Catching Lucas Riley (14 page)

“Oh no!” Alex said quickly, reaching out to touch his arm. Forget Sealey. Having Lucas ask her out all on his own was a pure miracle. If anything, Sealey should be happy about this development. “I’d love to. I was just, uh, you know, not wanting to be the cause of a short workout for you. I know how much you football players love your workouts.” She smiled brightly, feeling ridiculous for hesitating at all to accept his invitation.

“Ah, it’s no big deal,” Lucas replied. “I probably spend far too much time in the gym as it is. It’ll be good for me.” He pulled his bag further up on his muscular shoulder and grinned at her. “Well, all right, then. I’ll see you at six.”

“See you then.” She beamed at him, her middle erupting with hyperactive butterflies. She watched him walk away, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.

“Seriously, Foamer, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Sealey’s voice was distracted and slightly distant, as though his mouth wasn’t actually aimed at the receiver. He was probably still working.

“I’m at the pool. It’s echoey,” Alex explained. “But Lucas just—”

“Uh, nope. Still can’t make out a single syllable.”

Alex sighed, glanced back at the pool to make sure the team was still occupied by the set on the board, and then ducked into the locker room.

“I
said
,” she began again, “Lucas just asked me out for tonight.”

The line was silent for a moment.

“As in, by himself?” Sealey finally asked, his voice louder now. The conversation appeared to have captured his interest. “He walked up to you and asked you out? How? When? Where are you?”

“I’m at the gym. He just showed up in the pool area five minutes ago and asked me out! Did you know anything about this?”

“No . . . he didn’t mention anything about it to me,” Sealey replied. Alex couldn’t place his tone. He didn’t sound angry, exactly . . . but he didn’t sound particularly happy either.

“Are you going to yell at me for accepting?” she asked. “It kind of came at me out of left field and I wasn’t sure how you would want me to respond, so I decided to respond how I wanted to. Which was to say yes.” Her tone clearly stated how much trouble he would be in if he told her to back out of her commitment now.

“No, I’m not going to yell at you,” Sealey said, and she could hear a slight smile in his voice now. “I’m just a little surprised. This turned out to be much, ah, easier than I was expecting. I may have to revamp my plan a little.”

“Maybe I’m just that much more lovable than you thought,” Alex teased him. It was a testament to how far they had come in the past few weeks that she could manage to tease Sealey Witchburn.

“Maybe,” Sealey said, surrendering unexpectedly. “Well, let me know how it goes. What are you guys doing?”

“Oh, just going to grab a smoothie. No biggie,” Alex replied nonchalantly as though this weren’t the biggest and most important event in her life up to this point.

“Sounds harmless enough,” Sealey observed. “Well, have a good time.”

“Um, thanks,” Alex replied, surprised that he wasn’t offering her any
kind of advice or direction. “Are you sure you don’t have any instructions for me?”

“Not this time,” Sealey responded. “You earned this date all on your own. You got this.”

“Medium strawberry banana, please,” Alex said to the girl behind the counter. The blonde nodded and turned to begin working on the smoothie.

“Large peanut butter protein blast,” Lucas said to the guy behind the blonde waiting to take his order.

After Lucas had paid, the two of them sat down at a nearby table, waiting for their treats.

“So,” Alex began, feeling a little awkward at the silence. “You work for Sealey’s company, right?”

“Yep.” Lucas nodded. “Kind of pathetic, isn’t it? Working as a staffer for my best friend. I try not to let it bother me, but I manage to feel inferior to him pretty regularly anyway. He’s certainly done more with his life than I have.”

Alex looked at him incredulously. “What are you talking about?” she said. “Sure, he may own his own company, but you are probably the most well-rounded person I know. Given your calling and your talents, it’s obvious that you’ve put in a lot of effort in just about every area of your life.”

“Being elders quorum president doesn’t necessarily mean I’m super spiritual, you know,” Lucas said, waving away her comment. “It just means I’m the poor schmuck who said yes.”

Alex smiled. “But you obviously have your spiritual ducks in a row,” she pointed out. “And Sealey told me you do really well in school. And, on top of that, you’re a starter on the football team and you have a job. Only a certain kind of person can manage that many responsibilities at once.”

“The job is only part-time,” Lucas said, running a hand over the back of his head in a way that Alex was beginning to recognize. It was his nervous habit. “You’re giving me a lot more credit than I deserve.” He looked at her ruefully.

Alex just smiled at him. The more she talked to him, the more she found to admire. “So what are your long-term goals, then? Do you want to stay with Sealey’s company?”

“I don’t think so,” Lucas replied. “It’s a good gig for right now because Sealey is really good about working with my schedule, plus he’s giving me lots of exposure to potential business contacts, but I think eventually I’d like to move into a more finance-centered role.”

“You’re an MBA student, aren’t you?” Alex asked, smiling at the girl who had just set her smoothie on the table in front of her. “Do you have an emphasis?”

“Um, finance,” Lucas answered, grinning at her.

“Duh.” She laughed at herself and coughed, nearly choking on her smoothie.

