Epilogue
Four months later
Denise
“Lucas!” I shriek as he chases me, splashing me with saltwater.
The waves crash against my thighs, slowing down my movements and making it harder to escape Lucas’s attack. The sun barrels down on Mission Beach, San Diego and my skin smells of sunscreen, sand, and a faint scent of the churro that me and Lucas shared.
London, one of Lucas’s younger sisters, decides to join Lucas in attacking me. I gasp, trying to splash back.
“You’re a traitor,” I laugh, accepting that this is how I’m repaid for doing London’s nails last night.
London laughs and continues to splash, distracting me so Lucas can come and hoist me up onto his shoulder.
“You gotta be faster than that, Denise,” London teases, the same grin Lucas has now on a sixteen year old girl.
I huff, brushing my hair from my face but it’s no use with how Lucas has me on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “I thought you were on my team,” I argue.
“Lucas said I had to help in exchange for the seashell necklace he bought me on the boardwalk.”
I gasp, hitting Lucas’s shoulder but he’s already laughing. “You can’t just go around bribing people.”
“Sure I can.”
London lightly hits Lucas’s shoulder as well before running off and shouting for Nia, who’s busying herself with taking photos of the beach. Lucas shifts me so that my legs are around his waist and his arms hook around my thighs, bringing us face to face.
“I thought London and I were really getting somewhere.” My breaths come out shallow from all the laughing and running. “Then you went ahead and ruined it.”
“Trust me, she’ll go back to plotting my demise in another half an hour.”
“Just another reason for me to like her.” I laugh and slap Lucas’s hand when he lightly pinches my outer thigh.
“Yo, lovebirds!” Vanessa, Lucas’s older sister, calls out to us from her spot on the sand. Her curls were once neatly done in a gelled-back bun, but the wind has now pulled ringlets out. She waves us over. “We’re heading out!”
Lucas’s parents and sisters are packing things up, laughing at Vanessa’s nickname for us. She’s been saying it ever since I met her three weeks ago when she caught me and Lucas making out in the backyard of their parents’ house.
Lucas did try to tell me that his family is nosy and keeping our hands to ourselves was probably for the best but sitting in the grass, under the stars made me confident enough that we wouldn’t get caught.
Yeah no, Vanessa and London took it upon themselves to shout from the window, telling us to get a room. I thought it was funny, Lucas with a hard-on at that point, did not. The two have teased us the entire time we've been here about being attached at the hip.
They think we’re clingy now? I’m just waiting for them to find out about our matching lip tattoos.
Lucas’s name is inked on my inner lip and mine on his.
I dared him just before we left for San Diego, not actually expecting him to do it but when he started looking up tattoos shops, I jumped in and suggested matching fonts. I couldn’t let him have all the fun.
The tattoo artist may have looked at us like we were insane, but Lucas and I were more focused on discussing fonts and whether we should do red or blank ink. The understanding that we were basically branding each other came as an afterthought.
“Come on.” Lucas sets me back down. “They’re not afraid to leave us.”
I laugh and we walk back to shore, hand in hand. After almost five months of dating, I still can’t get over the butterflies that tend to take over my stomach whenever Lucas is around.
And honestly, he doesn’t even need to be around for them to show up. All I have to do is picture his smile or laugh. The way his hands feel on me. His groggy morning voice and the way he gets excited whenever he’s on the phone with either his parents or sisters.
I quickly learned a few months back, just after a few short weeks of dating, that Lucas’s family mean everything to him. So, when he invited me to come out to San Diego to meet them for the summer, I was panicked and honored at the same time.
If Lucas’s family didn’t like me then what would that mean for us? I wouldn’t make him choose but I didn’t want to stomach the idea of not being with Lucas.
Which in hindsight was a stupid mindset because I love everything about Lucas, so why wouldn’t I love the people who helped raise him?
Lucas drops down onto the blanket that Melody is sitting on, her attention consumed by whatever is playing on her phone, headphones over her ears.
He gently nudges her shoulder with his. “The water is calling your name, Mels.”
Melody looks at him, slipping off her headphones and turning to her brother with the most unamused expression. “I’ll drown, Lucas.”
I force myself to hold back my laughter, choosing to focus on slipping my shorts and tank top back on instead of Lucas arguing with his fourteen year old sister about him being a certified lifeguard.
