Take Me 01 - Love Me

glance.

Chapter Twenty-one

    Janica had never worked harder. It was amazing the things she could accomplish without a heart.
    She finally had her collection accepted by the department store chain in Japan that she'd been wanting to get into for years. One of her hand-sewn, one-of-a-kind dresses had been selected for display at the Museum of Fashion in Paris. Teen Vogue had called about a half-page feature on up-and-coming designers.
    She was getting everything she wanted for her career.
    And she was miserable.
    Not that anyone knew it, of course. Not even Lily. Mostly because Janica had gone out of her way to avoid her big sister. Actually, she'd gone out of her way to avoid everyone. She hadn't seen her friends, hadn't gone dancing, had barely left her studio for fourteen days and nights.
    Tonight, however, she'd been unable to come up with a good enough excuse to miss a family barbecue.
    “He isn't coming, Jan,” Lily had told her on the phone that morning.
    “It's okay if he does.”
    It wasn't, of course. Saying that was nothing but sheer bravado. But the thing was, even though it wasn't at all okay now, it was going to have to get okay.
    Because at some point she was going to have to learn to deal with him.
    At some point she was going to have to learn how to be in the same room with Luke and still be in love with him.
    At some point she was going to have to figure out a way to watch Luke talk or drink or walk around and not replay, in excruciating detail, how it had felt when she was being touched by his hands, kissed by his mouth.
    And at some point her brain was going to learn how to stop replaying his parting words.
    I think I'm falling in love with you.
    Obviously, though, he'd been wrong. Because she hadn't heard a word from him in the two weeks since she'd left the cabin in Big Sur.
    After making a pit stop at the cupcake store, she headed over to Lily and Travis's house. The kids greeted her as if it had been a lifetime since they had seen her.
    “They've missed you, Jan,” Lily said. “We all have.”
    “Cupcakes.”
    She held the box out between them, as if she were trying to use it as a barrier, as a way to keep Lily from trying to get her to spill out everything she was barely holding back. But when Lily took the box and put it on the counter, judging by the way her sister was looking at her, Janica had a bad feeling about the barbecue.
    “He's coming,” Janica said in a flat voice.
    Lily nodded. “I'm sorry. When Travis told me I could have killed him.”
    “There's nothing to be sorry about. Like I said before, I'll deal.”
    Not well, probably, but that was beside the point.
    Violet reached a dirty hand into Janica's bag and pulled out some pretty pink ribbon and tulle. “Is this for me?”
    “You bet,” Janica said, picking up the bag and heading into the backyard. “We are going to make you and Sam some special barbecue outfits.”
    Lily spoke in the soothing tone that Janica remembered so well from their childhood. “He's going to come to his senses, honey. I know he is.”
    But Janica was already measuring ribbon and tulle.

    * * *

    Fourteen sunrises. Fourteen sunsets. Three meals a day. A handful of hours of sleep every night.
    Every minute, every second, he'd missed her.
    On the phone with Travis that morning, his brother had mentioned a barbeque. Evidently, Lily hadn't said a word to her husband about finding Luke and Janica up at the cabin together. If she had, Luke knew he would have never heard the end of it from his twin.
    Why, he'd wondered, had she kept something so big from her husband?
    But it hadn't taken a brain surgeon to figure out why.
    Lily was waiting for Luke to tell his brother—to tell the entire goddamned world—how he felt about Janica.
    Hell, they were all waiting for that.
    When he'd asked Travis if Janica was going to be there, his twin had said, “I think so. Lily said something about cupcakes. That usually means her sister is attached to them. I swear, she's a total sugar addict.”
    A flash of kissing her sweet lips, sticky from s'mores, on the beach had assaulted him.
    The sound of Janica's laughter floated all the way out to the sidewalk and he stumbled, nearly dropping the bottle of wine he was holding. The front door was unlocked and he let himself inside. After putting the Merlot down on the kitchen counter, he walked into the living room where there was a sliding glass door that led out to a huge atrium.
    Janica was dancing with the kids