“Just a suit and tie,” I said, taking the dish from her. I walked around to the other side of the car and opened the door, placing the dish on the seat.
As I climbed back into the driver’s seat, I closed the door and glanced once at Lucy. “You look beautiful.”
She laughed and patted her hair before smoothing out her dress. “You’re not wrong, sir.”
We drove to Professor Oliver’s home, and when we arrived, I introduced Lucy to Ollie’s daughter, Karla, and her fiancée, Susie.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Lucy,” Karla said as we walked into the house. “I would say I’ve heard a lot about you, but you know Graham—the guy doesn’t talk,” she joked.
“Really?” Lucy asked sarcastically. “I can’t get the guy to ever shut up.”
Karla laughed, took Talon from my arms, and kissed her forehead. “Yeah, he’s a real loud mouth, that one.”
Karla was the closest thing I’d ever had to a sister, and we argued like it, too. As a kid, she had been in and out of the foster program and had found herself in a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol. I never knew her back then, though. When I came across her, she had already kind of figured out life. She was this beautiful African American woman who was a strong activist for kids who have no place to call home.
Professor Oliver and Mary wouldn’t give up on her when she was a teenager, and Karla always said because of that, something changed in her heart. Not many kids would be asked to be adopted at the age of seventeen, yet Oliver and Mary wouldn’t let her go.
They had that skill about them—seeing people’s scars and calling them beautiful.
“Here, I’ll take that dish,” Susie offered, taking Lucy’s tray from her. Susie was also a stunning person. She was a beautiful Asian woman who fought hard for women’s rights. If ever there was a couple destined for a true love story, it was Karla and Susie.
I was never a people person, but these people were good.
Like Lucy.
Just wholeheartedly good people who didn’t ask for anything but love.
When we walked into the kitchen, Mary was there, cooking, and she hurried over, giving me a kiss on the cheek and doing the same to Talon and Lucy. “You’ve been requested to join Ollie in his office, Graham. You were supposed to bring him new chapters of your book to read, and he’s waiting,” Mary said. I glanced over at Lucy, and Mary laughed. “Don’t worry about her, she’ll fit right in. We’ll take good care of her.”
Lucy smiled, my heart expanded, and then I headed to Professor Oliver’s office.
He sat at his desk reading the newest chapters I’d presented to him, and I waited impatiently as his eyes darted back and forth. “I took out the lion,” I told him.
“Shh!” he ordered, going back to reading. Every now and then he made facial expressions as he flipped the pages, but mostly, nothing. “Well,” he said, finishing and placing the papers down. “You didn’t have sex?”
“No.”
“And no cocaine?”
“Nope.”
“Well.” He sat back in his chair in disbelief. “That’s shocking, because whatever it is that made you step up your game, it’s mind-blowing. This…” He shook his head in disbelief. “This is the best work you’ve ever written.”
“Are you shitting me?” I asked with a knot in my stomach.
“I shit you not. Best thing I’ve read in years. What changed?”
I shrugged my shoulders and stood up from the chair. “I started gardening.”
“Ah.” He smiled knowingly. “Lucy Palmer happened.”
“So, Karla, I owe you fifty dollars,” Oliver stated, coming to the dining room table for brunch after we finished talking shop in his office. He straightened his tie and sat down at the head of the table. “You were right about Graham—he still knows how to write. Turns out he’s not a twenty-seven-book wonder.”
Lucy chuckled, and it sounded beautiful. “You bet against Graham’s words?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you read his last draft?!”
She grimaced. “What was the deal with the lion?”