fine,” she said, fishing them out of her bag and handing them over.
I jumped up immediately, went behind the counter without permission and grabbed a pair of scissors before returning to a now-panicked Lola.
“Reed! What the hell! You can’t just cut my cards!” she yelled as I made the first cut through the one she’d just had declined.
“Relax,” I soothed as she seethed. “You’ll just use cash from now on.”
“And get mugged?” she retorted sarcastically.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes, knowing how hard this must be for her and how much harder it probably made it that I was the one making the cuts. “The credit cards are more attractive to a thief than cash. They generally hold a way bigger limit than the wad of cash that can fit in your pocket.”
“Whatever. I have stuff on those cards! Important stuff!”
“Like?” I asked calmly.
“My gym membership.”
I stopped, resting the sides of my hands on the table, scissors and cards in their respective grips. “I’ve never, ever seen you go to the gym. I actually haven’t even seen gym-appropriate attire in your closet.”
“What were you doing in my closet?”
“Not the point here.”
“It will be later,” she threatened, and I laughed.
“The gym?” I asked, bringing the conversation back to the matter at hand. “Did you really go?”
“She goes for the smoothies,” her sister Annie announced as she sat down.
Neither of us had noticed her approach. But then again, I hadn’t noticed much other than Lola, and apparently, she’d been just as transfixed by me. I quickly cut the rest of her cards and dumped the remnants into her hands as Annie watched.
“Ooh. Cutting cards. I like this guy!”
“Yeah, Annie,” Lola grumbled. “We know.”
I leaned over to give her a hello hug.
When I sat back down, Lola’s eyes tried to burn me. I chuckled. “So you like the smoothies at the gym. No big deal. There’s a smoothie place right around the corner from Gus’s. I just had one the other day. I bet you’ll like them even better than the gym, and it should save you thirty bucks a month.”
“Fine! But what about my Ipsy bag?”
I stared blankly. Annie laughed. Lola just waited for an answer.
“Ipsy bag?” I asked Annie.
“It’s makeup.”
I looked back at Lola’s face. “Do you even wear makeup?”
“No,” Annie answered helpfully with a smug laugh.
Lola’s demeanor turned hostile. “I do too! I do when I go out, and I could totally wear it more often.”
I shook my head. “You don’t need to.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I quickly reminded myself that my opinion wasn’t even remotely the one that mattered here.
“But, if it’s your passion, it’d probably be cheaper to buy something when you need it rather than getting things every month, no?”
“Stop being so rational!” Annie fake-yelled when Lola opened her mouth, almost as though Lola was a ventriloquist doll.
“Look out,” I heard in my sister’s voice, just as I feared I’d have to stand up and take a position between the two. “Lady with a baby.”
When someone looked into the empty space in her arms, she got nasty. “In my uterus, asshole.”
I figured it was time to intervene. “Excuse me.”
I jumped from my seat and helped her the rest of the way through the crowd, settling her into the chair closest to Annie.
“Lola, Annie, this is my sister, Laura. Laura, this is Lola—”
“I can already tell by the way you’re mooning at her and she looks prepared to stab you.” She held out one hand and rested the other on her enormous belly. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Lola replied, now with a smile.
“And I’m her sister,” Annie offered.
Laura held out her hand again. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Okay,” Annie said shamelessly. “Let’s get back to making Lola cry.”
“Annie!” Lola yelled, and Laura and I grinned.
“Why is Lola crying?” Laura asked easily. Lola turned a little pink but answered nonetheless.
“Reed is cutting up my credit cards. Granted, I probably needed it, but I can’t believe I’m letting him help me.”
Laura looked genuinely surprised. “Really? Reed is great with money. He’s helped me with all of my investments.”
“What?” Lola nearly shrieked, and I laughed and spoke directly to my sister.
“She thinks I’m a bum.”
Laura laughed. “Well, she’s right about that in some ways.”
I shook my head. “She thinks I have no money.”
Lola started to get agitated. “You’re rootless. You never keep the same job and do what you please. Hell, you call in to places and pretend to be a no-show for work! How in the hell does that translate into money?”
Laura grew excited by having something to contribute to the conversation. “I know the answer to this one!”
I waved her on. “Go ahead.”
“I’ve just heard the speech to my dad so many times.”
“Laura,” I warned.
“Right, right.” She held up her hands and continued. “See, you’re focusing on the wrong details. He may not keep the same job, but he’s pretty much always got a job. He doesn’t work regular hours, but he sometimes works long ones. And—”
I took over. “And as much as I haven’t settled on anything else, I did settle on a bank. I live my life low-maintenance—”
“Aside from cigarettes,” Laura muttered under her breath, and I conceded with an incline of my head. “And I actually enjoy managing money. Not enough to do it every day of my life, but I like it.”
“Wow. I like him even more.”
“We get it, Annie,” Lola snapped. “You love Reed. You. Love. Reed.”
Annie shrugged shamelessly. “I do.”
I leaned in and put my arm around Lola’s shoulder and my lips to my ear. “I promise it won’t be bad. I’ll help you maintain everything you like.” I leaned back to look in her eyes. “Would I ruin your freedom to do what you want?”
She sighed. “No.”
“Exactly.”
Laura and Annie were smiling when I sat back in my chair.
“Don’t worry, Lola,” Laura consoled. “Annie may love Reed, but I’m pretty sure I love you.”
Lola blushed, and I smiled at my sister.
Three honest, open, funny women. I was pretty sure I loved all three.