Chapter 73
Lucky reached out and rang the doorbell, then turned to Liz and sighed. “Here we go again.” He grabbed her hand as the door opened and smiled, wondering how much longer they were going to have to do this.
“Well, we didn’t expect to see you two again so soon,” Laura greeted cheerfully. “Come in!”
“We figured we should get all those wedding presents out of your living room, and Elizabeth needed her car back,” Lucky explained, pulling Liz over to the stack of boxes in the corner.
“Okay, let us know if you need any help,” she offered, then disappeared back into the kitchen. Lucky sighed in relief and let go of Liz’s hand.
“That was almost too easy.” He grabbed a bunch of boxes and started for the door, while she did the same.
“I know, we better not let down our guard, you never know where Luke is,” she whispered, following him out to his car. They loaded the boxes in the trunk, then headed back for the house for another batch. Suddenly, Lucky grabbed Liz’s arm and stopped.
“What?” she asked, turning to frown at him.
“Don’t look, but I just saw my dad watching us from one of the upstairs windows,” he whispered, stepping closer to her.
“Okay, so why aren’t we hurrying back inside?”
He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close. “We’re going to give him a little show.”
“Excuse me? Lucky, are you forgetting that he knows this whole thing is a joke? Why bother?” she asked, starting to feel herself turning to jelly in his arms.
“I realized something this morning. If we can manage to convince him that we’re for real now, he’ll stop trying so hard to get us together. He’ll think he won, and will leave us alone,” he explained, lowering his face to hers.
“You’re nuts, you know that?” she sighed, resigning herself to the fact that this was going to happen.
“I know, but geniuses always are,” he responded with a smug smirk before closing the gap between their lips. Liz clung to him, afraid her knees would give out, returning the kiss in order to make it look realistic. As Lucky started to pull away, he saw Laura standing in the doorway out of the corner of his eye and decided to milk it a little more.
He smiled down at Liz, looking deeply into her eyes. “I love you.”
“Wha-?” she started to ask, but was cut off by another quick kiss from him, stunning her into silence. When he pulled away this time, he looked up and smiled sheepishly.
“Hi, Mom.”
Liz spun around and saw Laura walking towards them. “Oh, hi.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help watching you two just now. You remind me so much of us when we were young. I remember when we were first married, we couldn’t keep our hands off of each other, either,” she explained, smiling widely at them both.
“Aw, Mom, I really don’t need to hear things like that!” Lucky groaned, resting his hand on Liz’s back and pushing her to the house. “We really need to get the rest of this stuff and go home.”
“Hey, don’t blame me, it’s not my fault you were making out instead of loading boxes,” she said defensively, trying not to laugh.
“If she only knew,” he muttered as he disappeared into the house. He and Liz grabbed the last of the boxes and hurried back to his car, determined to get away from there before anything else could happen. As he was closing the trunk, Laura rushed out of the house to wave them down.
“Hole on, guys, I almost forgot to ask you something,” she called out. They turned to look at her, waiting for her to continue.
“Luke and I want to take you two out to dinner some night this week, to celebrate, and we won’t take no for an answer.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Liz answered quickly. “I mean, that party was more than enough!”
“I know, but we want to do something with just the four of us. Come on, it’s just one dinner, humor us,” she begged, knowing they would give in.
Lucky sighed and ran a hand through his hair, knowing this was a bad idea. “Fine, one dinner. But not tonight.”
“How about tomorrow?” she asked hopefully, pleased that their plan was working. Lucky looked at Liz, who shrugged, not sure how to answer.
“Fine, tomorrow. We’ll see you then, we really need to get home with this stuff.”
Laura quickly hugged them both, then hurried back into the house to tell Luke the good news.
“Why do I feel like we just walked into a trap?” Lucky asked, opening his car door and climbing in.
“I don’t know, but I felt that too,” Liz grumbled, getting in as well. She sighed and shook her head. “By the way, what was the deal with that little show you put on back there?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, his eyes glued to the road as they headed for home.
“That whole thing, it just seemed like it was a little more than was necessary.”
HE chuckled, shaking his head. “Actually, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you stopped pretending for a minute there.”
“What?” she shouted, turning to stare at his profile angrily. “I did no such thing! I was acting, just like you.”
“Uh-huh, sure. Argue all you want, but I heard you whimper.”
“Whimper? I don’t whimper! You probably heard yourself and thought it was me,” she argued.
“Me? I didn’t whimper, trust me, I would know if I did!”
“No, you’re right, you didn’t. I think it was more of a moan.” She looked over at him smugly, waiting for his reaction.
Lucky turned to glare at her. “Oh, now you’re just making things up! I didn’t-”
“Lucky, watch it!” she shouted, pointing at the windshield. He gasped and looked back at the road, swerving in time to miss the mailbox that had been directly in their path.
“I heard a moan,” she asserted quietly, not ready to let go of the argument.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Then I didn’t whimper.”
“Whatever,” he grumbled, tired of arguing about something so stupid. He turned into her driveway and shut off the car. He opened the door to climb out, but stopped when Liz suddenly cursed loudly.
“Oh, damn!” she shouted, covering her face with her hands.
“What?” Lucky asked, looking back at her in confusion. “What happened?”
She sighed and lowered her hands to look over at him. “I forgot to get my car.”
“Oh, um, do you want to go back?” They were silent for a minute, thinking over the possible consequences of returning to his parents’ house.
“Why don’t we just get it tomorrow?” she asked. Relieved, he nodded quickly in agreement and finished climbing out of the car as she did the same. They loaded up their arms with boxes and went into the house. They were greeted by the ringing of the phone, so Liz hurriedly deposited them on the couch and rushed to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Liz, it’s Charisma. I need a huge favor!”
