Chapter 16
Lily
The next three weeks were a haze of bliss. It wasn’t easy with Lucas’s hours, Andy, and, of course, classes for me.
And I tried to have a regular life away from Lucas.
I desperately didn’t want to be one of those girls who dropped everything when she had a new boyfriend.
I still went to some parties with Syd and Jane.
It kind of did double duty—I wasn’t spending every waking moment with Lucas, and I could honestly tell my father when he called that I was hanging closely with Jane.
And I did keep an eye on her when we went out, but that was more because I wasn’t really interested in anything going on around me.
Oh, it was fun meeting new people, but that was just it…they weren’t really new. More like a rehashing of all the other people I’d already met at Bribury. Hell, all the people I’d met my age my whole life.
Syd wasn’t of that mold, but God, she was trying to be. Tossing away anything that made her unique. Telling people she was from New York City, never mentioning Queens. She was turning into a Bribury Basic before my eyes, and although she seemed happy about it, it made me a little sad.
So, I’d be at these parties, or in someone’s dorm room in the evenings—when I knew Lucas was working—and I’d hold my own in conversations and stuff, but I wasn’t really there.
I was in bed with him in my room, at least in my mind.
Replaying that first day, and the several other ones we were able to sneak in around my class schedule.
Times when he really should have been sleeping.
We’d manage to doze a little bit, but not for very long.
Yeah, it was definitely the can’t-keep-your-hands-off-each-other phase.
One day he picked me up after class and took me back to his place for a glorious few hours before we picked up Andy, and Lucas dropped us both off for Andy’s swim lessons.
That was the only time we were “us” in front of Andy. And even that time we just said Lucas had seen me walking in town so he gave me a ride since I was going to the same place Andy was.
The kid was six. He bought it.
I took the requisite amount of shit from Jane about Lucas. She’d make a comment about the place smelling like townie sex when she’d come back from class and knowing that Lucas had been there.
She was exaggerating, of course, but I took to opening the windows a crack while Lucas and I went at it. It was turning out to be a semi-nice fall for the mid-Atlantic, and the air was crisp with just enough of a bite to it to cool off our sweaty bodies after we made love.
And yes, it was more and more making love with Lucas than just casual hookups. Though to be honest, my feelings for Lucas Kade had never been casual.
Now I sat in one of the classrooms at the women’s IM building working on my assignment for Montrose’s class. And waiting for Lucas’s shift to start.
I’d done lessons earlier and Lucas was taking Andy home to feed him and get him to bed before coming back for his shift. He was still using that same car of Stick’s, and I made it a point not to ask what Stick expected in return for Lucas using one of his cars.
I tapped the keys on my laptop, trying to put Lucas out of my mind so I could get this damn assignment done. It wasn’t due for another week, right before break, but I knew it was going to be a tough one so I wanted to give it as much time as I could.
A three-thousand-word essay that began with the sentence “As I write this today, the person I am is…”
It was supposed to be a self-examination done as a stream-of-consciousness kind of thing. Montrose had said to dig deep, be honest. He had this thought that we would keep them and pull them out in four years when we graduated to see the changes in ourselves.
Simple assignment, even if you just did the surface stuff and didn’t challenge yourself as Montrose suggested.
And yet my document was blank, the cursor flashing at me, mocking me.
Let’s see, “I am totally a Bribury Basic” would take up about six words. So, 2994 words short.
Maybe I should suggest to Syd and Jane that we swap and write each other’s pieces. Not in a cheating kind of way, but I felt I could easily write on both of them so much more easily than trying to find something more about myself to say than what I could pull up in my yearbook bio.
“Hey, you.” Lucas’s deep voice broke my thoughts. I could have closed my laptop, but my document was still blank other than the intro sentence. “Studying?”
I shrugged. “Trying to write a paper, but it’s not coming. Have you been working in the steam room?”
He shook his head, coming to sit at the desk next to me, which he scooted close, the table parts of both of ours touching.
“Can’t yet. Believe it or not, there are a couple of women swimming in open swim.
I need to wait until they’re out of the locker room.
I’ve been futzing around the building doing odds and ends until I can get in there. ”
“Women in the locker room never stopped you before.”
He waggled his brows at me. “Totally different sitch. These are women. You are the woman. Big difference.”
I laughed. He took a peek at my laptop. “‘Who I am right now?’ Like, in some kind of existential bullshit kind of way? Like where you stand in the universe?”
I shrugged again. “Maybe. I guess. I mean, it’s supposed to be a kind of measurement of ourselves. Like, who do we think we are right now. Then we’ll look at them when we graduate and see how much we changed.”
I saw the moment I lost him. His mind went back to how much he’d changed over the past four years. Where he thought he’d be, and where he was.
I laid a hand on his arm. “Hey, I’m here,” I said, though I wasn’t sure why, or what I meant exactly.
It seemed to do the trick, though, and he laid his hand on mine, entwining our fingers.
He held my hands like that, over my head, digging into the bed, when he was deep inside me. I think he was remembering that too as he stared at our clasped hands.
