23. Luc
23
LUC
TOO MUCH DAMAGE
“ I t hurts!” Jess presses her palm to her chest and swipes beneath her eye with the other hand. “Oh my gosh, Luc! I asked for an air conditioner that day. Not a broken heart.”
“Lucky for you,” I chuckle, soft and sad and still, so filled with regret all these years later. “You didn’t know about all this back then. Your biggest concern at the time was getting a job, getting your degree, and not melting into the carpet.”
“It was bad carpet,” she snickers. “Pretty sure we all caught fleas from that place.”
Surprised, Kane pulls back and re-examines the high maintenance, Louboutin wearing, Lawyer-Barbie he married through fresh eyes. “Fleas, Blondie? Really?”
“You made gross assumptions about me,” she giggles. “Horrible, judgy assumptions about my economic stance. And you wouldn’t have believed the flea thing even if I told you.”
“No shit, Ms. Fancy! You were white girl broke, huh?”
She curls back into his chest and laughs. “Rich with personality.”
“And sass,” he adds. “Then you went ahead and birthed two more sass-butts who cost me a fortune.”
“Can we talk about me and Kari now?” I firm my lips and wait for the pair to focus on me once more. “This is my story, not yours.”
“Yours hurts,” Jess grumbles. “And it’s taking a really long time. ”
I look straight past her to Kane, eyeing him in that, ‘ see the shit I have to deal with ?’ kind of way. In response, he wraps his arm around her neck and presses his tatted hand over her mouth.
It would be kind of funny, if not for the way she grunts and the lance of ick that races through my stomach.
“So Kari was still in love with you?” he prompts. “She basically admitted it. But she was hurt because of what you and Britt did.”
“In a nutshell, yeah. That’s about everything.”
“And setting the obvious aside,” he drops his gaze to the sleeping baby in my arms, “since we know you eventually end up together, where did you go next? What did you do to convince her to give you guys a go?”
“I annoyed her until she cracked.”
“ O h, hey there, Bear.” I wander along the rotting dock stretching across the lake, making sure to lift my feet, since dragging them would result with a splinter the size of a tree branch and tetanus threatening the future of my limb… and my life.
I beam when Kari’s mind registers my voice. And thrill when she sits up from her lounging posture in an itty bitty orange bikini. Her skin is reddening, and her freckles are on fire. But who am I to preach sun safety when it’s a hundred degrees out?
“You could give yourself melanoma, dummy.”
Oops. Nope. There it goes.
“You’re gonna hate your life when you go home tonight, lobster-red and in pain.”
“I’ve been out here about thirty-three seconds.” She flops back again with a huff, dropping to her towel with a grunt and draping her arm over her face to shield it from the sun. With her free hand, she blindly searches, searches, searches until she finds a tube of sun lotion. “And I’m wearing SPF 50. You can leave now.”
“I would,” I tsk in the side of my mouth, “but it’s hot out, and I could really do with a swim. I only have today and tomorrow off work, then I’m on afternoon shift, and after that, nights. Which is never all that much fun. As a result,” I chuckle when she lowers her shielding arm and glares at me through the gap, “I really value my downtime. It’s a happy coincidence that you’re here, too. And in such a…” I purse my lips, “lovely outfit.”
“Good to see you value consent and general decency.” She drags the end of her towel up and over the top of her head, using the fabric to cover her eyes. “I asked you to leave me alone, and yet, here you are, not only bothering me, but you’re commenting on my clothes as though the fabric I wear somehow invites a man into my personal space. I feel as though I was exceptionally prodigious in recent conversations in convincing you that your presence was not desired.”
“Cute.” I set my hands on my hips and stand over her lithe body, shielding her from the sun. “Did you study the entire thesaurus while you were at school, or do you receive word of the day emails like the rest of us?”
She purses her lips. Pissed, and trying with every scrap of willpower she possesses to not cause a scene. She’s good at what she does. Gifted and practiced in shutting her mouth and locking shit down. So I toss my towel and keys to the dock, the latter landing with a racket. Then I kick my flip-flops off and drag my shirt up.
