Chapter 13 #2
Lucas crossed to my side of the room and sat down on my bed, then turned to watch me. He was wearing jeans and a black hoodie. So simple, yet he looked so good. And seeing his large body taking up most of my small bed…
Yes, there would be an act two today.
I set my phone down on my dresser and put my backpack on the floor next to it. “How did you know what side was mine?” I asked as I went to the desk chair and sat down.
Our desks were side by side along the wall that separated our beds. Oftentimes while studying at the desk, I would turn the swivel desk chair and put my feet up on my bed, they were that close. I didn’t do that now, just kept my legs down, feet on the carpeted floor.
Yes, we had paid the extra for the carpeted floor.
And we had a Keurig, and a small fridge, and a large TV, though not nearly as big as the one at Lucas’s apartment.
Gorgeous leather office chairs replaced the stiff wooden ones that we’d been issued.
We’d had the guy who builds lofts create cool overhead storage units that helped with the small closet space.
My father didn’t want to get caught pulling strings to get Jane and me into an Ivy League school (“The press would have a field day with that”), but he had no problem with me living in the style he felt becoming to a Spaulding.
And so, our room was decked out way more than most college freshman’s rooms. Though, honestly, it wasn’t that much different than the other rooms here at Bribury.
“I don’t know Jane that well,” Lucas said, “But I know you, Lily. And I knew what side of the room was yours the moment I walked in.”
I didn’t know whether that was a good thing or that I was predictably boring, with none of Jane’s flair and edge. But I let it go; there were more important things to deal with today. Like… “So, why are you here, Lucas?”
I expected him to start throwing out typical guy excuses about being really busy and meaning to call, and he could throw in some good “Andy needing him” stuff to make it even more legit.
“I really don’t know,” he said. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, clasping his hands together. It was the same pose he’d been sitting in when I first saw him at the pool, way up in the stands, watching Andy. Watching me.
My heart clenched tight, but I told it to settle down. We needed answers, my heart and I, and I couldn’t let it run the show. “What does that mean?” I said, trying to sound indifferent, when I was anything but.
He bowed his head, looking at his hands. His hair swung forward and I literally sat on my hands so I wouldn’t reach out and push it back and away from his face.
“It means I really don’t know why I’m here, Lily. I know I messed up by not calling or texting, and of course I did that on purpose. And then yesterday, seeing you at the pool…” He looked up, and the pain in his brown eyes matched the pain I so desperately felt but so desperately wanted to hide.
“And then you left with Andy,” I reminded him.
“Yeah. Dick move, I know that. It was all a dick move, everything from Sunday on. And who knows—maybe coming here today is the biggest dick move of them all. Maybe I should just leave you in peace.”
This. This was the moment I needed to decide whether I wanted Lucas Kade in my life or not. A simple “I think that would be best,” and he’d leave, I knew it.
I did not want to be the girl who was perpetually played by a guy who treated her poorly, then let him back into her life with a few prettily done mea culpas. I so did not want to be that girl.
And yet, when he looked at me, waiting for me to speak, all I could say was, “I want you to stay.”
His shoulders eased and I realized how tense they’d been. My body eased as well, but we weren’t quite there yet.
“So, why don’t you tell me what’s going on. Why all the shitty treatment, then showing up now?”
He relaxed a bit, settled in as if for a long story.
He leaned back, putting his hands on the bed behind him.
The plushness of my comforter seemed to swallow them up, and from my chair it looked like his arms just disappeared into the sea.
He stretched out his legs, crossing his feet.
If I turned just a tiny bit, my feet would brush his, they were so close. But I stayed where I was, waiting.
“Sunday morning, when Andy woke up, he asked what we were going to do that day,” he began. I nodded. It sounded like what any six-year-old boy would say.
“No, I mean, he asked what we were going to do. Him, me, and you.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah, exactly. And you know what? My first thought was, Let’s call Lily and see what we are going to do today.”
“But you didn’t call,” I said, though of course he knew that.
He stared at me for a moment, his eyes searching mine. Then he broke contact, looking at his worn work boots. “No, I didn’t call. And I caught myself and didn’t say any of that to Andy. But God, I wanted to call, Lily. I wanted nothing more than to spend another day with you…and Andy.”
I waited, so still, not moving an inch. I thought about lying around with a hung-over Jane all day Sunday when instead I could have been with Lucas.
“But then, what?” he asked. “So we spend Sunday together. What? Like some family or something? You’re a college freshman. You just got out of your family unit. You’re supposed to be out partying and meeting new people. Not discussing the developmental growth of some townie’s kid brother.”
“I care about Andy.”
He looked back up at me. “I know you do. And I don’t want to take advantage of that. If it were just me? Well, it would still be selfish to ask you to hang with me instead of your new friends, but I’d do it.”
His voice dropped almost to a whisper, almost to a growl when he said “I’d do it,” and my heart, already racing from the moment I’d seen Lucas downstairs, started beating even faster.