He in fact is not and Melody calls him out on it.
Nia, the third youngest and closest in age to Lucas, walks over and hands me my sunglasses. I look down at her outstretched arm, surprised that she even walked up to me. I quickly learned that right after Melody, she’s the quieter of the siblings.
“These fell out of your bag.”
“Oh.” I smile at her, reaching for the sunglasses and placing them on my head. “Thanks, Nia.”
She nods and gently smiles back. “No problem.”
Mr. and Mrs. Callahan talk off to the side, both of them putting their things into the bag that Mrs. Callahan is holding open before Mr. Callahan reaches down to grab the ice chest.
“Need help with that, Mr. C?” I call out to him.
He turns to me, a smile already on his face. He shakes his head. “I’ll volunteer Lucas for the job but thanks, sweetheart.”
At the mention of his name, Lucas turns his attention from teasing Melody about her liking Preston more than him. And how she’s been moody because Preston didn’t come out with Lucas this year. to his dad.
Preston ended up going to see his mom in Boston instead of coming with us to San Diego for the summer.
Lucas said one of the two things is bound to happen.
Preston either comes back and he’s worked his shit out or he ends up becoming ten times worse.
I’m not sure what that entails or even the specifics of what’s been going on with Preston—I have full intention of pulling it out of Lucas one of these days—but I do know that if Preston doesn’t figure it out, I’ll bitch slap him myself.
Lucas notices the ice chest his dad is gesturing towards, nudges Melody’s shoulder one more time, and goes to stand and walk over to his dad.
Mrs. Callahan helps Melody pack up her things. Nia and London walk back toward the car, debating over which TV show they should start watching next. Lucas and Mr. Callahan both start carrying the ice chest and we all begin walking back to the car.
I hoist the shared bag with Lucas over my shoulder, moving to walk alongside Vanessa, her arm linking with mine. Within the first day of coming out here, I realized that Lucas comes from a very physically affectionate family, which explains why he’s always touching me in some sort of way.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s just nice to see where certain traits and mannerisms of his came from. Like his laugh. That’s definitely from his mom.
“You excited to head back home?” Vanessa asks.
I nod honestly. “Don’t get me wrong, I love it here but—”
“Home is home. No, I get it,” Vanessa agrees. “I love coming home for the summer but I miss Texas when I’m gone for too long. I think Lucas feels the same way about New York.” She chuckles.
We both look over to where Lucas and Mr. Callahan are joking around, laughing.
It makes me miss my own dad. My family. I’ve spent the last few months trying to make up for my bitchiness and absence toward my family.
Mom and Brian specifically. I’ve tried to make more of an effort with Brian.
Stopped avoiding talking about feelings with Amiyah and Dad…
well, I’ve tried to act completely normal around him.
He doesn’t know about Lucas’s and my relationship quite yet. I don’t care whether he knows but Lucas swears up and down that my dad will bench him this upcoming season.
I just laugh and agree to not say anything because Lucas has still yet to learn that my dad is all bark and no bite—at least when it comes to the threat of benching one of his best players.
Dad might grumble about it. Maybe even make Lucas’s life during practice a living hell but there’s no way he’s getting benched.
Over my dead body.
Vanessa’s grip on my arm tightens. I look away from Lucas and back at her. That cocky grin is replaced with something softer, something more like a concerned older sister to her only brother.
“He’s good out there though, right?” she asks. “Not driving himself too crazy before the season starts?”
I chuckle. “He’s been getting a little antsy about getting back out on the ice but yeah, he’s been good.”
Or at least I think he has.
“We just worry about him. He’s so far away from any of us, even farther than I am. We know he has Preston…it’s just—” She sighs, watching her brother like she’s seeing something beyond just his smile and laugh. Like that hasn’t always been there.
And I get it.
Lucas has moments where he doesn’t want to do anything but lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling. He disguises it as inviting me over to watch a movie but I quickly learned he’d grow quiet.
Lucas would sometimes want me around but not for sex. Or even to talk. Just simply to remind himself that with his family across the country, Preston out most of the time doing god knows what, and without the chaos of the hockey season, he’s not alone.
He’s still real. Still alive. He still matters.
Lucas’s sadness comes in the form of silence but once I realized that, I made it my mission to never let him live alone in it.