Chapter 11 Lucas
LUCAS
Jenny shows back up almost five hours after she leaves me at the hotel.
I’ve already gotten settled in, but I’m restless without her here. Not that we’d be hanging out if she was, but knowing she’s out — and not knowing anything else, since that’s all she told me — has me on edge.
After a while of pacing, I go down to reorganize the truck. As I’m packing a few things into a storage tub, a sleek green sedan pulls into the parking lot.
I pay it no mind until the door opens and I hear Jenny laughing.
The sound is immediately followed by a man’s voice, and my vision clouds with jealousy before I can form a single coherent thought. They trade jokes back and forth as they exit the car, and when I get a good look at her, my anger spikes further.
Jenny’s stumbling all over the cracked pavement of the hotel parking lot, her boots catching on the cracks as she giggles into the guy’s shoulder. He looks far steadier on his feet than she does.
He’s tall, maybe even as tall as I am, but I can’t quite tell with the way he’s half-bent over as he guides Jenny toward the lobby.
I’ve got him beat in sheer muscle mass, which is good, because I’m going to smash his face into the fucking curb if he doesn’t get his hands off her in the next two seconds.
His hand slides another few inches down, settling over her hip, and I shove the storage tub roughly into the backseat, uncaring if it breaks.
“Get your fucking hands off her, you creep!” I shout.
The guy looks up in surprise as I storm over, but he doesn’t have time to do anything before I send my fist flying into his face.
It connects with a satisfying crunch, and he staggers back, cupping his nose as he shouts out a wordless noise of pain.
I smile, nasty and bloodthirsty, as he staggers to the ground.
Jenny sways at the sudden loss of the body she was leaning against, and I step in between the two of them as she turns slowly.
Blood spurts down his face, bright red against his skin as he looks between Jenny and I with wide brown eyes.
I wouldn’t mind hearing more noises of agony from him.
How dare this piece of shit think he can put his hands on a girl so drunk she can hardly even walk?
I don’t expect the fist to my fucking eye socket, and the surprise of it sends me stumbling back a few steps.
“Jenny, what the fuck?” I splutter, raising my fingers to dab at my cheekbone.
It wasn’t a particularly hard hit. At least, it wasn’t a well-coordinated hit, since Jenny is still swaying a little where she stands.
Those honey-brown eyes are filled to the brim with rage, even if they’re having a hard time focusing on me.
I have a split second to wonder how I fucked up before she’s screaming at me.
“What the fuck, you?” she screeches, her words near nonsensical with the liquor I can smell on her combined with her fury. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
She gets right up in my face and shoves my chest, slim fingers plenty sturdy enough to push me around with how utterly confused I am. I let her herd me back a few steps, trying to come up with something to say as she continues to slur things I can hardly understand.
My brows fly up to join my hairline when she turns her back on me and goes to kneel down on the pavement next to the guy I punched.
He’s still just staring at the two of us and holding his nose, one ear stacked with piercings that glitter every time he moves.
The two of them speak quietly enough that I only catch a few words here and there.
My anger flares up again, brighter than before, when I catch her apologizing to the asshole.
“Go back to your fucking room, Lucas!” she bites out when I take a step toward them again. “You are so not needed here!”
“Like fuck!” I shout right back, ignoring her warnings and hauling her up by her bicep. “I don’t know who the hell this guy is, but you’re way too drunk for him to be trying anything. Pathetic piece of fucking trash.”
Those last words are spit at the man slowly pushing himself back up. We’re about the same height, but I can absolutely take him in a fight, if that’s what it comes to.
I kind of hope it does.
Jenny seems real fucking dedicated to surprising me tonight, because instead of the gratitude I expect, she laughs at me. Worse, so does Tall, Dark, and Handsome. I bare my teeth at him in warning, but quickly refocus my attention on Jenny when she tugs her arm out of my grip.
“Want to clue me in on the joke?” I ask waspishly.
“I’d call you a dumb blond, but I’m not sure you’re smart enough to understand,” she snaps back, just as vicious. “Are you blind, or just an idiot, huh? Or are you just looking for an excuse to stake your claim? I’m not yours anymore, remember? Go piss somewhere else, you stupid mutt.”
I rock back at those words like she hit me a second time, so shocked that I can’t form a single word. Jenny’s new beau comes to the rescue, ignoring the blatant threat of my hands curled into fists.
“Babydoll, this is real sweet, but I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t recognize me,” he soothes her, his voice thick with what’s likely a broken nose.
He turns his attention away from her, eyes hardening as he sneers at me.
“Hi, there, Lukey,” he says blandly. “It’s Elias.
Eli. We went to high school together? I’m your ex-girlfriend’s best friend, remember? ”
Two for two. Fuck, I really wish I could stop getting slapped in the face with reminders of how I lost Jenny.
Once the veil of anger lifts as I parse through Elias’ words, I’m left with horror and a growing sense of guilt.
Now that I really look at him — as something other than a threat — I do recognize him.
He was shorter back then, pimply-faced and awkward, but there’s no denying it’s him.
Which means I just fucked up catastrophically.
Not only will Jenny probably kill me for laying hands on her best friend, my argument of him trying to take advantage of her just went entirely out the window.
Unless she has another best friend from high school named Elias, the man is quite firmly gay.
Fuck.
God, I’m such an idiot. Haven’t I learned not to make assumptions yet?
“Eli, let’s go get your nose looked at,” Jenny says, tossing a hateful glare in my direction.
I can’t even say anything in my defense.
“I’ll have Artur take me,” he says, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her to face the hotel. “You need to go sleep all that whiskey off. I’ll be fine. You have your own room, right?”
I don’t miss the dark look he shoots me along with the question.