“I’d do it in a heartbeat,” he said, and I wondered if he could hear mine. “But it’s not just me. And I honestly don’t know how long I’m going to be doing daddy duty with Andy.”
“I could—” He held up a hand, stalling my words. Which was just as well. I wasn’t certain what I was going to say.
“And to be honest, I hope it is for a long time. I like being with Andy. It’s good for me, and I hope it’s good for him. I know it’s better for him to have my mom, when she’s…healthy. But, we’re not really sure when that’s going to be, or for how long.”
“So you think it’s permanent?”
He shrugged, then returned his hand to the sea. “I’m trying to find a cheap lawyer to discuss my options. CPS has been really good about me being with him, him staying in the home and all that. But I want to know what the options are, long term, in case my mom isn’t…capable.”
“What’s CPS?”
“Child Protective Services. See? That you don’t know that totally symbolizes what I’m trying to say. We—our situation—are totally out of your world right now. Hell, most likely you’d go through your whole life and not need to know what CPS stands for. Me? I knew it when I was five.”
“I agree, I’m not ready to play stepmommy to a first grader, but I do like kids. And I like Andy a lot. I mean, I teach kids’ swimming lessons. I was a lifeguard at the club pool the last two summers. I like kids.”
I didn’t mention that I did the lessons so it would look good on my résumé, and that I lifeguarded mainly for the great tan. It wasn’t a lie. Andy was a cool kid and I wouldn’t mind spending time with him and Lucas.
But Lucas was also right—it was more than I had bargained for when I got into the back seat of Stick’s car that night.
God, that night seemed like months ago, not just last week.
“You took the choice away from me,” I said to Lucas.
“Yes,” he said, no guilt in his voice.
“Look, I don’t want to confuse Andy any more than he probably is with all that’s going on. And I know between him and working the shift you do, you’ve got a lot going on.”
“Yes?”
I took a deep breath. I could be going out on a very thin limb here, but the fact that Lucas had shown up here this morning gave me the courage to slowly ease my way onto it.
“But we could still find time for just you and me to…hang out.”
A small, tentative smile played across his face, then died.
“It’d be at weird times. And occasionally we’d do stuff with Andy.
And I would totally understand when you wanted to do stuff with your friends.
” A cloud of uncertainty passed through his eyes.
“I’ll try not to be a dick about it—when I know you’re going out and I’m at home with Andy. But…”
I didn’t say it, but I knew I’d rather be with Lucas at his small apartment, even with Andy sleeping in the next room, than at a kegger with Jane and Syd, trying to get with some guy for the night. I couldn’t imagine wanting to hook up with anyone else when I knew Lucas was just across town.
I kept quiet on all that, of course. I’m not stupid. I wasn’t going to give Lucas any more ammunition than he already had to stomp on my heart.
Speaking of which…“So, the dick move of not calling me? And blowing me off yesterday?”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Never again. I thought I was doing what was best for you. For all of us. But yeah, I screwed that up.”
“Big time.”
“Yeah, I know. I thought it would be easier to just shut it down before it got out of hand. When I saw you yesterday, with Andy, it just kind of reinforced to me that the kid thing was a part-time gig for you, a couple of afternoons a week. That’s all it should be for you.”
“So you bailed.”
“Yeah. Like I said, dick move, and it won’t happen again.”
“What happens the next time we hit a rough patch? Or you get twitchy and start thinking about what you think is best for me.”
“Umm…”
“We talk it out,” I finished for him.
He smiled, a wide, genuine smile that made my breath catch in my chest. So, so gorgeous when he smiled. “Stick’s more of the talker. I just sit there and look pretty.” His grin was infectious, and I smiled back at him.
“Well, pretty as you are, you’re going to have to talk to me. You blow me off like that again, and that’s the last you’ll see of me.” I was still smiling, and my voice had a joking, teasing tone to it. But he knew I meant it.
His smile faded a little. “I know. And Lily, I’m really sorry that I handled it so badly. This is kind of new for me.”
That stopped me. Gorgeous Lucas, football star Lucas, must have had tons of girls coming on to him.
“What, exactly, is new to you?”
He waved a hand between us. “This. Us. You. Being…caring…about how a girl’s feeling.”
“You didn’t care about other girls’ feelings?” Maybe my radar about Lucas being a good guy really was off.
“Well, yeah, sure. But there was never any girl that I went out of the way to… Listen, I’m not great with words, and I know I’m going to screw up what I want to say.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to talk about other girls in your life.”
“That’s just it. That’s what I’m trying to say…
badly. There were no other girls where I felt like this.
Wondering where they were, what they were doing.
And not in a stalker kind of way. But because I really cared where you were, what you were thinking, what you were feeling.
It’s all different with you, Lily, and…and…
I don’t really know what I’m doing.” He sat forward, his arms once again resting on his knees.
But this was not a relaxed pose; he was leaning toward me.
He put a hand out as if to touch my knee, then pulled it back. “So, bear with me, okay?” he whispered.
“Okay,” I whispered back, with no hesitation.
I would bear with Lucas. And, I suspected, very shortly be bare with him, too.