19. Chapter Nineteen Lucy
Chapter Nineteen: Lucy
T hat was… awkward.
I don’t think anyone has ever made such a bold claim over me before. It definitely wasn’t romantic.
The way Eric said it— Lucy is mine—made my skin crawl. I’ve never heard his voice sound like that before. Granted, I don’t know him all that well in the first place, but I never would have imagined he’d be capable of sounding so crude and arrogant.
Even though I’m impressed with how viciously I bit back at him, I still feel a little icky. Icky and disappointed and altogether deeply, deeply annoyed.
As the maid of honor, I really shouldn’t be slipping away from the party like this, but I need to get some air. I don’t want to think about the fact that Elijah’s been reunited with a relative who is actually a total weirdo. I also do not want to think about the people who probably overheard that altercation and are now passing the news around the ballroom. Probably not with malicious intent, but still. It’s not exactly a desired form of attention.
I just need a minute alone. A single minute to reorganize my thoughts. After that, I’ll be right as rain and back to normal. Ready to party.
“Lucy, wait!”
I flinch at the sound of Theo’s voice echoing behind me, but I don’t turn around. I’m not mad at him; he looked just as stunned by what Eric said as I felt when I heard it, which definitely means he wasn’t partaking in the weird possessiveness.
If anything, I’m embarrassed he had to deal with that. Theo and I might have some kind of inexplicable attraction to each other, but I’m sure he doesn’t have actual feelings for me. Therefore, the fact that a guy he doesn’t even know would approach him and start fighting over me is mortifying… I just really can’t deal with it right now.
“Lucy, slow down!”
“I’m fine!” I call over my shoulder as I turn the corner of the main, high-ceilinged hall that forms the antechamber of the ballroom. I find myself in a slightly narrower hallway on the opposite side of the manor from the conservatory and the dining room. This place is so huge that I know I could easily get lost in it, even after all the time I’ve spent here planning the logistics of this wedding.
“Lucy, I’d really like to talk to you if you’d just—”
“You really don’t have to say anything,” I insist, still talking over my shoulder. I’m so embarrassed that I’m not sure I can look him in the eye.
Mine , Eric called me. As if there was ever any possibility that Theo would think I’m his .
I turn another corner. I think I’m getting close to the administrative section of the first floor, which is probably not somewhere I should be wandering around, but every other area of this manor is crawling with the numerous wedding guests.
“No, Lucy, just let me—” Theo’s sentence ends in a frustrated sigh as I yank open a random door on my right and disappear.
I slam the door shut behind me, only to discover far too late that I’m not in some random, fancy parlor or antique music room.
I’m in a supply closet.
My hand fumbles for a light switch, only to come up empty.
“Crap.”
Just then, the door wrenches open and I stumble away, making room for Theo as he storms inside. He stops short, letting the door swing shut behind him in surprise as he realizes this isn’t just another room or hallway. The hinges groan, the latch clicks shut, and then we’re plunged into darkness together.
Not for the first time.
“I thought it was… well, I didn’t realize this was a closet,” I mutter.
“Where’s the light?”
“I don’t think there is one.”
Theo sighs.
My eyes adjust to the shadows just enough to see the vague outline of his handsome face and the subtle gleam of his golden-blond hair. I try to step around him in the tight space, eager to put him out of his misery as soon as possible rather than be trapped in yet another dark, enclosed space with him, but he steps in front of me and blocks the way.
“Wait,” he insists. He sounds vaguely out of breath. I’d been practically jogging away from the reception, but his legs are still much longer than mine. Is he breathless because he’s panicking?
“Theo, you really don’t need to trap yourself with me in another tiny prison.”
“Lucy, just listen for two minutes, for the love of Pete.”
I pause. He stares down at me. It’s so quiet and dark in here, it’s like we’re miles away from the party. Miles away from earth, really. Or, that’s what I might be inclined to think, if not for the cardboard box full of Clorox wipes right next to me.
