Chapter 17
?
Silly little guy.
Clara
“Keep your eyes on me, darling, as the darkness is nigh.
Keep your love for me warm while my heart bleeds and I
Take a breath, hold it in, fall deeper within
Your sky…
There’s a meadow in my mind, a place just for you,
A boundless ocean, lush, full, and blue.
I’ll hold you safe there if you ask me to.
Or I’ll try…
When you feel other, my love…
Please won’t you look above?
You’re the endless blue on a sunny day,
The golden moments I tuck away.
You’re the only thing in my field of view,
It’s you, just you.
And it’ll always be you.”
I am sobbing.
I might be crying my heart out, and I might be clutching the headphones some guy with a goatee gave me before he sat down in front of a control board and left me alone, like Lukas told everyone to the minute we walked in here.
Seconds after we stepped into this room, Lukas called me his girl and said not to bother me, because I was here for him.
And I am.
But I didn’t know he was here for me.
He really wrote a song about me.
For me.
It’s the most beautiful song I have ever heard, and I’m crying my eyes out and mouthing the words to the chorus before he’s had a chance to finish his warmup run in the sound booth.
The guy who handed me the headphones offers a few notes on a few places, then tells Lukas to take it from the top.
The melody starts again, and I sniffle, like an idiot who is very glad no one other than Lukas is looking at her.
While keep your eyes on me glides from his lips, his gaze pierces, saying, That’s right. Just like that, good.
I couldn’t look away if I tried.
I may never look away for as long as I live.
?
“Are you in love with me yet?” Lukas asks while we sit in the backseat of his SUV.
Since the studio where he just finished recording lies beyond the town of Sunset, we passed a strip of main chain restaurants on our way in.
And since recording took most of the morning, Lukas decided lunch would be fast food hopping.
I have always wanted to get all my favorite things at half a dozen fast food places, but I have never had the opportunity until now.
Feeding him a fry from McDonalds, I say, “Maybe.”
While I open my salad from Chick-fil-A, he chews and swallows.
“What will turn that maybe into a yes? Do I need to buy you more greasy food or write you another song? I have albums in my brain dedicated to you already… Just give me a few minutes to put together the melodies so they match the beat of your heart.”
He might be cheesier than the loaded nachos we got from Taco Bell, with extra nacho cheese, because is there ever enough nacho cheese to go around? I don’t think so.
I like cheese.
When his mouth hangs open, I put my fork down and immediately get him another fry.
“You know something?” he murmurs, licking salt from his lips. “Most women would say I have two working hands by now.”
I crunch my lettuce and eye him, searching for the point.
He puts one of his functional hands on my thigh and leans in before parting his lips.
I get him a fry.
He avoids it. “I want a bite of yours.”
“You want a bite of my salad?”
He nods.
“With or without chicken?”
“You’d give me a piece of your chicken?”
He did buy it. I’m not certain what game he’s playing. My mind is a fog of lyrics and notes. His eyes. His hands. His body. His smile. Him.
As I’m holding a bite of chicken and salad before his lips, I blink out of the daze for a brief instant. “Did you just ask if I loved you yet?”
He chews, nodding. Then swallows. “Yes. You replied maybe.”
I flush. “Did I?”
His fingers tease the lace of my dress skirt, above my fleece tights, which protect me from the cold crawling into October…and bar me from the sensation of Lukas’s skin against mine. “You did. I have to say, you are beautiful under my spell.”
“I like the way your spell makes me feel.”
“Really?” His smile broadens. “Tell me about it.”
Mm… “No, thanks.” I reach for my Dairy Queen banana milkshake in a desperate effort to cool down. Perhaps I should take the tights off? That would totally help. “It was such a beautiful song, though.”
“It’s a minute fraction of how beautiful I think you are.”
“I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that you actually wrote me a song.”
He pulls down the frills of my sleeve and kisses my shoulder. “I said I would.”
“I thought you were joking.” My skin vibrates, and the milkshake isn’t helping. “That’s the kind of thing you joke about with someone you barely know.”
“It’s not the kind of thing I joke about.” He kisses again. “Your milkshake.”
I stop drinking and hold it for him.
As he takes the straw between his fingers, he murmurs, “You’re really letting me get away with everything this afternoon.”
I can’t help it. My brain isn’t working.
He wrote a song for me. Millions of people are going to listen to it.
