18. Chapter 18
Lennon
I awake in a haze, a warm kind of comfort settling my heart and soul. I don’t know why I feel so relaxed and content, but I burrow into my pillows to try to keep this feeling going for just a little while longer.
It only takes another minute or so for my senses to fully power up and, with them, my memory. My eyes fly open.
I kissed Lark.
I kissed Lark.
I kissed Lark.
Doesn’t matter how many ways I say it to myself, it happened. I draw my lips around my tongue so I can taste them, and sure enough, she’s lingering there. She tastes like she feels—all buttery sweetness and nostalgia, citrus and sunshine.
I fell asleep to a montage of memories of her, and the one thread running through all of them was a vague understanding that I’ve wanted to kiss her since even before I could even name the feeling.
It was worth the wait.
And she’s still here.
The anticipation of seeing her this morning has me jumping out of bed and quickly pulling on a shirt and gym shorts so I can burst through the door.
I feel like a kid with a crush who’s excited at even just the possibility he might lay eyes on her.
Actually, I feel like I used to in those early days after just having met Lark at Drama Club—bounding to school early in hopes of seeing her before classes started, hanging around late for a few extra minutes with her before she headed home.
She’s already sitting in the kitchen when I burst through the door, her hands cupped around a mug. Her expression brightens when she sees me, though I can tell she’s been gnawing at her bottom lip and there’s still a crease between her eyebrows as if she had been frowning.
“Please don’t say it was a mistake,” I blurt out. The urge to slink back into my room and hide for the rest of the day slams into me, and if it weren’t for the way she rolls her gorgeous lips between her teeth to bite back a laugh, I probably would have.
“I don’t think it was a mistake.” She’s calm, but her voice is edged with humor. “But I guess I don’t have to ask how you feel about it.”
Before my sleep- and lust-addled brain can even register that I’ve moved, I cross the room and pull her up and into my arms. She doesn’t hesitate to lift her face to me, and our lips meet in a deep kiss.
When I was a teenager, my mom had these fancy measuring spoons that had a tongue-and-groove pattern on the handles.
They also had magnets, so if you put one near the other, they’d snap together with a satisfying click.
I fidgeted with those things often, especially when my parents were gone.
Lark and I would sit at the table in silence, and I would pull the spoons apart and snap them back together over and over again.
The way Lark fits with me reminds me of those measuring spoons. Her body meets mine with the same satisfying snap, and mine turns concave to mold around the curve of her breasts, the swell of her hips.
And yet it’s not enough. I ache for her to be closer, to give me more, even though she has given me everything that matters for the past twenty-five years.
Lark Caspian is mine, and I’m never letting her go.
A thud sounds several times at the door, then again. I try to swim up through my consciousness and back to reality as I reluctantly part my lips from hers.
“Expecting someone?” Lark’s voice is husky and sensual. It draws me back in. I’ve waited twenty-five years for this. Whoever is at the door can wait another minute.
Unfortunately, the pounding pulls me right back out. I slump forward with a frustrated growl. A musical giggle rises up out of Lark’s throat. I want to know what that sound tastes like and swallow it. I want to make it mine.
The knocking comes again, more impatient this time, so I untangle my hand from Lark’s hair and pull open the front door.
I immediately wish I hadn’t. Because standing just on the other side of the threshold are my parents.
My mother is standing with her arms outstretched like she’s expecting a hug. My dad is grinning like a fool. Both of their expressions falter when I cannot so much as muster up a hello, let alone whatever fake exclamation of joy they were expecting.
They don’t drop in on me often, but it has happened a handful of times over the past few years—usually when they’re on their way somewhere else.
A wind carries them in for a few hours, then out again.
And every time, it dredges up old emotions and leaves me wrestling with them for days.
Will they stay this time? Do I want them to? How long before I see them again?
I sense Lark behind me before I feel her hand on my back, warm and reassuring. “Sage. Arlo. What a nice surprise!”
Mom’s eyes light up, and she turns her still-outstretched arms in Lark’s direction.
“Lark! Baby! I had no idea you’d be here, too.
