His gaze lingered on Lacey for a long moment, and she got a weird whiff of attraction coming from him. Surely she was mistaken. A handsome guy like Cyrus with a beautiful fiancée like Nikki wouldn’t be checking out a seven like Lacey, would he? The moment passed so quickly, she was sure she’d imagined it.#p#分页标题#e#
“What do you think?” Galen asked.
She shrugged. It was a beautiful night, and she didn’t relish the thought of going back to their villa yet. Better to keep busy rather than stew over her wedding day debacle.
“Well, I guess I could have one mojito, but then definitely no dessert,” Lacey said.
“You guys get the check while me and Lacey powder our noses,” Nikki said, before planting a smacking kiss on Cyrus’s cheek.
Lacey hesitated. The other couple had assumed she and Galen were an item, and it had seemed less important to correct them than it had to avoid putting a label on what they were, so neither of them had objected. Now, though, sticking Galen with the check felt crummy. He noted her hesitation and made an are you kidding me face, shooing her away with a wave of his hand. Both of them were comfortable financially, and a meal certainly wasn’t going to break the bank. She vowed to pick up the next one and trailed behind Nikki to the ladies room.
“I’m so glad we met. We still have another week, and as much as I love being with Cyrus, all this one-on-one togetherness was driving us both a little mad,” Nikki confided as she rifled through her bright green crocheted bag. “I confess, an hour into meeting you guys, I was fantasizing about tearing you away from that hunk of yours so we could engage in some retail therapy. Maybe mani pedis?”
Lacey wasn’t sure how to respond. It sounded like fun, but could she really go hang out with someone she’d just met? What if Nikki spent an hour with her and realized how dorky she was and regretted it? Or maybe she was like Cat and would appreciate having a dorky friend. Still, she hesitated.
Nikki held up a hand. “No pressure. Just, after a few days, you might be bored, too, you know?”
Lacey wanted to reassure her, but what could she say without sounding like a lame ass? I’d love to go shopping with you but, boo hoo, I don’t make friends very easily so this is weird for me. No, that would be the old Lacey who hung around guys like Marty. She was with Galen. Well, maybe not with him, with him, but…
She opted to play it cool. “Yeah, I totally agree on the too-much-one-on-one-togetherness thing. Major snoozeville. I’m definitely up for shopping at some point, so count me in.”
Nikki flashed a big grin. “Fab.” She went to dab some coral gloss onto her lips but hesitated. Eyeing Lacey in the mirror, she said, “I kinda had a feeling about you. About the two of you.”
Lacey tried not to fidget under her intense stare. Great. She already suspected that she and Galen weren’t a couple. It shouldn’t bother her. Heck, anyone could see they were a mismatch. She didn’t have any illusions about herself. She was reasonably attractive but Galen? Galen was sex on a plate, extra spicy. Now that the jig was up, there was no point in pretending, but it stung a little. “Obvious, huh?”
Nikki smiled and popped her brows. “I had a hunch. Full swap?” She held the pot of her lip gloss aloft.
Lacey eyed the gloss in Nikki’s hand, then down at her own and shrugged. What the hell? The color would look great with her dress, and new Lacey wouldn’t even think about the germs. “Sure.” She handed over her pink passion and plucked the coral color from Nikki’s fingers.
“Cool.” Nikki grinned and dabbed some of Lacey’s gloss onto her full lips. “Ready?”
Lacey applied the other woman’s gloss and nodded with relief. “Yep.”
“Ooh, that color looks super sexy on you! You can keep it.” She gave Lacey a broad wink and Lacey winked back. Seemed like Nikki wasn’t going to press for details about her and Galen’s relationship, which was fine by her.#p#分页标题#e#
Nikki snapped her purse closed and linked her arm through Lacey’s. “Let’s go get ’em.”
She was so…so hip and seemed so together that even if it was for a couple short weeks, why couldn’t Lacey pretend she was one of the cool crowd? The past twenty-four hours had been filled with bikinis, worldly new friends, and the risk of herpes simplex B. If that wasn’t living on the edge, she didn’t know what was. Why, if Cat were there, she would’ve been cheering her on with two-fingered whistles and foot stomps.
She donned the most go-with-the-flow, cool expression she could muster and nodded. “Yeah, let’s skedaddle.”