16. Luc
16
LUC
NOT ALL SURPRISES ARE GOOD
I ride my bike to the city and take solace in the fact that I didn’t drink at the dinner table with everyone else. No one in our family drinks to excess. Not since Scotch killed his mom’s roses back in high school and earned himself a new nickname. But just one beer, even half, would be dangerous as I cruise faster than the speed limit all the way to the city.
The November air is like razor blades on my nose. The icy breeze, like knives against my ears.
But the ride is short, mercifully. The roads, all but empty until I hit the outskirts of the city, and two lanes turn to six. Even then, I zoom through traffic on my bike, choosing the shoulder and mid lanes instead of sitting with everyone else.
Horns honk at my back, and my brain cruelly forces me to reminisce from one part of my life to another. I should’ve put music on. Headphones in my ears and something other than Kari’s voice playing on repeat. But no. I didn’t do that. So instead, while staring at the road and crossing a city I hardly know toward the apartment the girls share, I think back on fifteen years of memories. From a little girl who clutched her pink blanket to a grown woman who demanded I notice her.
From that child I ignored, even when my heart gave an odd tug, to the woman I sent away… even when it felt like shoving a dagger between my ribs.
I think of the kisses we shared. The secreted moments spent in the dark. I think of the things she asked for—not even a relationship. Just… truth—and then of my final words to her.
I. Don’t. Want. You.
The nastiest, most villainous words I’ve ever muttered in my life.
I blow through a yellow light just before it turns red and zoom across the intersection filled with pedestrians waiting to cross. Then I cut left and close the final few blocks until I find her building.
What am I planning to do when I see her?
Fucked if I know.
What will I say?
No clue.
Will I demand she send Ten home?
Hell knows.
She’s doing literally the very thing I told her to do. She’s seeing the world and meeting new people. She’s honoring my wishes and living her life.
And I’m… throwing a fit about it. Because all along, I wanted her to choose me.
I pull up outside Kari’s apartment building and back my bike up until the rear wheel touches the curb. Then killing the engine, I merely sit and shiver. Because it’s November! And I’m cold and stupid.
What are you gonna do, Luc?
Huh!?
What are you gonna do?
My phone vibrates in my pocket, an incoming call that buzzes against my leg and reminds me I left the table back home in a ridiculously conspicuous way. Everyone will have noticed. And several of them will have questions.
But not Marc. Hopefully not him.
Digging my freezing hand into tight denim, I pull the device out and bring it up. Only to frown when I spy Britt’s name flashing on my screen.
Curious, I accept the call and press the phone to my ear. “Brat?”
“Hey.” She’s often the person who matches my energy when we all hang out as a group. She’s one of the wild ones. One of the loud, brave ones. So even though I don’t see her right now, I still see in my mind the way her lips curl. “You okay? Where’d you go?”
“Out.” I sit back on my bike and study the street surrounding me, my breath coming out in white puffs that remind me how miserable I’m going to be tomorrow. “I got a call from work, so I’m dealing with that.”
“I’m worried about you.” She cuts through my shit and silences whatever rebuttal I might’ve thought to spout off. “You haven’t been yourself in a long time, Luc. You think you’re slick, but when people care about people, they notice.”
“Um…” Nerves lodge in the center of my throat and damn near strangle me. “What?”
“I don’t know the who . And I don’t know the why . But my brother is a broken man because of a girl. Sam is…” She shakes her head, sighing. “She destroyed him, Luc. So I know what a man hurting looks like.”
“And I…?”
“Am a man whose heart hurts because of a woman. You’re ridiculously discreet about it all, and I haven’t seen you with a woman in a while. I swear, I’ve been watching, trying to figure you out.” She softens her voice, gentling it for my benefit. “You can tell me, Luc. And then we can hang out and bitch about her until you feel better.”
“I’d rather we didn’t.” I glance across the street when moving shadows catch my gaze. A Thai restaurant, lit up with colored lights and a line that stretches out the door and along the block. It’s obviously a good restaurant, or perhaps there are simply too many lonely people tonight with nowhere else to be on Thanksgiving. “I don’t want to talk about girls right now, considering I’m busy working. And I especially don’t want to talk about girls with my friend’s little sister.”
