Chapter 6
“Yeah I’m thinking laundry for two months,” Jane predictably said the next day when we were in our one shared class—Intro to Creative Writing.
She’d been blessedly quiet after Lucas and Stick dropped us off at the dorm. Although it helped that she’d gotten a phone call from her father. They’d argued, as usual, while I’d gotten ready for bed. And when she’d hung up, she’d been too preoccupied to grill me about Lucas.
I’d woken up earlier than her this morning and dressed quietly, not even showering, and left the room before she woke.
But the instructor was late, also as usual, and it was obvious that Jane had filled Syd in during their walk to class, because they’d sat on either side of me and given me “okay, spill” looks the moment they sat down.
“Where is Montrose? You’d think an eleven o’clock class wouldn’t be too taxing to get up for. I mean, we usually party on Thursday nights and we make it on time,” I said, trying to deflect.
“Yes, that’s right, we usually party on Thursday nights. But that’s not what we did last night, is it?” Jane said.
I didn’t answer. Syd piped in with, “Well, I did. I wasn’t going to stay home just because you dragged Jane into your ghetto love fest.” She was teasing, even nudged me, but the words rang true. That area with the graffiti wall was about as ghetto as you could get.
“Hardly a love fest,” was my weak answer.
“Please. I didn’t turn around—who needs to see gorgeous people making out when I’m stuck with a troll loser—but I could feel the car rockin’,” Jane said.
Deflecting again, I said, “That’s the second time you’ve called Stick a troll. I think he’s kind of cute. In a scruffy kind of way.”
She shrugged. “Meanwhile, you were in the back seat with an Adonis.”
“Okay. Laundry for two months,” I said, verbally conceding to what I’d already conceded to in my head the night before.
Jane looked smug and turned her attention to her phone.
Syd nudged me again. “Jane gave me most of the details on the way here. Just how far did it go on the trunk of the car?” It wasn’t a plea for juicy details—which we all normally shared after any kind of hookup. There was concern in Syd’s voice.
“Not very,” I said truthfully. But although it was true, we hadn’t gone very far, it wasn’t exactly the whole truth.
Which was…although it was just kissing, I felt a much deeper connection to Lucas in even this short time, than I’d ever felt with any other guy.
“Just kissing. A tiny bit of grinding.” Syd nodded, waiting for me to go on.
I shrugged. “That’s it. It was all pretty innocent. ”
She gave me a cool look. “I don’t know. This guy seems out of your world, Lily. Definitely not what you’re used to in guys.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of college? To find new worlds?”
“You’re not freakin’ Columbus,” Jane muttered from my other side, but continued to keep her eyes glued to her phone, her fingers tapping furiously.
“Yes,” Syd said. “That is what college is about. But good new worlds. Challenging new worlds. Worlds that help you grow. This…” She waved her hand absently at me.
“This is not the kind of new worlds you should be exploring. That world will only hold you back.” She said the last bit softly, and I knew she was speaking from experience.
I laid a hand on her arm, gave her a squeeze, then took it away. Neither Syd nor Jane were big on touching. “I’m not planning on immersing myself in Lucas’s world. Hell, I don’t even know what his world is. We did meet on campus.”
“Because he’s a janitor,” Syd said, sounding more like Jane.
A snort from Jane confirmed that comparison.
“Actually, I think he’s more than that. I think he does…like…specialty tiling or something.”
Another snort from Jane. “And that’s supposed to make it better.”
Syd was opening her mouth, and I put my hand out to stop her. “Look. Both of you,” I said, and waited until Jane’s fingers stilled and she looked my way. “I appreciate the concern. But…and I say this with love…back the hell off.”
Jane smiled, returned to her phone, and said softly, “Well, well, Lily does have a backbone.”
I should have been pissed at what she said, but I was, in a small way, kind of proud of it. And, in a larger way, I kind of agreed.
Syd looked like she wanted to say something, but just gave me a nod and turned to her laptop.
“Morning, all,” William Montrose said as he entered the small classroom. No explanation or apology for being late. And just barely under the wire of the time when we could have called “no class” and left.
“Nice of you to show up,” Jane muttered under her breath, as she put her phone away and pulled out her laptop.
“Always nice to see you too, Miss Winters,” he replied as he dumped a messenger bag on the desk next to the lectern, then sat on the front of the desk, facing the small class. “Always a pleasure,” he drawled in Jane’s direction, giving her a “yeah, I heard you, bitch,” look, which Jane laughed at.
I don’t know what she was like in other classes, but Jane liked to yank Montrose’s chain, and openly flirted with him. “I’d climb him like a tree in a second,” she’d said after our first day of the Monday-Wednesday-Friday class.
He gave it right back to Jane, but never reciprocated in the flirting.
Which just made her try all the harder. He was a good-looking guy, probably in his late twenties.
Apparently he’d been some kind of big deal a few years back when he’d published a book that was at the time considered his generation’s On The Road.
I don’t think he’d done much since. And if he was down to guest teaching Intro to Creative Writing at Bribury College, then my guess was his literary star had fallen hard.
