Chapter 36
Lucky’s apartment is exactly what I expected when compared to the little I knew of him—a little thrown together, a lot cozy, and an overabundance of everything. This is no “starving artist.” This is a very successful musician.
A pile of laundry sits, folded, on the couch.
A large television dominates one wall, next to a stack of vinyl records, the player hung vertically beside three platinum records.
An acoustic guitar is propped up against the coffee table next to a navy sweatshirt, and two electrics sit on stands in the corner. Music sheets litter every surface.
The kitchen is open and bright, separated from the living room by a thick pillar. It’s well stocked and gleaming. It’s hopeful and hearty, exactly like the man who lives here. Exactly like Alice’s oversaturated studio or my parents’ nautical themed living room.
I don’t really know where to put my stuff, not that there’s much of it. Maybe that’s better; everything has a place here, and right now, I’m not even sure where I’m supposed to be, let alone where my extra chargers and hair ties should go.
I shift the phone to my other ear. “I don’t know, Ma. I guess I’m torn. I’m grateful to Lucky for letting me stay, but maybe it’s time to be more realistic about my future. Just because I’ve been dreaming about Chance for years doesn’t mean I belong here.”
“Of course you belong there,” Ma assures me. “You’ve always known that.”
Sure, but that was before I lived here.
“Don’t let a setback put you off course,” Pa calls out before Ma shushes him.
“I won’t,” I groan into my tea. I certainly don’t want to.
The mug is faded, the camp logo half gone now, and there’s a crack in the handle that always reminds me of counting lightning strikes when storms hit my uncle’s farm.
“I’m thinking of visiting soon.”
“You don’t need to do that,” Ma says.
She’s right, but I want to anyway.
“I miss you.” It’s easy to admit. I always miss them; I don’t ever want to be too old to stop. I am glad that Lucky is out, playing a set at a club right now. “Why don’t I come spend a few days there for your birthday?”
It’s a few months away. I’ll either have my life together again or I’ll be buying a one-way ticket.
“Come whenever you want; we’ll always be here for you.”
I know, and it’s high time I started being here for myself.
* * *
Lucky stumbles in at two a.m., shirtless, his jeans slung low enough on his hips that I’m impressed with their stamina.
“Wasn’t expecting you to be up,” he says.
“That makes two of us. But I decided what I’m going to do next, and once I started writing it down, I couldn’t stop. Next thing I know, you’re here.”
He kicks off his shoes and scrubs a hand through his hair. “That’s great,” he says.
There’s something off about him, and now that I’m looking, I catch the strain of his smile.
“Did something happen?”
He flops on the couch next to me, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling. “I guess ten years was long enough for Sterling to apologize.”
“He was there?”
“Yeah.” He continues to stare in the abyss, and I imagine all the words he isn’t saying filling the spaces between us.
“Do you forgive him?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“But you do.”
“I’ve missed him. I know how ridiculous that sounds. I’d been angry for so long, and I really gave it to him tonight, everything I’d been wanting to say to him for ten years finally out in the open.”
“That must have felt good.”
“You have no idea, and you know what he did?”
I shake my head.
“Stood there and took it. Accepted how shitty he’d been and then told me he wanted to make it right.”
“What do you want?”
A long breath explodes out of him, and he rolls his head over to me. “Is this an interview?”
“Just a conversation between friends.”
His smile is soft. When his gaze dips down to my lips, I don’t dare to breathe, too caught up in the memory of the last time we were this close. I didn’t kiss him then, but I wanted to, and I want to now. Except the timing is terrible.
Lucky lifts a hand to my cheek, and my eyes flutter closed as the rough edges of his fingertips drag lightly over my skin. I feel them everywhere at once and want his hands on me with a ferocity I’ve rarely known.
When I open my eyes, he’s watching me, and I’m once again torn with what to do.
“What do you want?” I ask again, a whisper between us.
“I want a lot of things,” he confesses, a weight behind his words that I can’t help but feel settle against my skin.
He’s torn, and no matter how I feel about him—these burgeoning feelings that I sense are reflected in him—there’s someone else in his heart.
I pull away.
“It’s late,” I say, standing. “I know he hurt you, and maybe that wound is too great to ever heal, but you’ve had a decade of questioning if it could work between you. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find out?”
I leave before he can answer, burying myself under my blankets.
* * *
The answer, it turns out, is that I now have a very inconvenient crush on my roommate and his boyfriend.
Lucky took my advice, visiting Sterling the very next night so they could clear over a decade’s worth of air. Once the fog of old hurt passed, it took no time at all for them to rekindle what they’d started all those years ago.
All while I watch from the sidelines.
It aches. Not all the time, but every so often, the light will catch in Lucky’s hair, falling over his closed eyes as he hears notes compose themselves in his head.
I love watching him work, love seeing him create beauty out of silence, and, my God, it makes him so happy, fit to burst and so freaking gorgeous in his joy that I can’t get enough.
Then there’s Sterling.
Seeing him like this—stern, like I’ve always known him to be, but softened, domesticated—it’s …
difficult. Impossible actually to see him like this—his bedhead and cotton shirt rumpled first thing in the morning, the glare he sets on the coffee machine like it personally wronged him by not starting itself, the perfectly sweetened caramel latte he makes for me when he returns from his run.
How am I supposed to know these things and not want more?
It catches me off guard, presses into the healing bruise just to check that it still hurts. It does, but it’s getting better. Easier. They’re too perfect for each other, and I’m not getting in the way of that.
“They want you to tone it down?” Sterling frowns at my laptop. “It’s a class action suit. They lied about the sets being flame resistant and put thousands of kids at risk. If anything, I think your copy is a little too lenient.”