” She brings Lark into a tight hug and sways her back and forth.
I finally wrap my head around the situation enough to shake my dad’s hand and motion him into the apartment.
Much to my chagrin, he picks up a duffel bag that had been sitting off to the side and drags that in with him.
“Oh, this is so wonderful,” my mom is saying as she and Lark join us in the living room. “We haven’t seen you in ages. Are you living in California now? How is that little girl of yours? Is she here, too?”
Ever the actress, Lark pastes on a high-wattage smile as she lowers herself gracefully to the armchair, leaving my dad and me to the couch. My mom folds her legs underneath her and sits on the floor, her preferred way to sit in any company.
“She’s not so little anymore,” Lark singsongs. “I saw her off to college a few weeks ago.”
Mom gasps. “No. I can’t believe she’s all grown up! Is she at college in Los Angeles? Is that why you’re here?” Her questioning gaze bounces back and forth between the two of us, but I’m still having trouble processing the fact that they’re here—and that I was kissing Lark before they arrived.
My mouth opens and closes a few times. Lark must be able to tell that I’m floundering, because she jumps right in. “No, she’s headed to NYU. I’m here because I’m recording an audiobook this summer. Lennon is working on it, too.”
The sound of my mother’s hands clapping in glee is finally enough to break me free of the mental calculations I’ve been trying to do to figure out how long they’re likely to stay.
Based on the size of the duffel bag my dad dropped inside the door, my guess is not long.
And the part of me that is still fifteen and overjoyed to see them is at war with the part of me that is forty and jaded and wishes they’d never come.
Not to mention the giant part of me that just wants to get back to kissing Lark.
“What brings you two here?” My voice sounds strangled, even to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lark’s head snap to me, but I avoid her gaze and, instead, focus on my dad.
“Oh, just passing through,” he says. That fifteen-year-old part of me withers. They’ll stay an hour or so and then be on their merry way.
“Where are you headed this time?” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice. I really do. But it sneaks in nonetheless.
If my parents hear it, though, they don’t let on. My mom looks up at my dad with a dreamy gaze from where she’s sitting on the floor. My dad looks back at her indulgently.
“We’re on our way up the coast. The plan is to spend the rest of the summer working in wine country, then continue on to Oregon for the fall,” he says.
“What’s in Oregon?” Lark asks politely.
Dad’s face splits into a grin. “Golf.”
“Since when do you golf?” I ask, frowning.
“Since never!” he exclaims. “But I guess no one is a golfer until they try it, so I might as well give it a shot.”
Mom nods emphatically, her eyes wide and her eyebrows raised. I glance at Lark, but she’s already looking at me. The corners of her mouth pull down as if to say he has a point.
No one is part of Drama Club until they come to a meeting.
I blink rapidly to dispel the memory, but maybe she’s right. Maybe Dad does have a point. I guess I just kind of always wish they’d try to be part of something permanent instead of looking for the next something to try.
“How long are you in town for?” Lark asks. “Can you join us for lunch?”
I can’t tell if she really wants them to stay or if she’s faking it, but she just clasps her hands in her lap and smiles sweetly, waiting for their response. Dad winces as if he’s getting ready to apologize, but Mom looks up at him again, this time pleading.
“Oh, I think we can stay for lunch, right, Arlo?”
Dad scrunches up his face. “I wanted to get back on the road before it gets dark.”
Mom laughs. “It’s a good thing lunch is well before sunset, then.”
What my mom wants, my mom gets. Dad has always done anything to make her happy, including moving me halfway across the country multiple times during my school-age years.
It was because of this that I went straight to her during my junior year when I caught wind that they were planning another move.
I begged her to let me stay. I told her I could stay with Lark if they couldn’t stick around, even though Lark’s family hadn’t offered.
I didn’t even tell Lark. I couldn’t bear to. I just started pulling away like I always did when I figured out we were leaving. I never forgave myself for that, either. It’s a core memory now, seared into my mind.
“What’s going on with you?” There was an angry edge to her voice, but she seemed concerned more than anything else.