“Why not?”
Yeah, Luc? Why not?
“I’ve known you my whole life,” she presses. “I’ve grown up watching you and the guys. I observed you across the school every damn day we were there, and every night the band played a set, I watched. You’re Luc,” she groans. “You date women. You have fun with them. Then you walk away. So who is this person who has you all messed up? And why the hell does she get that kind of power over you? Have you learned nothing from Sam?”
I study the long trail of people across the street. Those on a date, wrapped in each other’s arms, and the women, most of them, huddled in their man’s jackets. I run my eyes across the families. Young parents with small children, who, for whatever reason, don’t have anywhere else to go tonight.
“Luc?”
I spy the front of the line, and the hostess waiting to seat those who stand there. “What?”
“Sam is broken! Destroyed! That bitch waltzed in, threw his heart in a blender, and sashayed her ass back out of town again. I’m not gonna sit here and watch someone else do that to you. So tell me the who, and I’ll take care of it for you.”
I choke out a soft chuckle, the first real moment of levity I’ve felt in… a while. But then my eyes stop on a perfect green set. A beautiful, round face framed in wild brown hair made worse by the breeze in the air. Most fucked up of all, is the man draped over her. He’s about six-and-a-half feet of football muscle and math club nerdy, all wrapped up in one dude.
Kari’s face drains of color. Terror burning in her gaze.
She’s not scared of me . But she’s scared… of something.
“Luc?” Britt grumbles. “You still there?”
“Yeah.” I peel my gaze from Kari’s, like tearing tape off sensitive skin, and look down instead at the fuel tank of my bike. “You wanna get drunk tonight?”
“You wanna drink?” she sniggers, confused and yet, as always, willing to match my energy. “Like, two beers chill, or like, Scotch got a new nickname?”
“The second one.” I try not to do it. I swear, I don’t want to look. But my eyes move anyway, peeking up from beneath my lashes until I find Ten pressing a noisy, juicy, homicide enticing kiss to the side of Kari’s face. “Give me forty-five minutes,” I growl. “Find some liquor and meet me at Popcorn Palace.”
“Oh geez. Really? You wanna drink at that dusty old place?”
“I don’t want to drink at your house. And I sure as shit don’t wanna do it at mine. I’m gonna hang up, because I’ve got a little work to do. But have the shot glasses ready. I don’t want to remember this shit.”
She snorts. “I got you. You want me to invite the others? Marc is wandering around bored, since Kari isn’t in town. And?—”
“Nope. Definitely fucking not. Catch you in a bit.”
“ A nd that’s when you accidentally slept with Britt,” Kane guesses on a gusting exhale. “Liquor. Shot glasses. Heart ache. It’s a recipe for disaster, dude.”
“It was a mistake,” I sigh. “One I literally possess no memories of today. But I know it happened, because I sure as shit remember waking up the next morning, crusty mouthed and puking.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and study Billy. “Britt’s a good girl, and luckily for us both, we had, and continue to have, respect for one another. What was done was just… It was a thing we did. There were no emotions involved. We weren’t in love with each other, nor were we mad at each other once it was done. It was just…”
“A thing,” Kane nods. “I get it. I made out with your sister one time.”
It’s like he gets off on annoying me. “You’re married to her, Bish. I don’t need to know the details.”
“Nah, I meant the other sister.” His lips twitch with a smug grin. “Picked the wrong one that one time,” he chuckles. “It happens. Jess forgave me. And evidently,” he extends his hand and gestures toward Billy, “Kari forgave you.”
“You’re comparing mixing up identical twins and kissing the wrong one, one time, to me having sex with the best friend of the woman I loved, and the sister of my friend?”
“Yes. I am,” he sniggers. “So long as you didn’t fuck Jess, I’m here for it.”
I drop my head back and roll my eyes. “Yes. So glad I didn’t fuck my own sister, Bish. Close call.”
“Word on the street is Britt announced what you did at the dinner table a few years later. That’s how Jess tells it. Would’ve been rough for Kari to find out that way.”
