15. Luc
15
LUC
WHAT WAS THAT THING ABOUT LOST TIME?
C hristmas comes and goes. And then Kari’s nineteenth birthday. The twins and Britt age up. They graduate high school, and my work keeps me busy.
And all the fucking while, I’m left on the outside looking in.
Even with my sisters. They grow and mature. They date and break up. They attend their prom, and they sure as shit didn’t sleep in their own beds once the dance was over.
Because they’re women now, and not children.
Colleges are applied for. Not just the one in the city Kari attends, but others, too. There’s no point placing all of one’s eggs in a single basket, so Jess and Laine applied all over the country. They would have gone to New York if that’s how things turned out for them. They’d have gone to Boston if the acceptance letters came in that way. California would have suited their beach bum personalities. And Seattle would have served their wanderlust. But of course, the trio—four, including Kari—made a pact that if they could all attend the same school, they would.
All for one, and one for all… or some such thing.
So when those letters started arriving and things were getting real, the trio sat down and considered their options.
Kari was in school for nursing.
Jess was heading toward law .
While Britt and Laine had similar aspirations—teaching was where their hearts laid.
And in the end, matching letters were laid out on the Turners’ kitchen counter for the rest of us to inspect and dissect.
The girls would reunite in the next school year, and an apartment would be secured. Not only were my sisters heading away, out of my day-to-day life, but Kari would be leaving the security of a school dorm. Leaving where she has guards on the grounds, a meal plan to ensure she ate each day, and a roommate to keep an eye on things. Instead, she would move in with the wild three, forced to shop for their own food or starve, and experience freedoms she’s never had before in her life.
Fuck. This. Shit.
For two and a half years, my texts remain unanswered. Unopened. Unacknowledged.
For two Christmases. Two Thanksgivings. Birthdays: hers and mine. The guys and I continue to hold on to our day jobs, because that’s what we like doing. But our band gains notoriety, too. Permanent gigs at a local club. Real life rock stars commissioning our words, our songs. Life just trudges forward callously, like my whole soul isn’t someplace else. In someone else’s hands. And as the time passes with no word from Kari, I’m forced to accept that I fucked us up.
I broke a heart I swore I would not. And now I have to live with the consequences of knowing Kari is safe and fine just an hour from where I lay my head each night. She’s happy and learning, getting that college life I wanted her to experience.
I told her to go away. And she’s listening.
“We’re all back together again,” Alex announces at family dinner, Thanksgiving, in Kari’s third year away. She’s a full-fledged, grown ass woman now. One who can legally drink and smoke—not that she does either. She can party and have sex. She can practice her learned skills on real life humans, and when the situation arises, she can probably save a life, too.
“Well…” Alex amends. “Almost all back together.” He sits at the head of the table, a beer in one hand, and an eye scanning the occupants who sit with us. Jess and Laine on either side of me. Britt across, so when she looks up, it’s me she sees first. Marc and Ang. Scotch. Oz. The Turner parents are off on vacation now that the kiddies are all grown, and my parents are doing their own thing tonight too.
But one seat remains empty. Desolate .
Kari’s place has been set. Her plate, laid out. A knife and fork await her hands to use them. But she’s not here.
The one person I’ve waited years for remains firm in her stance against letting me back in. She robs herself of the chance to come home because she knows I’ll be here. She starves herself of the opportunity to be with her family because she knows that family includes me.
All she ever wanted was to be wanted.
I’m an asshole.
“It’s a fuckin’ tragedy,” Alex grunts, giving her empty chair one last glance. Then he brings his focus back to those of us here. “She’s been gone for too long. And though I know I saw her just two weeks ago in the city?—”
Wait. What?
“It doesn’t feel the same when she’s not here . She’s my baby sister too,” he laments, casting a look to Marc. “I know she’s yours first and foremost, but fuck, we were all kids when you and Kar came along. So I’m allowed to call her my sister, too. And I’m allowed to grieve the fact she’s choosing her life over there instead of being here with us.”
“It’s because of Ten,” Jess announces with a smile. She reaches across the table and snags a baked potato from the massive bowl in the center. “Ten has her attention right now, and since she’s the shy one of our group, the rest of us are supporting that.”
“Ten?” I lean forward so I can turn back and study my sister. Then I do the same on the other side, catching Laine’s eyes. “What’s a Ten?”
“Blake,” Britt declares. She, too, is done waiting for our dinner to be officially started. So she reaches across and steals a green bean. “Blake is also in the RN program, so he and Kari have had a few study sessions this year.”
“He’s pretty cute,” Laine smirks. “And he’s a total gentleman. He stays at the apartment sometimes and?—”
“Wait.” Finally, I speak up. “He stays at the apartment?”
Britt scoffs. “Yeah, but we’re adults now. So getting your panties twisted over this is like asking the Titanic to stop sinking. What’s done is done.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.” Marc plugs his ears with two fingers and groans. “Don’t talk to me about the Titanic . And don’t tell me about this dude who sleeps over in the same apartment as my sister.”
“He stays, like…” I swallow the painful lump in my throat. “All night?”
“Yeah,” Jess inserts. “But he’s a total sweetheart. Like, me and Laine are careful to be dressed appropriately. But he’s also thoughtful enough not to wander the apartment for no reason. He arrives, but only after letting Kari know he’s coming. And she tells us before he gets there, so we’re aware of what’ s happening. He goes straight to her room, and he doesn’t really come out again till the morning. So there are never any awkward hallway dramas, and we never feel like we have to do that weird dash from bedroom to kitchen or whatever.”
“He just…” My stomach heaves with disgust, vomit sprinting to the base of my throat. “He just hangs in her bedroom all day and night.” I look at Marc. “That’s so fucking thoughtful of him.”