“I’m already embarrassed enough,” I tell him. “Let’s just go back to the reception. Maybe a couple shots of tequila will help.”
“Why would you be embarrassed?”
I snort. “Because Eric thinks you like me. He thinks you like me enough to act like a macho idiot and try to claim his territory.”
There’s a long beat of silence. Theo’s shoes shuffle quietly on the tile floor.
“I do like you, Lucy.”
I shake my head. “No, you hate me.”
“No, I don’t. I really, really don’t. I already told you that.”
“Well, great. You don’t hate me. Confirmed. Are we done here?”
“No, we’re not.” I can hear when Theo swallows hard, as if there’s a substantial lump in his throat. “I don’t know what it is about this town, but I swear I’ve been thinking more clearly since I arrived here. And ever since I saw you… or, I guess, ever since I ran into you, I feel like my entire life has been flipped upside down.”
I slump back against the far wall, though that still doesn’t leave much space between us. “That doesn’t sound pleasant, Theo.”
“It’s a good thing, Lucy. I’ve been living my life on autopilot for years. Maybe my whole life, honestly. When I was kid, I knew how stressful my parents’ careers were, so I took the path of least resistance. I never fought back when my mother dragged me around from audition to audition, trying to make me into a little male version of her. I didn’t argue when my parents told me they were getting divorced. I didn’t even bother trying to fight it when they decided to send me to the middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania that summer. I think the only rebellion I’ve ever performed—if you can call it that—is going to college for software engineering.”
I understand what he means. I was the same way. When my mom died, I did everything I could to minimize the weight on my dad’s shoulders. I never misbehaved in school. I tried my best to get good grades, to convince him that I was perfectly fine.
Then, when he and my first stepmom told me about their divorce, I defaulted to the same coping mechanism. Going with the flow. Being sweet and charming and easy to get along with. I never let any of my pain show because I knew how hurt everyone else around me already was.
Maybe that’s why I was fantasizing about having my own wedding this morning. Maybe, for the first time in my life, I’m letting the pain and regret and yearning creep through the cracks. I can only choke down my desires for so long.
That’s why I’ve avoided love at all costs—because of the pain I’ve learned to associate with it.
“I understand,” I tell him. “I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I also don’t quite know where you’re going with this.”
A gentle breath of laughter. He inches closer.
“What I’m saying is that I’m tired of just letting life happen to me, Lucy. I’m tired of being the man on the sidelines. The one who never speaks, never draws attention to himself. I want to be different. I want…”
He trails off. My heart is pounding again.
I hear him take a deep breath.
“I want you, Lucy.” He steps closer. His suit jacket brushes against the satin of my dress. “I want to know what it’s like to love someone. I want to fall in love with you . I know that we have all that animosity in our past and I know that I’m hardly the kind of man you deserve. I know that I’m grouchy and difficult to deal with and standoffish more often than not. I know that you’d probably much rather date a guy who makes you smile and laugh all the time. A guy who can be just as happy and carefree all the time as you are, but—”
“I’m not that happy, Theo,” I force myself to say. It’s a truth I’ve never dared to acknowledge. Not even to myself.
“What?”
“I’m not as happy as I seem to be. A lot of it is fake. You know the phrase ‘fake it until you make it’? I’m, like, the poster child for that.” I exhale slowly, gathering the courage to utter these words aloud. “I’m not unhappy , of course. That’s not really what I mean. I have my friends and my family. I love where I live. And, yes, I do tend to be stubbornly optimistic about most things, but I don’t need someone who is just as good at pretending to be happy all the time. If anything, I could really use somebody who can give me a healthy dose of reality.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh .”
“I just thought—well, you’re always so bubbly and sociable.”
“I like socializing. That’s true. But I’m not the perfect little sunshine you seem to think I am, Theo. I can be difficult, too.”
“Well, I know that. In fact, I might be the only person who really knows that for sure.”