“Yeah? Except Jess doesn’t know everything all the time.” I bring my focus down and study the sweet baby that came only after years of heartache. Of forgiveness. Of thinking about a prick known as Ten .
I wake to the sun’s rays filtering through broken panes of glass. The shards of light hitting my eyes like lasers on steroids, their only purpose in life, to irritate me when my head already pounds. My mouth tastes of dirt and vomit. My lips, dry and crusty.
And when I peel my eyes open, narrowing them again in defense of the brutal daylight, I groan as my body aches and rejects… life. It rejects the living.
“Fuckkkk.” My stomach rebels, acid rolling along my throat and threatening to make a mess of the already filthy floor. “Kill me.”
“Shh…” Britt moans, lying on her belly so her bare back an d plenty of ink I know her family doesn’t know about, flashes back at me. Like the universe wants to remind me exactly who the hell is here with me.
Like it’s not done punishing me.
“I want to die.” I slam my eyes shut again and wait for the reaper to take me. “Make it painful. I don’t even care. Nothing is as bad as this moment.”
“You’re being exceptionally dramatic.” Slowly, she clings to the paltry blankets we’ve left here over the years and turns over, gripping the fabric to retain her modesty. Though I’m not sure it matters at this point. “You’re not dying, Luc. And this never happened.”
“You fucking think?” I force my eyes open and stare up at the popcorn ceilings of the old, dilapidated house. “I slept with my friend’s little sister.”
“No, you didn’t.” She drags the blanket all the way up and covers her face with it. “I don’t remember it. Therefore, nothing happened.”
Vomit teases the base of my throat. The burn of acid, the first layer of punishment coming my way. “You don’t remember because we drank enough brandy to have your stomach pumped. Jesus,” I grunt. “I’m probably going to prison.”
“You’re not going to prison.” She fusses under the blanket, pulling clothes on and making sounds akin to a dying boar. “It happened, Luc. It was Hennessy’s fault. We never speak of it again.”
“Yeah? Real mature.” I drag my hands to my eyes and press down until I see stars. “I slept with my best friend’s sister.”
She laughs. Actual, out loud, barking laughter as she pushes the blanket off her face. “You slept with Sam and Alex’s sister. I assure you, you didn’t sleep with Marc’s sister. That would be way worse.”
Way worse.
Nausea rolls through my belly as I snag my boxers and hurriedly slide them on. Then scrambling from my uncomfortable, make-do bed on the floor of a derelict home, I stumble toward the door that hangs off one hinge and into the yard out back. The instant my feet touch dirt, I toss a gut-full of brown liquor onto the ground, the dirt so hard-packed, it’s almost like spewing onto concrete. It doesn’t absorb. It merely splashes back and coats my feet.
“Ugh. That’s nasty.” Britt stumbles through the door behind me. Her black hair, wild, and the black makeup she wears around her eyes, smudged. She’s still in her emo phase, punk rocker, and pretty enough to tempt a guy.
All guys.
But not me. “It’s like I woke up beside my sister. ”
I throw up again, groaning as my chest retches and my stomach empties. “Fuck.” And again. “Britt…”
“Don’t say my name.” She plops her ass onto the wooden step, risking splinters in her thighs and frostbite on her toes. “Just…” She drops her face in her hands. “Don’t say my name. Ever.”
“We fucked up.”
“We hung out.” She keeps her face in one hand but uses the other to stop-sign me. “We are grown-ups who drank way too much alcohol. Then we did some stuff.” She heaves, but locks it in and whimpers. “We are consenting adults. And we used protection.”
She pauses and looks up with her panda-smudged eyes. “We used protection?”
I rest my hands on my knees and simply… wish for death. But I nod. “Yes, we used protection. Condom wrapper on the floor inside. I saw it.”
“Thank god.” She dangles her hand and breathes, heavy and noisy. “We’re not in a relationship now, are we?”
