Queen of Babble in the Big City by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

glass.
    “Your, um, intentions.”
    I’m trying to keep it casual. And light. Guys don’t like it when you get too heavy, I’ve noticed. They especially don’t like it when you try to talk too much about the future. They’re like little woodland animals. Everything’s well and good when you’re just doling out the nuts and everything’s cool.
    But the minute you bring out the net to try to catch them—even if it’s for their own good, like to help them escape a forest fire—all hell breaks loose. No WAY was I bringing up the C word with Luke. Two months into a relationship might be early enough to consider moving in together. But it was WAY too early to start bandying about the word “commitment.”
    Even if one of us did have wedding dresses permanently on the brain.
    “I told him not to worry,” Luke says, handing one of the wine-glasses to me. “That I would do everything in my power not to sully your reputation.” Luke clinks the edge of his glass to mine. “Also that he should be thanking me,” he adds with a wink.
    “Thanking you?” I echo. “Why?”
    “Well, because now Shari can move in with him. He’d asked her to before, but she said she couldn’t abandon you.”
    “Oh.” I blink a few times. I hadn’t known that. Shari had never said a word.
    But if she’d only been moving in with me out of pity, why had she reacted the way she did when I’d told her about Luke’s offer?
    “Anyway, I was thinking we could go out to celebrate,” Luke was going on. “The four of us. Not tonight, obviously, because you picked up steaks. But maybe tomorrow night. There’s this fantastic Thai place downtown I know you’re going to love—”
    “We need to talk,” I hear myself saying. Whoa. Where did that come from?
    Luke looks surprised, but not offended or anything. He sinks down onto his mother’s white couch—I am so not sitting there with food or drink in my hands—and looks up at me with a grin.
    “Sure,” he says. “Of course. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff we need to figure out. Like where you’re going to put all your clothes.” His grin gets broader. “I gather from Chaz that your collection of vintage wear is somewhat impressive.”
    Except it isn’t my clothes I’m worried about. It’s my heart.
    “If I’m going to live with you,” I say, moving to sit on the armof the couch…there’s less chance of catastrophic results if a spill occurs there. Plus, I’m far enough away from him that he can’t distract me with his manliness. “I want to split the cost—utilities, groceries, all of that—fifty-fifty. You know. So it’s fair. To both of us.”
    Luke isn’t grinning now. He’s sipping his wine and shrugging. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever you want.”
    “And,” I say, “I want to pay rent.”
    He looks at me oddly. “Lizzie. There’s no rent to pay. My mother owns this place.”
    “I know,” I say. “I mean I want to pay something toward the mortgage.”
    Luke’s grinning again. “Lizzie. There’s no mortgage. She paid cash for the place.”
    Wow. This is way harder than I thought it would be.
    “Well,” I say. “I have to pay something . I mean, I can’t just sponge off you for free. That’s not fair. And if I’m paying to live here, then I get some say in what goes on with the place. Right?”
    Now one of his dark eyebrows has slid up. “I see what you mean,” he says. “And are you planning on doing some redecorating?”
    Oh God. This is not going at all the way I’d hoped it would. Why did Chaz have to call him? I get accused all the time of having a big mouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.
    “Not at all,” I say. “I love what your mother’s done to the place. But I’m going to have to move some stuff to make room.” I clear my throat. “For my sewing machine. And things like that.”
    Now both of Luke’s eyebrows are up. “Your sewing machine?”
    “Yes,” I say, a little defensively. “If I’m