It’s probably going to top charts worldwide.
I’ll be the topic of someone’s Spotify wrapped this year.
And no one will know it’s me. And I’ll get to live in anonymous solidarity with thousands, with millions.
Lukas presses my straw right back to my lips after he’s done drinking, and I watch the way his eyelids lower when I sip. When I swallow. When I move in any way.
His smile heats. “I’m getting such a high off of this. I should really knock it off.”
He’s getting a high; I’m hoping he’s not coming down with anything. Is there a reason we’re sharing germs so casually? I need to take some vitamin C pronto, because I have a feeling the banana in this milkshake isn’t even real.
Lukas rifles through our Taco Bell bag, pulling out the nachos and popping the lid. Scooping a helping of meat, cheese, and onion onto a chip, he stretches one long leg toward the front seat, popping his knee-high boot on the center console.
Taking bites of my salad, I watch him.
He smiles at me.
I open my mouth.
His smile broadens as he gifts me the loaded chip.
While crunches fill my ears, I slip into the security at play between us. There are no questions here. There’s no entitlement. No anger. No frustration. No annoyance.
I get to exist. He gets to exist.
And we enjoy existing together, offering freely, shamelessly, constantly.
I like this. I want more of this.
“Should we start dating?” I ask.
Lukas stops with a chip halfway to his lips. Pulling his attention off me, he looks at the menagerie of our fast food bags, then returns his gaze to my eyes. “I have some news for you concerning what we are doing right now.”
My eyes roll, which is insane, because I can’t remember a time I have ever sassed anyone with an eye roll before.
Sometimes just when Dad assumed I’d rolled my eyes, he’d turn me around and spank me before I knew what was going on.
I’d only reach an understanding, because he’d be yelling don’t you dare roll your eyes at me, young lady!
and never listen as I cried and said I hadn’t.
Lukas does not turn me around and spank me. He instead smiles ever wider.
I say, “There’s a difference between going out as friends and going out. I’m positive there is.”
“I’m sure you’re right. But how would either of us know that difference?” he asks.
My lips purse. An excellent point. I answer, “Media.”
“I make media. Don’t trust the stuff for a second.”
Fair. I say, “I’m pretty sure I like you and that two people date when they like each other as a means to figure out if they love each other. Should we become a couple?”
“Would you like to be?”
I think so? Yes. Maybe. Uncertainty means no, so I guess I need to gather more information before I’m sure one way or the other. I gnaw my lip while I stir the rest of my milkshake with the straw. “What would that look like? What would change?”
“I’d be more demanding.”
Oh, good. Ninety percent of the time, he fails at being demanding enough. I’d like more of the tingly moments when he’s demanding more from me. Like last night. While he fell apart. And pleaded. He gave me so much power in our dynamic, and I felt it like a shock to my brain.
Last night was…amazing.
More of that, please.
“I want to kiss you, and becoming a couple would make me think I’m entitled to ask…possibly often,” he continues.
Ah, right. That makes loads of sense. Kissing. What couples do. Kissing. The ultimate vitamin C requiring action.
The idea of giving up my first kiss after twenty-two years is a little disconcerting. It’s a big change. Life impact-y. I’d need to be completely sure about that one.
I still feel small and helpless and in need of an adult. Maybe that’s why it was easier for me to doodle on him than it is for me to think about this kind of milestone.
Coloring has never been framed as a mistake just waiting to happen because men will find themselves unable to control themselves around someone who looks like me.
Even though my mother is now gung-ho concerning promiscuous activity, entire multiple decades of the opposite lessons cling.
Trusting my own decisions is hard.
Living in a world full of imposed regrets around every corner has left me more than a little anxious. I am never right. There are always consequences for being wrong. Sometimes the things that were once right aren’t anymore.
I am constantly seeking validation that I’m not screwing everything up.
New is scary.
The threat of losing something I’ll never get back is scary.
Everything is scary.
“I’d expect you to contemplate marrying me someday,” Lukas adds, while I’m still fumbling through the idea of being kissed, by Lukas, or anyone else for that matter.
My heart flits. “You’re still thinking about that stuff I said earlier?”
“For the many highly negative emotions I have regarding your mother, I do not dislike this scheme of wedding and bedding me.”
I’m not certain her blueprint came in that order. “When did you grow so comfortable with the idea of bedding me?”