“Fuck no.” But of course, my harsh words have guilt rearing up and eating at my soul. “I mean… not that you’re not worth a relationship, Brat. You’re a good, nice girl and I?—”
“There’s no shotgun pointed at your back. Don’t worry. My feelings aren’t gonna be hurt, and your obligatory marriage proposal is unnecessary.” She rolls her face in her hand and whimpers. “People have sex. You’ve done it. I’ve done it.”
“Wait…” I lift my head and study the woman who shouldn’t be that experienced in all this. “You’ve had sex before?”
“You did not take my virginity. We’re okay.”
“And you’re…” Am I her one-night stand? Or am I her quasi-big brother? Fuck. “You’re being safe and stuff, right? These guys are treating you right?”
“Better than my current experience,” she jokes. But that turns into a growl of anguish. “Why am I smelling purple? What the fuck is that?”
“Inebriation and bad choices.” I bring my hand up and swipe my chin and mouth, wiping the unsavory leftovers on my shorts and mentally begging for a shower. Clean clothes.
A different life.
“Are you okay?” I stagger toward the steps and drop down so I’m not sure if I’m sitting or collapsing. But I set my head in my hands and try with all my might to push away my own troubles. My own disgust. “I’m sorry this happened.” I turn my face and meet her eyes. “I took advantage… maybe,” I burp. “Probably.”
She angles away from the stench of my breath and screws up her face. “You’re taking responsibility for something we both did… while drunk.”
“I’m the adult,” I moan. “It’s my responsibility to carry.”
“We’re both adults. And you were clearly working through some stuff. It’s…” She rolls her head side to side. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine!”
“It was sex,” she growls. “People have sex. Good, healthy, mature people are able to still be friends with someone they’ve had sex with.”
“You want to stay my friend?”
“I sure as hell don’t want to be your girlfriend! I don’t want to be your wife. And I don’t want to cast you out of my life. So yeah…” She dangles her head back and points her face toward the sky. Eyes closed. Cheeks warming under the morning sun. “It was a thing, Luc. And now that thing is done. It won’t be repeated.”
“You reject me so easily?”
She snickers, soft and playful. “I’ve got the ick, like I slept with my brother.”
My stomach lurches again, regret rushing along with the acids burning the base of my throat. “That’s how it feels for me, too.”
“I think, if not for Hennessy, that would have never happened.”
“No shit?” I rub my eyes and search for a way back. For a rewind button. For a reset. “Fuck. That was never supposed to happen.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” she lowers her face and exhales a noisy, liquor infused breath. “It didn’t. I won’t tell anyone. And you won’t tell anyone. It’ll go to the grave with me, I swear.” She lifts her hand between us, presenting me with the side of her fist. “Silence. Forever.”
“Yeah.” I bump her fist and whimper when last night’s paltry dinner swirls in my stomach. “Forever.”
“Thank god.” She pushes up to stand, swaying in place until I reach out and set my hand on the side of her hip. But of course, she slaps me away and lopes back up into the house. “You don’t get to touch me there. That’s intimate. And people who aren’t intimate don’t do that.”
“I should just kill myself.” I jam my thumbs against my eyes and pray for a fast death. “Put us both out of our misery.”
“You could, I suppose.” She bangs around inside the house. Stumbling as she pulls the rest of her clothes on and stomps into a pair of platform boots. “Or you could just… ya know. Move on wi th your life.”
“Wait.” I push up to my feet and heave when my stomach and head aren’t quite in sync with each other just yet. Then I turn on my heels and trudge into the house. “You’re being way too cool about this, Brat. Girls don’t often react this way the morning after.”
“You’d know.” She drops to her ass and works on her laces. “You’ve left a string of broken hearts in your wake.” She shakes her head and glances up. “Don’t worry, my heart is fine.”
“You’re way too comfortable right now. How many morning afters have you walked away from?”
Her lips quiver with the ghost of a smile. “You’re not my boyfriend, so you don’t get that information. And you’re not actually my brother. So again…”
“I don’t get that information.” I lean against the wall, because I’m not sure I can stand all on my own for much longer. Then I drop my head back until it hits the plaster with a dull thud. “You’re being safe, right? I don’t just mean condoms. I mean everything.”