She mumbles something affirmative, and he presses a kiss to her temple.
Jenny doesn’t even look back at me as she carefully makes her way back into the hotel lobby.
I can tell she’s still furious, her shoulders tense and her hands fisted at her sides, but she’s probably too drunk to really lay into me.
I have no doubt I’ll get the full force of it tomorrow.
“You fucked up, Lukey,” Elias says from a few feet away.
I always hated that nickname back in high school. It doesn’t sound any less grating now, but I bite back my instinct to lash out.
Already did that, and look where it got me.
“I know,” I grit out. I force a harsh sigh out through my teeth before turning to look at him.
His top lip is crusted with blood, and he’s wincing from the pain.
It’s not the worst I’ve ever fucked someone up, which is a small comfort.
“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t recognize you, I swear.
I thought some asshole was trying to take advantage while she was drunk. I just… I’m sorry.”
The apology tastes foul on my tongue, heavy with the sour flavor of guilt and shame. I’d rather swallow the words down and run off to hide somewhere instead of facing my actions, but Elias deserves it.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Elias says sharply. His eyes go dark, threatening in a way that actually makes me a little scared of him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful you’d look out for her like that. But that’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
I… really don’t.
I’m also exhausted and feel awful for hitting him in the first place, so I dip my head and brace myself for whatever he has to say.
“You want to chew me out?” I ask, more sullen than angry now. “Go for it.”
Elias chuckles unkindly. “God, do you always roll over this easily? Or is it just because it’s Jenny?
” I don’t answer that. I don’t want to answer it, not even to myself.
“You fucked up tonight, sure, but she’ll forgive you for it.
You were trying to keep her safe. That’s not the issue.
The issue is that you fucking ruined her when you left.
I’d have beaten you bloody if you did that to me and then came back around pretending like everything was fine.
Have you even thought about what it was like for her after you ditched her? ”
I snap my head up, searching Elias’s face for some sort of explanation.
What is he even talking about? Jenny was pissed when we broke up, but she wasn’t hurt.
At least, not enough for Elias to be talking like this.
I spent damn near a year crying myself to sleep over the lack of emotion on her face when she told me to fuck off for the last time.
She didn’t even give me a chance to ask if she’d visit me, or to ask if I could visit her, if we could at least try to make things work long distance.
She just wrote everything between us off between one breath and the next.
And he asks if I thought of her after? I didn’t do anything but think of her.
“Look, I kind of hate you, dude,” Elias says with a long suffering sigh even as he claps a hand over my shoulder.
The gesture is almost friendly if you don’t pay attention to the way his fingers dig meanly into my skin.
“ But you should apologize to Jenny. For real. Like, sit down and talk to each other kind of apologize. If you want to stop things like this from happening, you need to actually talk.”
I stare at him for a stretched out moment, hardly breathing as I try to figure out what he’s trying to hint at. The look in his eyes makes me think there’s something he’s not saying.
Something important.
Jenny may be right. I’m kind of stupid sometimes. Probably because I focus on myself instead of trying to read into other people’s words and actions, but I won’t deny that I miss things sometimes. Even I can tell that Elias is trying to nudge me in a very specific direction right now.
The only problem is that I have no fucking clue what direction that is.
“I—what are you—”
“I’ve helped you enough,” Elias says, ruthlessly cutting me off.
“I’m not saying any of this to help you.
You can rot for all I care. But Jenny deserves an apology.
An explanation, too. In return for me spelling that out for your pea brain, you’re going to make sure she gets to her room safe and sound, and you’re going to spend the night thinking of one hell of an apology. Got it?”
I blink at him, shocked at how certain of himself he sounds. The Elias I knew way back when was a shy, quiet kid who wouldn’t stand up to a mouse.
And yet here I am, intimidated by the guy.
What a fucking night.
“Got it,” I say. “Sorry about your nose again.”
He waves me off and stalks back toward his car without so much as a goodbye, and I’m left standing in the parking lot with nothing but the buzzing of the streetlights for company.
I shake myself out of my daze and lock the truck up after tossing a ratty blanket over the contents of the backseat.
Elias made his expectations of me clear, and I have to admit that it’s kind of nice to have instructions to follow right now.
I can barely think straight as it is, my mind swirling with confusion and leftover frustration from my brief argument with Jenny.
I have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to be thinking up an apology for, but that can come later. The first step is to make sure Jenny gets into her room safely.
Should be easy enough.
Turns out, it’s not.
When I make it up to the floor our rooms are on, I find Jenny slumped over on the ground in front of her room. She glares at me as I approach, looking as exhausted as I feel.
“You okay, Jenny?” I ask, as gentle as I can manage without vomiting all of my messy feelings right at her feet.
She curls her lips disdainfully and glances away from me. “My key card won’t work. Can’t get into my room, and the computer is malfunctioning. They can’t assign me a new one until they get it fixed in the morning.”
As if this night couldn’t get any worse.
I drag my hand down my face roughly, huffing out a breath in an attempt to center myself. Glancing between her room and mine, right next door, I make up my mind before I even really think about it.
“Come on, then. Not going to leave you out in the hallway all night,” I say, holding a hand out to her. “I’ll take the couch. Won’t say a word, alright? Let’s just get some sleep.”
Jenny eyes me distrustfully for a long second, but finally fumbles for my hand and lets me pull her up. I ignore the lightning that runs through my veins at the feeling of her skin against mine.
“You better not snore.”
I laugh as I swipe the card and hold the door open for her, something in my chest feeling a little lighter at the thought of her being nearby while I sleep. Nothing’s changed, and nothing’s been fixed between us, but this still feels… better, somehow.
“No promises,” I tease.
I know I’ll do my best anyway. I’ll always do anything she tells me.