Because I guess I’m okay with the world burning if Marcus finds us out here together, hardly dressed.
“I feel like you forget I’m the kid who practically adopted the Turners and had two homes. It’s almost as though your extensive absence these past few years has meddled with your memories. I assure you, Bear, I’m gonna squat until you pay attention to me. Then I’ll eat your bread and chips too. Just show me the kitchen.”
“No thanks.” She exhales a heady sigh, her chest shrinking and her stomach emptying until the waistband of her bathing suit lifts off her hipbones. But then she inhales again, her chest and belly growing. “Are you seriously insisting on being here, Luc?” She shifts her towel and peeks up at me. “You’re refusing to leave?”
“Yep.” I lower to the edge of the dock, dangling my feet over the side until my toes touch the water, and setting my hands behind my back so they act as a leaning post. “I’m refusing to leave. This is a public place, I feel like I can’t breathe when I can’t see you, and you can’t control who is here.”
“I guess that’s where you’re wrong.” She tosses the fabric off her face, angry as she sits up again, and completely hurdling my middle statement. “Because I can control me. That’s actually a lesson you taught me years ago.”
“I did?” I tilt my head and watch as she flips to her hands and knees and hurriedly begins packing her things. “Care to elaborate?”
“Sure.” She lobs her lotion to the middle of her towel, then her sunglasses and keys. It’s like she’s preparing to make a knapsack. “You taught me, way back when I was younger and less worldly , that no matter how much I wished for something to be true, no matter how much I wished that you would come for me, I can’t control you. I can’t control anyone except myself.” She folds her towel, tucking things in so they remain secure. “You taught me that even if I loved you, and even if you not sleeping with my sister was, like, the bare minimum thing to do, you were still going to do whatever you were going to do. It was outside of my control. But—” She pushes to her feet, practically downward-dogging the lake and me for a split second before she straightens, “I can control how I deal with it. The Britt thing, I handled by pretending you no longer existed. This lake thing,” she turns and folds her arms, staring down at me like I’m nothing more than a bug on the bottom of her shoe, “I can control by removing myself.”
“So you’re leaving?” I laze back, moving my hands and taking up entirely too much space. “That’s it for us, Bear? You’re never going to speak to me again?”
“If I can help it.” She nestles her things in her arms and creates a double chin as she glares down at me. “Please move.”
“Can’t.” I lie back, taking up the whole width of the dock so she’ll have to step over me if she wants to pass. “I’m feeling a little lazy. And I don’t want to move. Fortunately, we’ve just established you can’t control me. So…” I squint my eyes most of the way closed to shield them from the sun, then I listlessly wave a hand toward the water. “Go over me. Or swim around. Control you.”
“You’re being an asshole.” She would stomp her foot, if only her too-mature self would dare allow it. “I don’t want to step over you. It’s no secret you’re a pervert.”
“Oh sure,” I chuckle. “I’m also the asshole who wouldn’t mack on you when you were begging for it. I’m the asshole who had a beautiful woman resting on his chest, pleading for me to put my tongue down her throat. But I’m the pervert.”
“Move!”
I open my eyes and cast a glance along the lake’s edge. Is anyone watching her throw a tantrum ? “What would you say if Marcus drove out here right now and saw this little orange bikini show you were putting on?”
“I’d say he has poor taste in friends. Then I’d help him kick you to the curb and find someone better.” She spies the other side of the dock, gauging how far she has to step to clear my broad frame. “I’d also tell him not to comment on my clothes. Since he’s clearly a more evolved man and knows better than to shame a woman for what she wears.”
I snort, and braver than I thought I could be, I wrap my hand around her ankle and stroke her creamy flesh with the pad of my thumb. “I don’t recall shaming you.” I look up into her terrified eyes and swallow. “I merely commented on it. What I didn’t say out loud was that you look absolutely fucking delicious in that tiny scrap of nothing.”