“Always. And except for this one time, the girls and I have a safety system in place. We’re always careful.”
My sisters. And the woman I love.
Fucking awesome!
“I think I have to tell someone about us.” I peel my eyes open and search for Britt’s. “I have to tell her.”
“The one who has you all messed up and heart broken and drinking with another woman? Fuck that bitch. Anyone who hurts you like that doesn’t deserve you.”
“It’s not her fault my heart hurts.” Sliding down the wall, I lower to my ass and wrap my arms around my legs. “It’s completely my fault. And what you and I did last night makes it so much worse.”
She finishes with one shoe and moves to the other with a shrug. “So don’t tell her. Did you miss that part where I said it’s to never be spoken of again?”
“You can’t build a relationship with a lie like that.” I press my chin to my knees and groan. “I can’t not tell her. Not if I want us to be together eventually.”
“Are you together now? Like… in a relationship?”
“No.”
“So is this a bit like Ross and Rachel? Are you on a break?”
“No. We’re… we’ve never actually been together. And I’m pretty fucking sure she’s dating someone else right now. ”
“So you’re in the clear. That’s like me worrying about some future, potential boyfriend I don’t even know yet. We’re not together, so it’s none of his business who I’ve spent time with. And if your chick is with someone else right now, do you think she’s waking up each morning wondering if she should tell you she slept with someone?”
No. Fuck. It’s not like she called to tell me about Ten .
And I can’t even be mad about it. I told her to go!
“No.”
“Exactly.” She finishes her second shoe and pops up to stand, swaying on her feet and pressing a hand to her stomach. “I’m never drinking again.”
“No shit.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale until my lungs ache. “Fucking hell. I’ve made a mess.”
“No mess.” She wanders to the makeshift bed and bends to grab her phone. Keys. Chapstick. “We’re both single—even if you’re heartsick for someone else. We’re both legal, consenting adults. We have mutual respect for one another. And neither of us will leave this shitty house today with bad feelings toward the other.” She straightens out again and pushes long, raven hair behind her ear. “And thank god, I’m heading back to the city tomorrow. I won’t have to see you again until Christmas, and by then, we’ll both be sober enough to not want to puke on the floor. This is gonna be fine. You just need a shower and a breath mint.”
“I can’t take you home.” My head pounds, like heavy bass drums in the back of my skull, and just to be extra annoying, my heart thunders to the same beat. Painful in my chest. Throbbing, because I screwed up. “I drank way too much to ride right now. It’s not safe.”
“It’s okay. I’m still too drunk to sit on the back and hold on.” She grins, like maybe she really is still a little on the tipsy side. “I’m gonna walk. The fresh air will be good for me. But I’m going to the bathroom first.”
She sways as she walks, making her way to the toilet we’ve used a million times over the years while pseudo squatting in this house. The girls and the band have supplied the place with toilet paper and hand soap. There’s no electricity here, but there’s a flushing toilet and a tap that still, somehow, has water supply.
“I need to clean my face before I go anywhere,” she calls back. “And I suggest you wash yours before you step outside. You’re still in your underwear and you have vomit on your chin.”
“Fuck.” I look down, though I know I’m still in my boxers. Because the November air bites at my skin and yet, I don’t shiver the way I should. I think it’s shock. Perhaps trauma. “If I tell this person what we did, I’m gonna have to use your name.” Grunting, I push along the wall until I’m standing tall once more. But I continue to lean for a beat. To find my bearings. “I have to tell her, Brat. Keeping the secret wouldn’t be right.”
“Suits me. But ask her to keep it between you two. My brothers don’t need to know about this. In fact, Jess and Laine don’t need to know, either. It will make life so awkward.”
“Britt—”
“Is she likely to kick my ass?” She pokes her head back through the door, half her makeup gone as she clutches to a wad of moist toilet paper in lieu of a face wipe. “Will she try? I’m not afraid, but I’d like a warning, so I know to watch my back.”
“No.” I draw a heaped breath and work to replace the fumes of liquor with fresh air. “She won’t hurt you, but she’ll probably kill me. And even then, she won’t forgive me.”