“What do you mean?” I evaded. She must have known I was avoiding answering her, because she pursed her lips, cocked an eyebrow, and glared silently at me.
Even though I knew she was angry, she was so cute when she did that.
I was overcome with the urge to cup the back of her head and bring my lips to her forehead.
“You’ve been distant,” she says finally, saving me from the embarrassment that would surely have come if I had let myself kiss her.
I shrugged. “Sorry. Things are just…weird.” That, at least, was the truth. I was so upset about the possibility of moving again that I had made some mistakes, and I wasn’t sure how to make up for them.
Lark covered my hand with hers, intertwining her delicate fingers with my lanky ones. She squeezed, looking up from where she was seated on the couch next to me. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
Anything? Like how my heart beat faster at the mere thought of her? Like how I thought far too often about what her pink lips tasted like? Like how I had wanted to ask her on a proper date for years?
I didn’t know what it was. Maybe the set of her jaw or the earnestness in her eyes, but I felt courageous then. I opened my mouth to say something like that, but what came out instead was a quiet, “I know.”
She stayed silent for another beat, studying me. Then, she sighed and looked off into space. “Richard asked me out,” she said, her gaze not meeting mine.
It was like a knife in the gut. Four simple words, and the air was knocked out of me. “Are you going to go out with him?” I managed to choke out.
If she noticed my struggle, she didn’t let on. She shrugged and said, “Might as well, I guess.”
I nodded slowly. Richard was an okay guy. Not my favorite person in the world, but he seemed pretty decent. He’d probably go to college and get a job in finance or something boring and stable. Lark deserved someone like that. Not a drifter like me.
“I’m thinking of applying to colleges on the West Coast,” I blurted out for no reason other than to change the subject. I hadn’t really been thinking about it with any seriousness, but there it was. Out in the open.
Lark hummed distractedly. “That makes sense for you, I think,” she said. She smiled up at me, the expression completely changing her face, and the breath was knocked out of me again. “Maybe I could come visit you.”
Lark’s hand landing gently on my back brings me out of the memory and into the present.
My parents are looking around the living room, and Lark is eyeing me with concern.
I excuse myself to change into some actual clothes and get a handle on my emotions, then we spend the next hour or so chatting, until my dad pointedly mentions some golf tournament he wouldn’t mind watching now that they’re somewhere with a television.
I turn it on, then go to the kitchen to make myself more coffee.
Lark joins me after a few minutes, standing close enough that the heat of her body seeps into my skin.
She places her hand over mine where it rests on the counter.
I stare at her still-delicate fingers as they thread through mine and squeeze.
The motion is familiar; it’s the same thing she’s always done when she knows I’m upset.
“This can’t be easy,” she says softly.
I nod, swallowing audibly. “Yeah.” I look down at her, and her brows are pinched with concern. “Just threw me for a loop. I’ll be fine.”
Her hand remains on mine as she watches me for a moment, probably knowing I’m full of shit but not willing to make me admit it while they’re still here. She leans into me slightly. Her presence steadies me, reminds me that they’ll leave but she won’t.
Except she will. She’s only got another few weeks here while she wraps up recording, and then she’s back to her life in Michigan.
The realization hits me like a ton of bricks and throws me completely off-center.
For a few hours, I was able to live in denial, thinking there was some way we could be together like I’m sure now that we were always meant to be.
But now I have more questions than answers, and I have to power through time with my parents before I can ask any of them.
I shift my gaze to the coffee, which has long since finished brewing. The nutty scent of it fills the air, and it suddenly seems like a sour smell. “I’m struggling,” I say quietly.
“I’m here,” she whispers as she gives my hand another squeeze.
My brain screams the obvious and most pressing question at me: Yeah, but for how long?
But I don’t want her to see any of this, and I certainly don’t need my parents involved in my mental turmoil, either. Not now. Not when things were just getting good.
I smile down at her reassuringly, putting my anxieties away for later. “You’re my favorite person in the world, Songbird.”
She beams up at me, and for a second, it feels like everything might be all right after all.