It is. I’ve been through three drafts already, and I can’t type the phrase eight-year-old suffers severe burns without crying.
“I don’t know what to do.” I take my computer back, fighting the urge to fling it into the wall.
“It’s like this with everything. The station only wants the facts, and I get that, but these are people’s lives, and it makes me fucking angry.
I don’t want to calmly report that a little boy went up in flames because another influencer wanted their own merch. It’s disgusting.”
My eyes sting as I force myself to take a deep breath, avoiding Sterling’s all-too-seeing eyes. A heavy quiet settles between us, and I wait for him to tell me to quit.
Maybe I should.
“It’s good that you care.”
I wait for more. It doesn’t come. “But?”
“No but,” he says, and I don’t believe him, but all that’s there when I look over is sincerity. “People are owed the truth, and caring about that is what will keep you going when everyone else tries to stop you from finding it. You’ve already been through this.”
Have I ever. My time under Monica is still a sore point for me.
“If this isn’t working, you need to go after what you want. Wishing for it won’t make it happen.”
I should start my own radio show, call it News No One Paid For. Maybe then I’d finally be able to call people out instead of gently wagging my finger.
“I know the editor of The Herald. Let me give her a call.”
“You don’t have to—” The last thing I want to do is take advantage of him.
“I know,” he says firmly.
Well, okay. Tamping down the flare of warmth in my chest, I nod. “Thank you.”
It’s still strange to have conversations with Sterling, even more so when he’s dressed in running tights and a compression shirt.
His already-dark hair is pitch-black with sweat, and I grip my mug tighter as I ignore the overwhelming urge to know what it might feel like to run my fingers through it, the way I’ve seen Lucky do.
Lucky wanders in from the bedroom, and for a man so meticulous about laundry, you’d think he could find a shirt.
He pauses on his way to the kitchen, scrolling his social media in one hand, even as he leans down and kisses Sterling.
It’s all tongue, deep and filthy, and I can’t look away.
He follows it up by kissing me on the cheek.
His hair is damp from the shower, and he smells divine, soft and warm and a little like lavender. He must have used my shampoo again.
I feel the imprint of both their lips on my skin.
Lucky starts dinner, peeling vegetables over the sink while half watching his phone.
His jeans are snug, and his ass looks amazing.
Sterling catches me, of course—he catches everything.
I simmer in mild panic, feeling the weight of his eyes on me, and I wish I could tell what he was thinking. He’s so damn inscrutable all the time.
Sterling pushes off the couch and follows. He’ll do that sometimes, orbit Lucky, keeping him close. Penance for the years they lost.
He fits himself to Lucky’s back. “Less spice this time.”
“It’s good for you. Your taste buds just aren’t used to flavor. You’ll live.”
Sterling hums.
“Oh, I got the tickets we wanted. Front row.” Lucky slips out of Sterling’s arms and checks the oven, waving off the steam that escapes.
I’ll never understand what he’s looking for, but that’s why I’m not allowed in the kitchen.
Satisfied, he closes the door and turns to me.
“Clear your calendar for the twenty-eighth.”
Finally. Ever since they started dating, I’ve expected them to ask me to clear out or at least give them a night to themselves.
“Perfect. That new hotel opened up on Riverside. I’ll book a night there.” I know I sound a little too chipper, but I want them to know I’m supportive. It’s got nothing to do with how lonely it will be in the apartment without them.
Plus, I’ve always wanted to have a staycation in town.
Lucky is uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe I should have offered sooner.
“Don’t go on our account,” Sterling says. “We’ll go instead.”
“Don’t do that.” Although I am curious.
Sterling still has an apartment, but they never spend any time there. I’ve asked why, but all Lucky will say is, “Because you’re here,” which I’m assuming is code for our shower having better pressure or something.
I’m not complaining.
I like living with them. For the first time in two years, Chance actually feels like home and not somewhere I’ve been squatting in, clinging to its foundations while it tries to pry me off.
After dinner, we collapse onto the sofa to watch a movie. Lucky pulls my feet into his lap, which is how I know it’s Sterling’s night to choose.
Sterling’s taste in entertainment is … surprising. The show is great. I just never pictured him watching anime—rude, I know—or really anything this gory and outrageous.
“I read more than the news,” Sterling defends.
Lucky presses his thumb into the arch of my foot, and I bite back a moan.
“Mac here wanted to be a comic artist as a kid.”
“Really?” I’ve seen the doodles he makes in the margins of his notes, an irresistible urge to draw in quiet moments. I imagine his textbooks must have been filled with them.
“After the accident, I took a break, and I never really picked it back up.”
Oh.
Sterling talks about losing his parents like that, never shying away, just a direct statement. Lost them at sixteen, drunk driver, instant fatality. It never fails to be a punch in the gut, and though he rips the Band-Aid off, it’s clear in the raw edge of his voice that the wound won’t ever heal.
It’s a stark contrast to the free-flowing emotion Lucky shares with the world, but it runs just as deep.
I pull my legs back.
“What’s wrong?” Lucky asks.
Sterling speaks before I can answer. “It’s about your mother’s birthday, isn’t it?”
“How did you—” I cut myself off.
Of course Sterling worked it out; it’s what he does.
“It’ll be the first time I’m seeing everyone since I left.”
It’ll be my first time seeing Huey since he left.
“Nothing to worry about, love,” Lucky says.
But there is.
“Mia”—Sterling’s voice is low—“you won’t be facing him alone.”
What?
“You didn’t think we would sit back and let you go by yourself, did you?”
I did actually.
* * *
Make Your Choice:
home sweet home (go to 54)
pine away (go to 47)
go back (go to 21)