“Sounds like you’re making the wrong move, then. The secret is safe.” She steps back into the bathroom to continue cleaning up. So while she’s gone, I dress. Pulling on my jeans. Shrugging into my shirt. “There’s no rule that says you have to confess to this. Especially considering you and I are the only people on the planet who know, and I’m not saying shit to anyone.”
“But it’s about integrity, right?” I reach up and run a hand through my hair, then down over my face until the stubble on my chin crackles. “If I want to be an honorable man, she deserves the truth.”
“If you say so.” She comes out of the bathroom, looking like her usual beautiful and innocent self. Gone is the dark makeup. The panda smudge under her eyes. Even the lipstick I hadn’t really noticed she was wearing, since it was only a shade or two off her natural color. “I think it’s important to remember that you and her are not together. And that she’s dating someone else. This isn’t Ross and Rachel, Luc. This is…” She wracks her brain for a moment, only to bring her shoulders up in a shrug. “This is Claire, Jamie, and Randall. When she was married to Randall, she didn’t know Jamie. And when she was with Jamie, she thought Randall was gone from her life forever. Claire shouldn’t feel guilty for the things she did in those situations.”
“I don’t even know who the fuck you’re talking about.” I fasten the button on my jeans and draw the zipper up. “And this isn’t about me searching for a loophole. If I tell her, it’ll be because I chose to. Not because I got caught out.”
“Okay, well…” She turns toward the door. “As long as you’re not expecting her to return the sentiment and tell you about who she’s dating. If yo u’re not together, then you’re not together. You don’t get to get pissy about her dating someone else.”
“Do I look pissy to you, Brittany!?” I stomp across the room and grab my shoes, proving to us both that I am, in fact, pissy. “I know she’s dating, okay?” It was the fucking deal I made when I broke her heart and sent her away . “I’m trying to be the better man,” I sigh. “She deserves better than me. Which is why we’re not dating in the first place.”
“So…” She stops by the front door and turns back to wait for me to fix my shoes. “She wants to date you, but you don’t want to date her? But she’s dating someone else, and now you’ve slept with someone you probably shouldn’t have, so as a result, you feel guilty enough to consider confessing what we did to the someone you’re not dating?”
“Yes.” I hate that she makes me feel stupid. That she simplifies a lifetime of heartache and makes me feel like a fucking idiot. “I was trying to be noble,” I admit, switching feet and tying my second boot, “sending her out into the real world to date other people, even though she was in love with me.”
“And what did that achieve in the end?” She flashes a taunting, beautiful grin that’ll be the end of some other guy.
She’s smart. Witty. Bratty. Crazy. She’s going to make someone very happy someday. But I’m not that someone. Not when my heart belongs elsewhere.
“Luc?”
“It ended with her dating someone else, and me tossing my Thanksgiving dinner onto the ground outside this shitty house.” Done with my shoes, I push up to stand and pat my pockets to make sure I have everything I need.
Liquor bottles litter the floor, and blankets remain strewn in the middle of what I suppose was probably the living room at one point in this house’s lifetime. Random things we’ve left over the years lie around. Hair ties. Socks. Clothes. Pillows. The mess we leave behind today will be no different to the mess we’ve left behind before, so I don’t bother cleaning up.
Instead, I dig my hands into my pockets and skulk toward the door. “Let’s walk. I’ll come back later and get my bike.”
“Sounds to me like you’re bitter and jealous.”
“Yeah, smartass?” I hold the broken door and draw it shut as Britt steps out ahead of me. “How do you suppose that is?”
“Well… did you actually expect her to go out and date, like you told her to? Or were you hoping she’d wait for you, to prove you’re the one? ”
I trudge down the front steps and onto the hard packed driveway someone will clear out someday. Maybe. They might even concrete it, before bringing this old house back to its former glory.
“Luca…?” Britt saunters, swinging her hips and glancing over her shoulder to search my eyes. “Bitter? Jealous?”
“Sad,” I clarify. “Because I’ve only ever tried to do the right thing by her. But every step I take pushes us further apart.”