Chapter 18

Eighteen

LUCY

This is going to be a long day, luckily the London Airport isn’t as crowded as I expect it will be when I land back in New York. I decided not to check a bag and only bring a carry-on because I left plenty of clothes at my mother’s house before I moved. An announcement comes overhead that my flight will start boarding soon. I pull out my phone to text Mom to let her know—she will be worried and I don’t want her arriving too soon to pick me up. As I am looking at my phone, messages start flooding in from the group chat. Hannah shared my flight information with them. As I move to put my phone in airplane mode, I get one more text notification.

Henry

Safe travels, Lucy. I look forward to hearing from you once you’ve landed safely in the land of traitors.

I smile at his joke—he’s always sure not to come across as overly concerned.

Lucy

I’ll let you know when I arrive in the land of the free, away from your oppressive monarchy.

Thanks to a cocktail I had before the flight, I wake up just a couple hours before we land in Syracuse. I typically do well with shorter flights, but flying internationally gives me too much time to think about everything that can go wrong. Good thing I have my e-reader to distract me during the remaining hours in the air.

Before I know it, I’m at my mom’s place being smothered with puppy kisses from her two rottweilers. I’d love to have a pet of my own, but with traveling back and forth multiple times throughout the year, I’d have to find someone to look after them. So for now, I’ll enjoy snuggling with these two during my visits.

Mom is busy, as always, so I take the opportunity to put my things down in my childhood bedroom. My eyes land on the top shelf of my bookcase, the one that has been dedicated to all things Jane Austen for as long as I can remember. The center space displays my favorite copy of Pride and Prejudice . Maybe I should bring that back home with me. It would be nice to start filling my apartment with more of my favorite possessions.

When I return downstairs, Mom is pulling out piles of her reusable shopping bags for us to use tomorrow. We plan to do our Christmas shopping while I’m in this week, and I’ll leave everything here so I don’t have to worry about traveling with it in December or shipping internationally.

“Thanks for letting me store all my gifts here for a month, Mom,” I say as I start loading the bags into the largest one for easy transport. “I’ll try to get most of the wrapping completed while I’m here too.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Standing and moving to the refrigerator, she pulls a single piece of paper off the notepad and studies it. “Care to join me? I’m running over to the grocery store to get the last few things we are missing for Thursday’s dinner.”

We stopped doing the traditional Thanksgiving dinner years ago when our family size went down to myself, my mom, and my grandmother. Since then, my mother has hosted more of an after-dinner party for our extended relatives and family friends. We make a smaller “dinner” for the three of us to have around lunchtime and then prepare for our guests. We set up folding tables around the house and in the basement, bringing out every board game and deck of cards we own. My mom and I split the duties of cooking the constant stream of appetizers starting at 7:00 p.m. to give us both a chance to play.

“Sure. I’ll grab my coat.” As I head upstairs to grab my phone from the charger, I notice a few texts from Ellie with plans for Wednesday night, a couple of messages in the group chat, and one from Henry.

An odd sensation comes over me, and I catch myself missing him, considering what this week would be like if he were here. That’s dumb, there’s no paparazzi here, and no need for him to be here. But what if he were …

What would he think of my mom and her excessively affectionate, very large dogs?

What would he think of our nontraditional Thanksgiving after-party? Would he enjoy the packed house and my loud friends and family getting far too competitive over a game of Monopoly or a card game, arguing who had their card down first? Maybe he would enjoy the games—he certainly is competitive enough to fit in with this crowd.

What would he think of Ellie? I would like for them to meet, but I would have to make her swear to be on her best behavior. We always tend to misbehave in front of each other’s crushes. Not that Henry is my crush, but I think she feels that there is some romantic potential between the two of us. That’s just because she hasn’t been around us while we are together. Being in our shared company would certainly disillusion any romantic thoughts of us being more than…whatever it is we are.

When I return to London, we will begin posting more photos of the two of us. I have to tell Mom about Henry before things get out of hand, and she finds it suspicious. Our trip to the store will be as good a time as any.

“So, I met someone.” I purposely wait until we are stopped at a red light.

“In London? Oh, honey! Tell me all about him!” She turns toward me as she claps her hands together.

“Do you want me to drive, Mom? The light is green.” I point up.

“Oh, goodness, no, I’ll be fine. We are almost there, but keep talking! What’s his name, what does he do for a living, how did you meet? ”

Deep breath, you can do this. You just have to lie to your mother about a fake relationship. At least here are some completely true parts. “We met at the coffee shop near my apartment. He’s a little older than I am.”

“Oh, I can’t say I’m surprised. You’ve always had a thing for older men,” she says with a shrug.

“Thanks, Mom.” She’s not wrong. “I met his sons and their girlfriends at the coffee shop and they introduced me to him when he was in town visiting them. ”

“How old are we talking, Lucy?” Her tone is a little more serious.

“He just turned fifty—his sons are in their late twenties.” I need to move off this and keep the conversation going so I can get past the lying parts. “His name is Henry. His sons are Oliver and Finn. I’m getting to be close friends with them and their girlfriends, Hannah and Mia.”

“Well, tell me more about him. I need more details.”

“He’s nice.” Lie. “He lives in a small town about an hour outside of London.” Truth. “We hit it off the moment we met.” Lie. “He works in the film industry and directed a lot of my favorite romance movies, actually.” Truth. “We are just starting to see each other and want to take it slow because we really like each other.” LIE. “With his occupation, sometimes we could find ourselves in places where paparazzi are and could end up in the papers. Well, we actually already ended up in the papers, but I’ll show you those pictures later.” Truth. “It was no big deal.” Lie.

“Is he handsome?” she says as if all the other information wasn’t as relevant as this .

“Very.” Truth.

“Well, I look forward to these pictures.” She puts the car in park, “Get them out while we walk in.”

She pushes the cart while I swipe through the photos I’ve saved on my phone from the websites they showed up on. Thankfully I didn’t have many and swiped quickly past the ones with the “longing looks” between us.

“And he makes you happy, honey?” she asks as I put my phone away and move to take the cart for her.

It was a question I didn’t prepare an answer for. “Yes.”

As much as I don’t want to admit it, truth.