“I’m not listening.” He closes his eyes and drops his head. “I refuse to get obsessed about this.”
“Get obsessed!” I shove my plate away and stare straight across the table at Britt. “That’s your apartment, Brat. You have a right to privacy there. So unless Blake?—”
“Ten,” she counters with a grin. “We call him Ten.”
“Unless Ten is paying a portion of the rent, then he shouldn’t be staying the night.”
“I mean…” Laine shrugs. “It’s not a big deal to us. We all…” she clears her throat. “Ya know, we all have a guest over sometimes. And Ten is pretty damn cool. He’s cute, and he has that star QB energy, but he has a brain on his shoulders, too. He and Kari are bonding on needles and medicine and stuff. So intellectually?—”
“He’s perfect!” I throw my hands up. “Great! He sounds like a fuckin’ peach.”
“What’s with the Ten thing?” Alex demands. He eyes the twins. Then Britt. “Ten, like how we say someone is a ten out of ten or something?”
“Uh… No.” Britt sniggers. Then she lifts her hands and slowly parts them to create space between. “Ten, like…”
“I’m done.” I shove up from the table before I toss my last three years of my lunch all over the turkey. Spinning away, I throw my chair back in until wood slams against wood and silverware clatters. “Eat,” I call back, stalking across the dining room and into the kitchen. “My phone is ringing,” I lie. “It’s the station.”
“But you?—”
I take out my phone and stupidly bring the damn thing to my ear, and loudly, I growl, “Hey Mitch, it’s Thanksgiving, bro. I’m off shift.”
I don’t stop once I hit the other side of the kitchen. No, I have a sudden fucking urge to make like Forrest Gump and keep going, so I stalk into the mudroom at the back of the house, then out the door until I’m on the porch that overlooks a not particularly well-kept yard. The grass is thin and patchy. The garden beds… accidental. The skate ramp is still the most pr ominent feature, yet I don’t remember the last time we, as a group, came out here to spend time on it.
I ignore the very bottom of the bowl, where Kari and I laid that one time, kissing, and me, swearing I shouldn’t. If I stop and really concentrate, I can still feel her elbows bruising my chest. I can taste her breath on my tongue. And when I flex my hands, I feel her hip in my palm. Her flesh under my fingertips.
“Fuck!” I crush the phone in my hand and thrust the other into my hair, pulling until it stings and scratching until I feel something other than the vicious ache pulsing in the depths of my gut. Then I stride to the side of the house and along the narrow pathway until I reach the gate that separates the back yard from the front.
Flipping the latch and shoving the gate open, I make a beeline for my bike, anger pulsing in my veins like mud after a long storm.
“Luc?” Alex steps out onto the porch and folds his arms as I throw my leg over the bike. “Something happening at the station that I should know about?”
“Nah. I’m just heading in for a bit, but you’re good to have your dinner.” I jam my phone into my pocket and the bike’s key into the ignition barrel, and starting the engine, I rev loud enough to piss off every neighbor between here and the other side of town.
I don’t bother with a helmet, though I know I should.
I don’t wear a coat appropriate for the road, or lined jeans.
If I crash my bike on the freeway, I’m pretty well fucked. But that’s cool, because a little road rash and losing half my face might be a welcome distraction from Kari Macchio spending the night with Mr. Ten Inch Cock, the quarterback dreamboat.
K ane laughs, his shoulders bouncing and his jaw quivering. So fucking entertained by my horror. So thrilled with the idea of my wife going to town with the local stallion.
“Ten inches!” he chokes out. “Like, ten when it’s soft, or ten when it’s hard?”
“None! Fuck you.” I bring my free hand up and rub my eye. Because mentally, maybe I’m in hell and not nearly tired enough to drift off. But physically, I don’t remember the last time I slept a full night. “Worst Thanksgiving of my entire life,” I groan. “Ten! They called him Ten!”
“My wife called him Ten,” Kane snickers. “I assure you, we’ll discuss it when I get home. Now please tell me you didn’t ride that bike home and hide in the bathtub and cry about your woes. For the love of fuckery,” he giggles. “Tell me you went to her and cut his ‘ten’ off?”
“I went to her.” I drop my head back and simply… breathe. “I’d reached my limit. Ten was where I drew the line. No more buffet for her.”
“Halle-fuckin’-lujah. You went there, tossed her over your shoulder, smacked her ass, and impregnated her, right? Like a man.”
I bring my gaze down again, scoffing deep in the back of my throat. “I went there. But I didn’t get to smack her ass or impregnate her. Not yet, anyway.”
“Pussy.”
My lips curl. My ability to smile about this bullshit, finally, slowly, leaking through. “This is still a long while ago, Bish. The twins were conceived nine months ago. Your math ain’t mathing.”
“And your enthusiasm for practicing the twin thing is lacking.” This motherfucker looks me straight in the eye and grins. “Practice is the best part.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about, asshole! Watch yourself.”
“Or what? You gonna be mean and send me away? How will I live?” He brings a hand up and dangles it by his brow. “Luca Lenaghan will say unkind things to me and break my heart.”
“You could go, you know?” I firm my lips and wait for him to lower his tatted hand. “It’s three in the damn morning. You could go back to your house and leave me alone.”
“Fuck I will.” He pushes up from the table and makes a line for the coffeepot. “I’m invested in this story now. I had no clue Jess’ family was a whole subplot in The Bold and the Beautiful . Go on,” he teases. “Tell me what happened when you went to surprise your Care Bear and her ten-inch cock.”
“You’re such an asshole.” I shake my head and pray to hell and back newborn babies don’t understand the bullshit they hear in the first weeks of their life. “I have no clue what my sister sees in you.”
“Ten inches,” he smirks. Opening his hands, he cackles when my nostrils flare. “When it’s soft.”