“I’m right where I’m supposed to be,” he said, looking at me, his brown eyes burning into mine. Into me.
“Me too,” I said.
He nodded toward my laptop. “So, write that. Life is good, you’re the person you want to be, and you’re crazy nuts about your boyfriend.”
We’d never said the boyfriend/girlfriend words out loud to each other. Though I knew we were exclusive.
The second time we had sex in my room, he held my hands like he was now and held himself away from me. “You’re mine,” he’d said, and I knew it wasn’t a question.
“Yes, I’m yours,” I’d answered, meaning it. Then I’d turned myself, coming on top of him and leaned down, letting my hair fall around us, cocooning us. “And you’re mine,” I’d said, again with no question, though God, I wasn’t as sure of myself as he’d been.
“Yes, I’m yours,” he’d said, and flipped me again, driving into me as he pushed my legs up to my chest.
That was all the talk of exclusivity we’d had, but it was all we needed.
“Yes,” I said, motioning with my free hand to the laptop, “I can indeed say I’m good and crazy about my boyfriend.” I emphasized it, so he’d know I was cool with it. Cool with it? Hell, I’d wear his letter jacket and school ring if people still did that kind of shit.
“But then what do I write for the other three thousand words?”
He smiled that killer dirty smile that usually only came out when he was getting me out of my clothes. “What? You can’t espouse on my hotness for three thousand words?”
“Seriously? Espouse?”
“I did go to college for three years, you know. Some of it sank in.”
“I thought you majored in football?”
He shrugged and sat back in his seat. I disentangled my hand from his and leaned so I could run my fingers through his hair, pushing it out of his face.
I never got tired of sinking my fingers into that silky mess.
“I could easily espouse on how hot you are. For a freakin’ novel, let alone three thousand words.
But I’m guessing that’s not what the prof has in mind. ”
I sat back in my seat, letting go of him. I checked the time on my phone. “Those ladies have to be out of the locker room by now. You should probably get in there.”
We were really careful about spending time together when Lucas was officially on the clock. He couldn’t jeopardize this job.
He didn’t talk about it much, but I knew there was some legal stuff looming with Andy and his mom and that whole thing.
He looked at his watch. “I’ve got a couple of minutes. So, tell me who you think you are. Don’t worry about getting it down on paper right now.”
“I…I…you know me,” I said, getting uncomfortable. This was even worse than trying to write it and coming up with nothing.
“I’d like to think I do, yeah. But who do you think you are, Lily?”
“I’m…I’m…” I fidgeted in the desk, pulling it a bit a way from him. He readjusted, moving his phone from his pocket to the desk and setting it next to Bribury key ring he carried, seemingly settling in.
I loved to look at him, but I found it easier to speak if I looked away, at the front of the out-of-use classroom. These rooms still had blackboards, not the whiteboards or electronic whiteboards that all the other rooms on campus were equipped with.
In my mind I saw snatches of words, phrases writing themselves on the blackboard. “Alexis’s younger sister. Gray’s older sister. Grayson and Susan Spaulding’s second child.” I paused.
“You mentioned your father that night we went to look at the graffiti. Who is he, anyway? I’m assuming politics or some CEO or something.”
It was a fair assumption, given the majority of the student population at Bribury came from one of those two worlds. Sometimes both.
“Politics. He’s a political consultant. He’s run a presidential campaign.”
“Did his guy win?”
I didn’t want to get too deeply into it. We were now sliding from my story into Jane’s, and it wasn’t my story to tell. “No. But he’s had other big wins.”
“So, a kingmaker?” I nodded. “And what’s that like to grow up with?”
I tipped my head back, closing my eyes. The blackboard still in my mind, adjectives still writing themselves.
“Exciting. Prestigious. Scary. Nerve-racking. Lonely.” Lucas didn’t say a word, but I could feel his presence next to me. I always seemed to sense when his body was near mine.
“There were times when I was in awe of my father’s genius, of his maneuvering, of his staying a step ahead of…everyone. Most of the time, though, I just wanted to stay out of his way.”
“Did your brother and sister do that too?”
I let out a long breath. “No, they’re both really…I don’t know, colorful, I guess. Kind of like Jane.”
I felt his big hand on my neck, could feel his breath as he whispered in my ear, “Sometimes muted colors are the prettiest ones, the most beautiful. Sometimes bright colors hurt your eyes if you look at them for too long.”
Oh God, I felt a tear slide out of my closed eye and down my cheek. Lucas caught it with his thumb, absorbing it.
“What if all I am is truly a Bribury Basic?” I whispered. Another tear slid down. God, so embarrassing. I had no idea where these tears came from. I truly liked the person I was. So what if…what?…there wasn’t much substance? I was only eighteen, for Christ’s sake. Give a girl a break.
“You are not just a Bribury Basic,” Lucas said, squeezing my neck.
I heard him get up, the desk screeching across the floor, though his hand stayed on me.
I could feel the heat of him as he leaned over my back and kissed the top of my head.
“I know how much more you are. You just need to figure it out too.”
I didn’t open my eyes for a long time, and when I did I was alone.