“Luc—”
“I didn’t say the bit about wishing you would forgive me. Or the part where I’m desperate to just be near you. We don’t have to be touching. Or dating. Or even best friends. But nearness…” I draw a long breath and hate how her eyes shimmer with unshed tears. “I would die to be near you again, Kari. Breathing the same air.”
“Please let me go.” Her voice crackles, an ache so deep, it makes my heart tug. “Please let me live my life without worrying about your happiness.”
“I worry about yours.” Slowly, I push up to sit and drag my hand along her calf, hovering at the back of her knee and gulping because her leg breaks out in goosebumps. “I worry about you every fucking minute I’m awake. And when I sleep?—”
“Luc…”
“I dream of you.” Carefully, I bring my free hand up and gently tug her things from her tight grasp. Thankfully, the towel doesn’t unravel and the phone and keys she hid in the center remain secure. Then I set everything down before I bring my eyes back up. “There wasn’t a moment I didn’t want you, Kari. There was just right and wrong. I was doing the best I could to get us through a period of our lives where it was simply not okay for us to be together.”
“You hurt me. You sent me away. And then you continued to hurt me, even while I was gone.”
“You pretended to date a dude twice your size, allowing him to sleep over so much the girls created a nickname based around the size of his cock.” I draw my hand along the back of her thigh. But I don’t go so far as to cup her ass. I don’t violate her completely… until she’s ready. “I made bad choices over the years, Bear. I admitted to them. And I never hid them from you. But when I tell you it took everything I had to not drive over to your place and put a scalpel in Blake’s heart?—”
“So your self-control is to be celebrated,” she drawls. “You didn’t kill a man, and so, you’re a hero? ”
“I didn’t take you when you were eighteen, even though I wanted to. That makes me the fuckin’ messiah.”
“You’re a pig.”
“And you still want me. You’ve always wanted me, and I’ve always wanted you. We know how this ends, Bear. So how about you stop fighting it and just sit in my lap?”
I’m such an asshole.
“Marcus would kill you if I told him the things you’re saying to me.”
“Uh huh.” I flash a wide grin and thrill in the way her eyes drop to my lips. “You’re not ready to give in to me yet?”
“No! I?—”
So I do what any man in my position would do. Noble or not. I grab her hip and shove her to the side, physically yeeting her off the dock until she floats in free air for an impossibly long second. Her wild hair flipping around her head, and her eyes, wide like saucers.
“I love you, Kari. But it’s time you cool off.”
“You ass?—”
She hits the lake with an undignified splash, water sloshing in her wake, lapping onto the rotted dock and wetting my ass until my skin prickles and a laugh crackles along my throat. She stays under for what seems like forever. Her arms and legs spinning out of control. Her orange-covered backside, presented straight up as she fights with her hair and searches for the surface.
I could dive in and save her, I suppose. I could swim around with her. Perhaps even touch her a little. Hold her. But that’s not for me. And I suspect if I tried, I’d end up with her knee crushing my nuts.
So instead, I sit back and smirk, waiting for her to find her bearings and locate the surface.
Then I bite my lips shut when she breaks free of the water, her hair draped over her face and covering one eye completely. Her chest and shoulders heave, her arms calmer now as she treads water.
“You’re a complete jerk, Luca!”
“You were getting a little heated. And seeing as how you’re at the lake, I figured you’d come prepared to swim.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” I angle forward, dangling perilously close to where my balance could be overthrown and my ass would end up in the water. But I cup Kari’s cheek instead, holding her up with my thumb on her chin and my fingers wrapped around the back of her neck. Then I bring her closer, closer, until her tongue comes out to wet her already wet lip. Her eyes, widening in fear. “You hate vulnerability,” I murmur. “And you hate that I hurt you. You hate that I have that power.”
“Free me,” she grits out. Her heart ? I wonder. Or her face ? “You’ve had me on the hook for too long, Luca. Let me go.”
“I can’t.” I lean in and press my forehead to hers. It’s brief. It’s way too fucking forward. Too intimate. But it’s what I need. And I’ve spent six years depriving myself of that. “I want to keep you,” I whisper. “For the rest of my life.”