Chapter 11 Lucas
Lucas
I’m good under pressure. Tight timelines, bad weather, doors that don’t wanna open—my brain likes the clean snap of decisions. But today the math keeps changing.
We’re parked two blocks off the marina with engine heat fading, windows cracked, watching holiday lights stutter in the reflection on wet pavement.
Duke’s in the passenger seat nursing his coffee.
Gunner checks in from the second vehicle with a line-of-sight on the ballroom entrance.
Our client’s post-event convoy is supposed to be a simple in and out.
It isn’t.
“Black sedan again,” Gunner says over comms. “Same speed discipline, same standoff. Northbound loop, third pass.”
I raise the binos. There he is—matte-black rental, clean plates, driver’s profile a slice in sodium light. Hat low, posture relaxed in a way that’s learned, not luck.
“Clocked him two nights ago at South Harbor,” I say. “He mirrored our reposition to the west lot, then vanished. He’s not watching the principal. He’s watching us.”
“Confirm,” Duke says, voice even. “Intel or leverage?”
“Pattern-of-life collection,” I answer. “Learning our routes, timing, fallback habits. Tagging the team.”
“Get me a plate,” he says.
“Already got it,” Gunner replies. “Registered to Valence Auto—bulk renter. Card: prepaid. Camera on the corner gave me a face three loops ago when he smoked in the shadow of the florist.”
My phone buzzes with a photo that looks like every face and nobody at once—average in the way guys try to be when they don’t want to stick. But the jawline’s familiar. Nose break that healed lazy. The eyes don’t blink when you expect them to.
“Run him,” Duke says.
“Working,” Gunner mutters, fingers clacking.
“Hit on a skip trace forum. Alias pings: Mercer. Ed Mercer. Freelance collector. Sells to whoever pays—PI work on the surface, dirt-digging underneath. No charges that stick. Known associates: one broker in Miami, one fixer in Portland. Last known gig: leverage package for a hedge guy’s divorce. ”
“Not here for the tree lighting,” I say.
“And not just following the convoy,” Gunner adds, voice flattening. “Geo pings from public cams put his face at Bean Flicker two afternoons this week. Baby Bungalow yesterday. Saint Pierce General ER side entrance last night. He’s ghosting our tail and finding our shadows.”
Bean Flicker. Baby Bungalow. ER. My spine goes cold.
“He pivoted from the job to us,” I say. What the fuck?
“Specifically you,” Duke says, tracking ahead of me like he always does. “Which means Melanie is on his map by association.”
I don’t answer right away. I’m already pulling up traffic cams in my head, mapping lines from the marina to her block. It’s been a few days since the appointment—quiet texts, heartbeat photo, a lemon muffin joke. Quiet isn’t safety. Quiet is a thing that breaks loud.
“Mission change,” Duke says. “Gunner and I button the client. Lucas—”
“I’m gone,” I say, already shifting into drive.
“Leave me Mercer’s plate,” Gunner adds. “If he moves toward her apartment again, I’ll wake up half the city.”
I drop coordinates in the channel, then I’m rolling, wipers clicking, a line of cold air spooling in from the vent as I push heat and speed into a truce. The roads are damp and mean, and I drive like a man with a cargo more important than my ego.
Melanie’s building is quiet when I pull up. Not dead quiet—residential quiet. A TV blue in a third-floor window. Someone’s wind chime doing a ghost song. I loop once for a pattern check, record plates, clock a dented Civic that doesn’t belong. It’s clean aside from that.
I text:
Outside. Don’t open until you hear me. Two knocks, then one.
Three beats. The buzzer hums. I take stairs, not the elevator. Stairs tell you more about a building—the smells, the sounds, the neighbor who leaves shoes outside their door. Third floor smells like curry and pine cleaner. Good. Familiar.
I knock three times.
Her door opens four inches on the chain. One eye appears in the crack, red-rimmed and glossy. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I say, gentling everything—tone, stance, the way my hands settle open at my sides. “Chain.”
She fumbles it. The lock clicks. The door swings wide and she’s there—oversized sweater, leggings, hair in a knot even sleep can’t defeat, cheeks blotchy from tears she hasn’t finished with.
“What happened?” I ask before I can swallow it.
She tries to smile and fumbles that, too. “Everything and nothing. It’s stupid. Hormones.”
“Nothing about it’s stupid,” I say. “May I—?”
She steps back. I sweep fast—windows, lines of approach, kitchen window latch, balcony rail integrity, who’s looking out their peephole.
No watchers. No angle on the courtyard that bothers me.
I wedge a rubber doorstop from my pocket at the threshold—a habit that earns me exactly two seconds of her confused attention and a tiny snort.
“It’s ugly,” she says, staring at the wedge.
“It’s effective,” I say, and finally let my eyes rest on her.
“I’m not ready,” she blurts, a breathy confession that shakes on the landing. “I thought I was ready to be a mother. Today the crib looked too big and the onesies looked too small and the internet told me a list of things I don’t even know how to pronounce, and I can’t do this, Lucas. I can’t—”
Her voice breaks and the rest turns to air.
I move slow, like approaching a skittish pup, like she’s not going to trust a fast hand. “Sit,” I say softly, steering her to the couch. “Feet up.”
She obeys, breath stuttering. I bring water, tissues, a blanket from the back that smells like her laundry soap. I crouch in front of her and she puts her face in her hands, shoulders shaking in aftershocks.