A laugh bursts out of me. “You’re probably right. You’re the only person I’ve ever really consistently butt heads with. Otherwise, I’m pathologically determined to get along with everyone I meet.”
“So, what you’re saying is that I’m incredibly unique and special?”
I laugh again. “Look at you, telling jokes.”
“I can be funny. I can be a lot of things, I think. I’ve never really tried.”
“If it helps, I think I’d like you no matter what.”
“But you hate me.” This time, however, the words come out teasing and playful.
We have moved past our history. We never hated each other. We were just young and confused and a little lost. We saw each other and recognized a part of ourselves, like looking in the mirror. Perhaps the real problem was that we highlighted our biggest fears about ourselves. When I looked at Theo, I saw a moody boy who didn’t care what anyone thought about his antisocial behavior. As someone whose primary survival mechanism was to be everyone’s best friend, that terrified me.
I understand now. When Theo saw me, he saw a person he could never be. Someone who was constantly bubbly and positive and giggling. Someone who moved through life effortlessly and never felt like they couldn’t belong. He knows now that I was just pretending at all that.
The masks are off. There’s nothing left to fear.
“Theo,” I whisper.
He’s close. So much closer than he was half a second ago. I feel his hand bracing against the wall beside my head. My body, still leaning back against the wall, screams for him to close that last tiny bit of distance.
“Hm?” he replies, sounding vaguely distracted.
“I think I want to know what it would feel like to fall in love with you, too.”
All the air rushes out of him. I feel his warm breath, scented like spearmint and champagne, ghosting along my jaw.
“I guess we should do it, then,” he murmurs. “Try to fall in love.”
“I think it might be easier than we imagine.”
“I think so, too.”
“Theo?”
“Lucy.”
“How will you love me all the way from California?”
“Oh. Well. See, the thing is, I’m thinking about moving to Boston.”
I jerk back slightly, which is hard to do, considering the back of my head is already touching the wall. “Seriously?”
In the sparse glow of the light creeping through the cracks in the doorway, I can see Theo biting his lip.
“Is that weird?” he asks.
“Why would that be weird?”
“Because it’s quite random. And I’m mostly doing it because it means I’ll be closer to you.”
“And you made that decision, like, prior to this moment?”
He chuckles. “Yes, Lucy. As I said, I’ve been trying to make sense of my life for days now.”
“And this makes sense to you?”
“Does it make you uncomfortable that you are my primary motivation for wanting to move across the country?”
Should that make me uncomfortable? If so, there must be some mechanism inside me that’s broken. Honestly, I find it unbearably, sickeningly romantic.
Which is not something I ever thought would enter my mind. Especially not in regard to Theo Danvers.
“Not at all,” I tell him. “I just don’t want you to regret it. Or something like that.”
“I won’t regret it,” he murmurs into my ear. Goosebumps pebble my skin.
“How do you know?”
He presses a soft kiss to the underside of my jaw. “I just know, Lucy.”
“Right.”
My fingers trail up the front of his shirt, slipping underneath his jacket.
Another kiss along the side of my neck. My breath catches.
“I should have brought a bottle,” he whispers against my collarbone.
“What?”
“A bottle to spin.” A kiss on my bare shoulder. “Spin the bottle.” A kiss just underneath the pearls resting against my throat. “For old time’s sake.”
I almost laugh, but it comes out more like a shaky exhale. “I think we can skip that part this time.”
“Agreed.”
The first brush of Theo’s lips against mine feels electric. It feels like everything that Josie’s stupid romance novels describe. It feels like I never want to move on from this moment. I want to be suspended in time, right here, with him.
When the kiss deepens, I lose myself completely. This is right. This is what I didn’t even know I’d been waiting for all these years.
And maybe, if things were different, this is what would have happened that night twelve years ago. Or maybe not. Who knows?
All I know is that I’m happy we found our way back to each other. Here, in the shadows, no longer afraid.