“My dad actually pushed accounting really hard,” Lucas said, smacking her on the back to clear her windpipe. “ ‘It’s the language of business, Lucas,’ he said to me, but he’s already got his CPA clone in the family. And Ashley actually
likes
accounting, the weirdo.” He grinned. “I like looking at investments and market trends. But actually, more than anything, I enjoy the private equity or venture capital side of things.”

“Come again?” Alex said, blinking cluelessly at him. “I’m pretty sure I’ve heard those words before, but I won’t bother pretending I know what they mean.”

“Well, in layman’s terms, I like the idea of investing in new businesses. The ones with really brilliant and promising concepts, and then supporting them until they’re profitable. If you go about it the right way, you can really make something of yourself.”

“So you fund the businesses and Sealey promotes them?” Alex smiled. “You two should set up shop together.”

“Nah, Sealey is much more ambitious than I am,” Lucas said as he took the peanut butter smoothie from the neon green–shirted employee who was holding it out to him. He nodded his thanks. “For all Sealey’s claims that he’s rooted locally, he really does have big dreams for his company. There’s no way he’ll be content staying here in Logan.”

“But you don’t want to leave?” Alex asked. “You have no ambitions outside Logan?”

“Well, I wouldn’t limit myself to Logan,” Lucas claimed, taking a sip of his smoothie. “I’m originally from Salt Lake, so I think after graduation, that’s probably where I’ll head. But I don’t really have any
ambitions outside of Utah right now. There’s a lot of opportunity in state. It’s a good place to get started.”

“So when do you graduate?” Alex asked.

“Not for a while,” Lucas said with a grimace. “I’ve had to keep my credit hours relatively low while I’ve been playing football, but this is my last season, so I’ll be able to up my credit hours considerably next year. I’ll have about a year and a half left. They’re going to let me integrate into a normal MBA schedule at that point. The business school has been really great about working with me and my football schedule.”

“Well, chances are, they want you to excel at football as much as you do,” Alex said, winking. “We all have a stake in your success.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Lucas said, rubbing a hand fretfully over his flat stomach. Alex saw the defined outline of his muscles as his cutoff T-shirt momentarily tightened over his chest. She felt heat creep up her neck and onto her face, and she determinedly looked away to keep her expression under control. “I can’t handle the idea that so many people are watching me and relying on me to uphold their school pride. It makes me seriously nervous.” He winced and played with the straw in his smoothie.

“Well, with great talent comes great responsibility,” Alex replied loftily and then laughed at his panicky expression. “Honestly, you’re just really fun to watch. Even I enjoy it, and I’m nowhere near a football aficionado.”

“Now that, I can handle,” Lucas said, pointing at her. They sat grinning at each other in silence for a few seconds. “So, would you be interested in maybe seeing a movie with me sometime or something?” Lucas suddenly asked. “Whenever you’re free. I’m pretty open most of the time. I mean, as long as I don’t have practice. Or church responsibilities. Oh, or a huge school project. Or, you know, client meetings for work.”

Alex looked at him incredulously and laughed. “I’d love to, but why don’t you let me know when you’re free? I think you and I have two very different definitions of the word.”

Lucas smiled at her and reached across the table to place his hand softly over hers. “Deal,” he said. “But let’s plan on sooner rather than later, okay? I’m not sure why, but I have a feeling you are going to be a very important part of my life, Alex Foamer.”

Staring at him, Alex couldn’t trust herself to speak.

The next few weeks passed in a haze of tingly butterflies for Alex. Lucas took her out twice, once to dinner and a movie and once to a concert. Each time she felt herself falling faster and further for him. He was considerate and chivalrous, affectionate and complimentary. Alex thought she must have found the one perfect man on earth.

She continued to call Sealey after every date, reporting on the general happenings, but leaving the truly personal stuff out wherever she could. Sealey seemed to be growing less and less demanding, and Alex took that to mean he had grown more confident in her ability to handle herself. He hadn’t mentioned Olivia again since the day of the football game, but Alex was sure that the beautiful missionary was often on Sealey’s mind. Alex felt strangely satisfied that Sealey trusted her to attract Lucas’s attention on her own, and therefore he didn’t need to worry about his chances with Olivia. As for the ethical ramifications of helping Sealey to steal his best friend’s girl, Alex tried not to think too deeply about that.

Lucas had yet to specifically mention Olivia to Alex, and she had no plans to ask. As far as she was concerned, the further they stayed away from that subject, the better.

“But don’t you think you should at least test the waters?” Meredith had asked her after she had returned from her last date with Lucas. “Just to see how attached he really is to her?”

Alex shook her head. “To be perfectly honest, I don’t really want to know. He’s a good, honest guy. If he were truly devoted to Olivia, he wouldn’t be wasting his time with me. The fact that he keeps asking me out makes me even more confident that he never made her any promises before she left.”

“I don’t know, Al,” Meredith said, biting her lip. “He hasn’t made
you
any promises either. Just because he likes you doesn’t necessarily mean he’s stopped liking her, does it? She’s coming home in a month . . . are you sure you’re prepared for that?”