“I’m sorry,” she says between breaths. “I don’t cry like this usually.”
“You do whatever you need,” I say. “Crying is allowed. Crying is encouraged. Crying has excellent ROI.”
That pulls a wet laugh. “Is that a military thing or a you thing?”
“Me. The Army just taught me about sandbags.”
She peeks up. “Sandbags?”
“Keep the water where it belongs. Keep the flood from winning.” I take her hand—open palm, no surprise. “Right now we lay sandbags. One at a time.”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start is dinner,” I say. “Did you eat?”
Her silence is answer enough.
“I’ll cook,” I say.
This is where most men would order takeout and call it chivalry. I head to her small kitchen, wash my hands, take an inventory a quartermaster would envy. Pasta. Olive oil. Garlic. Canned tomatoes. A sad lemon. Parmesan that’s fine if you don’t read the date.
I set water to boil and talk from the threshold where she can see me. “Here’s the plan. We’ll eat something warm. We’ll make a list of the five things you actually need—not the internet’s panic list. We’ll break each into tiny tasks. And then we’ll throw the panic list away.”
She sniffs. “What about the part where I’m incapable?”
“We’ll factor that in.” I stir the sauce. “I’m very good at carrying more than my share.”
She closes her eyes at that, like she’s going to cry again. She doesn’t. She just breathes.
By the time the pasta is steaming in bowls, her color is back.
We eat at the coffee table like college kids, knees touching.
She twirls noodles and tells me the baby felt like a goldfish an hour ago and a drummer now.
I shovel calories and don’t comment on the way her gaze keeps darting to my mouth when I describe a decent swaddle like it’s a military knot.
After, I clear the dishes and return with a pen and a legal pad, ready to make panic into small boxes. She laughs when I sit—an actual laugh this time, light and a little disbelieving. “You came to fight my to-do list.”
“I came to fight anything that gets in your way,” I say.
She swallows. The air changes. The room goes softer at the edges.
“Sandbags,” she says, voice barely above the hum of the heater.
“Sandbags,” I echo.
We don’t get to the list, because thanks is moving through her body like electricity and I can see the moment she decides to touch the source.
“Lucas,” she says, and it lands different than when anyone else says my name.
“Yes,” I answer, because it feels like the right word.
She shifts on the couch so our knees align. One hand slides up from the blanket to my cheek, tentative at first, then firmer when I don’t move. “I’m sorry about the other night,” she whispers. “The way I sent you away. I was scared of… everything.”
“Me too,” I admit, because we promised honesty. My hand comes up to cover hers. “Do I need to go now?”
“No,” she says, immediate and soft. “Please don’t.”
I nod once, like accepting orders, and lean in slowly enough for second thoughts to have room if they want them.
They don’t. Her mouth meets mine in a kiss that starts careful and goes warm fast. The world narrows to breath and heat and the particular way she tilts her head like we’ve been practicing without trying.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” I murmur against her lips, my default when any line might get blurry. “You’re driving.”
“I’ll tell you,” she says, and then she pulls me closer by the front of my shirt like a decision she’s been saving up for.
Everything after that is a slow climb. No rush, no edges that cut—just the steady escalation of proximity turning into promise.
I lift her carefully, easing her sideways so she can lean back, my body bracketed around hers without weight she doesn’t want.
Her sweater slides under my palms. Her skin is heat and silk and the kind of right that has no instruction manual.
Her hands glide over my shoulders like she’s been thinking about this for months, which I have.
Oh fuck, the amount of times I’ve thought about kissing Melanie again is insane.
We kiss until breathing insists and then we rest our foreheads against each other, laughing in small, astonished bursts I want to save in a jar.
“I wasn’t ready,” she says, breath evening, “but maybe being ready is a myth.”
“It is,” I say, cupping her face. “Prepared is real. Together is real.”
“And us?” she asks, searching my eyes, not coy, not fishing—just brave. “What is that?”
“Complicated,” I say, then shake my head. “Wrong word. It’s… building. It’s slow. It’s me showing up and you letting me, until those two things feel like one thing.”
Her eyes shine. “Okay.”
Another kiss. Deeper now, but not frantic. I memorize every incremental yes—her fingers tugging my collar, the way she arches when my hand skims her side, the way she says my name like it turned into a better word than the one I was born with.
When the temperature threatens to outpace good sense, I pull back an inch, press my lips to her forehead, her temple, her pulse. “I want you,” I admit, voice rough. “And we will go as far as you want, but not past where you sleep well after.”
She exhales a sound that’s half laugh, half relief. “I like you.”
“I like you more,” I answer, which is ridiculous and true.
We settle—her tucked under my arm, my hand splayed over the curve of her belly like a promise and a guardrail. The baby nudges my palm once like a tiny fist bump, and my chest does something I’m not built to describe.
“Stay?” she whispers, already drifting.
“Yeah,” I say, already committed. “I’m on your couch. I’m your sandbags.”
Before she falls fully asleep, I get up long enough to run one more perimeter—deadbolt engaged, wedge secure, blinds set to kill outward visibility without killing stars. I text Duke:
With M. Standby here tonight. Mercer still on your grid?
Last seen near marina. We ghosted him south. Sleep when you can.
I slide back under the blanket, cue the part of my brain that listens while the rest rests, and watch the shape of her breathing even out.
She says she isn’t ready. Maybe neither of us is.
Doesn’t matter.
I build readiness for a living.
One sandbag at a time.