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Lydia slapped a five dollar bill on the bar and Ernie pushed two murky shots at her. The shots at Carter’s were not like normal, piddly little shots. They came in big, thick glasses and you had to meet them with verve or choke on them.
“Jeez. It’s not moonshine, Darce. You’re not going to go blind from drinking cheap vodka. At least not that little.” Lydia clinked her shot against his, which was still sitting on the bar. Judging him. (The shot, not Lydia. Though it did seem that Lydia was judging him too.)
“Shouldn’t liquor cost more than two-fifty a serving?”
“I get a discount here. Drink up.”
“Discount?” Darcy hefted his glass and inspected the surface of the liquid for unwanted detritus. He hadn’t spent much time alone with Lydia, but he loved Lizzie and Lizzie loved Lydia. It was a work in progress.
“For being totes adorbs.” Lydia downed her shot and after a very lady-like little gag, she frowned at Darcy’s full glass. “I’ll have you know that this is the finest northern California vodka on the market. They make it in a warehouse behind the Dollar Store.
He tried to take the shot without actually tasting it, but keeping your tongue divorced from a mouth full of liquid is like trying to nail Jello-O to a wall. (Which you actually can accomplish if you put Ramen in it and freeze it, but it’s a total Pyrrhic victory in Darcy’s opinion. Also cheating.)
“That tastes like… ” Darcy was too busy trying to power down his taste buds down to think of adjectives that weren’t…
“Like ass?”
Darcy nodded and Lydia giggled. She leaned toward him and said out of the side of her mouth, “Darcy? Do you ever, like, swear?”
“I try not to, but occasionally I lapse. I once called my aunt Catherine something unconscionable.” He shrugged one shoulder.
Lydia raised her brows in encouragement, but Darcy wasn’t about to repeat that word, or rather that unfortunate string of words.
Lydia smiled and bumped his shoulder with one of hers. She was really a sweet girl and that made Darcy sharply guilty. He’d more than retracted all the inane things he’d ever said to Lizzie, both on and off camera, but he’d never made amends with Lydia. (Yes, he’d helped her, but that wasn’t the same as apologizing for being a judgmental jackass.)
He cleared his throat and groped for proper phrasing.
“What?” Lydia smiled a bit nervously at him, quirking her brows. “Do I have something in my teeth? Spinach? Oh, God—please don’t tell me I have spinach in my teeth. I just said hello to Brian—”
“Your teeth are vegetation free.” Darcy still couldn’t quite think of the right words.
“OK? Then why are you looking at me like that?” In a nervous gesture that was a carbon copy of her sister’s—Lydia tucked her hair behind her ear and dropped her eyes to the bar.
“I have never explicitly apologized to you, Lydia.” He hoped that she would understand and that he would not have to proceed any farther down this path of verbal suicide. She didn’t. “For the ill judged and erroneous opinions I asserted about your character.”
“In plain English, for the plebes, Darce?” He knew she was teasing, but he also knew that she wanted to hear it. All of it.
“I’m sorry for the mean things I said about you on Lizzie’s videos and in real life.”
Lydia hunched her shoulders forward—trying to make herself smaller. “So you don’t think I’m ‘energetic’ anymore?”
“Not the way I meant it the last time I said it, no. I wouldn’t say you’re dull, of course.” Was he digging himself a deeper hole? He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t stop saying words sometimes.
Lydia laughed—a little uncomfortable and self-conscious. What would Lizzie do to make her little sister really laugh? To make it OK?
“Yes, well—would you still consider me an ‘incredibly hot, incredibly rich piece of mancake friend?’” The words had come out all jammed together because there was no way he could say them otherwise.
Lydia had been cracking a peanut in half at that moment and broke it open with too much force. The fragments hit the man on her right in the face.
Darcy took one looks at the man’s growing ruddiness and instructed Ernie to put the man’s bill on his tab.
Lydia, in trying not to laugh, began coughing. Darcy had to pound her on the back for a good twenty seconds. The man she’d hit in the face got up and moved away to a table, but was mollified by the free alcohol. Ernie set a glass of water on the bar and Darcy could see that the man had a genuine fondness for Lydia. He wondered how he’d missed that before? People liked her because she was sweet and underneath the attitude—she was incredibly genuine. Darcy knew all too well about emotional armor to not recognize it when he saw it.
“I can’t believe you just said ‘mancake’.” Lydia scrunched up her face in an manner that Darcy had more than once imagined might grace the faces of his future offspring.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Darcy pointed out. He sucked in his bottom lip at Lydia’s owlish expression. Sometimes it was hard not to laugh at her transparency. That was Lizzie’s influence. It used to be remarkably easy for him not to laugh at anything.
Lydia picked up her water glass and set it down so that it made an uneven set of Venn diagram rings. “You know, Darcy? I think you’re pretty good for Lizzie.”
“Not nearly as good as she’s been for me.” It was a cornball thing to say, but also true.
“Hey, Darcy?” Lydia peered up from under her lashes—she almost looked shy. “Don’t fuck it up. Because you’ll never find anyone better, but if you tell her I said that I will bring Kitty to visit you the next time she gets fleas. Understood?”
It took all his fortitude not to scratch at the thought of his apartment infested with thousands of tiny blood sucking parasites. “Duly noted.”
“Next round is on you,” Lydia said.
“Thank God.” Darcy flagged Ernie down again and asked for two shots of his best vodka, which wasn’t great—but it was a hell of a lot better than whatever had come from the well. One of the many things that Darcy was learning was that there is “the best” and then there is “the best for you.” And they are not always the same thing—in fact, they’re often completely unrelated.
**
Lizzie arrived to Carter’s late and found her boyfriend of seven months flailing to Just Dance while her little sister watched, half-collapsed against a support beam, tears of laughter tracking her down her pink face.
Before she could even ask—Lydia announced, “Lizzie! Lizzie, look! Darcy is being energetic!”
Lizzie Bennet had a pretty decent imagination, but she’d never quite foreseen her sister, Lydia and William Darcy duking it out on the dance floor and enjoying the hell out of each other. They were two of her very favorite people on the planet and to see them getting along was better than good and was all the more special for being unexpected.
Lydia high-fived Will at the end of his round and then the strangest thing Lizzie had ever seen, happened—they hip bumped before Lydia stepped up to take her turn.
Will slid his arm around Lizzie and kissed the spot right under her ear. He was somewhat damp and disheveled. Half a dozen smart ass comments tried to fight their way out, but she held them back. Whatever this was? She didn’t want to do anything but help it along.
They watched Lydia nail all the moves until Darcy whispered, “How good is she? Do you think it was a mistake to bet the title to my car?”
“Which car? The red one? Are you crazy? She’ll never be able to afford the maintenance… And you’re totally pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Lizzie shook her head. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“I’ve been taking lessons.” Will clapped for Lydia who finished her turn with an exaggerated deep curtsy.
Lizzie shrugged off her sweater and handed it to Will. “You both are going down.”
Lydia and Will exchanged looks and Lizzie realized this new friendship could have a downside. Lydia knew an awful lot about her past and Will knew pretty much everything else.
Lizzie lost spectacularly and didn’t care one whit. It was well worth making a fool out of herself to find her sister and her boyfriend standing shoulder to shoulder—nothing much in common—at least not on the surface, but grinning like idiots—the pair of them. A pair. An actual pair. Will and Lydia. She waited until they were busy dissecting Lizzie’s sub-par high kicks and snapped a quick photo of them leaning towards each other, easy grins in place—and sent it to Jane, Charlotte, and Mary—and as an after thought— to her father with the subject line, “Who’d have thunk?”