“So. Let’s talk about omniscient point of view, shall we?” he said, launching into a discussion I barely heard. I’d have to look at Jane’s or Syd’s notes later, because as much as Montrose was older-man eye candy, my mind could not stay on him today.
No, my mind was firmly back in front of that tagged-up wall, with my hands in Lucas’s hair and his hips grinding into mine.
* * *
I googled him. Of course I googled him. But there wasn’t much.
Apparently he’d been a big deal football player in high school (which explained the rockin’ bod and skyscraper height).
He’d even gone to USC on a scholarship, but apparently had torn something in his shoulder, or elbow, and couldn’t catch the ball anymore.
Which, as a wide receiver, was pretty much his entire job.
Obviously he wasn’t still at USC. So he had come back east, back home. And was tiling Bribury’s steam room.
There was a story there, for sure, but it didn’t show up online.
He wasn’t on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the other social media sites. I even did a search for “Stick” in conjunction with Lucas Kade. Nada.
Then I googled myself to see what would show up, just in case, on the crazy off chance that Lucas would google me.
Not surprisingly, it was all stuff about my dad, where I would be mentioned in the last line, as part of his bio.
Yep, my entire online footprint was as an afterthought to my father’s many political king-making coups. There were a few mentions of me winning swim meets. But that was it. So I would remain as much a mystery to Lucas as he was to me.
Except there wasn’t much more to me.
And I knew there was much, much more to Lucas.
I waited until the last possible moment on Friday night to go out with Syd and Jane.
Lucas hadn’t called or texted and I didn’t want to call him.
I’d called guys before, and had nothing against it.
But those were with guys whom I was sure wanted to hear from me.
And although I knew Lucas was attracted to me—he couldn’t hide that big erection while he was pressed up against me—I wasn’t totally convinced he wanted to see me again so soon.
Or ever.
No. I knew he did. I knew he felt the bone-deep connection that I did. You just couldn’t fake that. What I didn’t know was if he’d act on it.
I’m not what you need.
He wasn’t. I knew that. But I also knew that I’d be available the next time he called.
So we went out on Friday night. Jeff, one of the kids on the floor below us, had an older brother who lived just off campus in one of the few nice apartment complexes. The brother was having a party, and Jeff had been trying to get on Jane’s good side from day one, so we were invited.
We partied. Jane drank too much beer and gave poor Jeff no encouragement whatsoever. That didn’t keep him from hanging around her all night, feeding her beers and hoping.
Syd made a play for the older brother, who looked like he’d be stepping into daddy’s law firm the moment he passed the bar.
Pretty, entitled rich boy. But basically an okay guy. Bribury was full of ’em. I’d grown up with them. But Syd hadn’t. And you could tell she desperately wanted to be part of that. I could have told her it wasn’t anything special.
The older brother wasn’t biting at Syd’s hook, so she left when Jane and I did. On the walk home, Jane pinballing between Syd and me, I kept an ear out for a louder, older car, but none came.
A text woke me up the next morning at nine.
You awake?
Lucas.
I snatched the phone off my pillow and texted back that I was. The phone was ringing seconds after the text went through.
“Morning,” he said, his deep voice the best wake-up call ever.
“Hi,” I said.
“Did my text wake you?”
“No,” I said, though it had.
“Liar,” he said, a chuckle in his voice.
I smiled. “It’s okay. I’m glad you called.”
“Late night last night?” he asked. It should have been a routine question for waking someone up at nine, but there was a hint of…just a smidge of…pissiness in his voice. And that pissiness made me tingle with excitement.
“Not too late,” I said, not willing to let him off the hook quite yet.
“How late is not too late?”
“Well, since I didn’t hear from you, I’m not sure you get to know.”
There was silence, and I panicked that maybe I’d gone too far. But I held my ground—something I probably wouldn’t have done before.
“You’re right. I don’t get to know.” I waited. “Listen, I’m taking Andy swimming today. They have open swim time until two, and I can take him now that I’m a Bribury employee.”
“That’s nice,” I said. “He’ll love that.” I was trying to figure out if he wanted tips on what Andy should be working on or what.
“Wanna come with us?”
“Swimming? With you and Andy?” I asked, surprised. “You mean as, like, his instructor or something?”
“No. Like…a…friend of mine who’s just hanging out with us.”
“Umm…” My mind was spinning with what this meant. Would he want me around Andy as Lucas’s “friend” if he didn’t want me in his life? At least as more than just a hookup against the side of a car?
“You don’t have—” he said at the same time I said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“Really?” he said. For the first time since I’d met him, there was uncertainty in Lucas’s voice. It made me even hotter for him.
If that was possible.
“Really,” I said softly, but firmly, trying to convey how much I wanted to see him in that one little word.
“I’m borrowing a car. I can pick you up.”
“Why don’t I meet you there? I can walk.”
“Okay. Like, eleven?”
“Eleven is good. I’ll meet you at the pool.”
“See you then,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. Neither of us hung up. “Lucas?”
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t out that late,” I said. “And I thought of you the whole time,” I added, then quickly cut the call.