by Lola West
I nodded yes.
“Bet you need a shower too,” Joe teased.
Jack laughed. Then he stood and crossed to me, squeezing my shoulder. “I think you’re a good kid, Drew. Don’t look so pale.”
“Yes, sir… um, Jack, sorry.” God, he was being so nice, and I was a blubbering mess.
“No apologies. I get that you’re expecting me to feel angry or at the very least defensive for my daughter, but the raging daddy with a shotgun isn’t really our bag around here.”
“Thems the tools of the patriarchy,” Joe teased.
Jack ignored Joe and said, “Lua’s an adult. I love her and I feel protective of her, but she makes the choices about who she dates and whatnot. Her body, her rules.”
Right. Lua was an independent adult. Sometimes I couldn’t believe all the different ways culture subtly masked the idea that men were women’s keepers. Things like this moment were constantly rearing their little sneaky heads. But also, just because they didn’t make or condemn her choices, didn’t mean they didn’t care. They loved her and I’d done her wrong quite a bit. I took a deep breath and tried to get my nerves to calm. Clearing my throat, I said, “I hear you. And I agree it’s not your business, but you both love her, so I just want you to know that I love her too.”
“Duh.” Joe laughed.
“If you ask me, it’s hard not to.” Jack smiled. Then after an awkward beat, he said, “Who wants a sandwich?”
Joe answered, “Me, but Drew’s making them because he owes me one.”
Smirking and suddenly totally at ease, I said, “More than one, Joe. More than one.”
We drove back to campus the following day, but Jack had the opportunity to make three full-size lasagnas for us to bring back. Lua complained and said she had nowhere to put them, but I wanted them. Jack’s lasagna was fucking delicious.
“We can freeze them in the fridge at S.A.F.E.,” I suggested and honestly, I think she only relented because she was sweet on me.
Unlike the drive to the thrive, the drive back to campus was filled with chatter. We talked about everything. That was part of what I loved about Lua. She was so engaged, so interested in the world, culture, people, and me. It was heady stuff that she wanted to really know me and even more crazy was the idea that I wanted her to.
Ever since I told her about my love of architecture, she had questions. Actually, she brimmed and bubbled with questions.
“Do you remember the first time you saw a building that inspired you? Or did your love of buildings originate from something even more simplistic, like blocks and Legos?” She bounced with excitement as she questioned and didn’t wait for an answer before her next question rolled out. “Ooooh, do you have a favorite architect, more specifically a living one but also maybe a dead one? Or a favorite building?”
To my surprise, I had answers. Like I’d been hiding my passion for architecture under my skin for a lifetime without even realizing it. Grinning so hard my face hurt, I went to answer the first question about the origins of my love for architecture. But she held her index finger up, to stop me from starting and said, “Wait, sorry. One more. Is there a building you’ve only seen in pictures that you want to see in real life?”
I glanced at her to make sure she was ready for me and asked, “Answers now?”
“Yes, please.” She said the words tartly, silly, and bright, like tidbits about my passion were treats. I glanced at her. She was sitting cockeyed in her seat, turned so her entire body faced me. It was hard to concentrate on the road because I wanted to look at her face every minute of the day. Her face was relaxed and so full of unadulterated joy. She’d been that way since we got in the car, like being alone with me was enough to make her endlessly happy. Or maybe that was just me.
I cleared my throat. “Let’s see. Regarding question one: for sure, Legos, but then growing up in DC, buildings equated to grandeur.” I felt a little self-conscious about what I was going to say but I said it anyway. “It might sound silly, but I was obsessed with the Capitol building as a kid. I was there a lot, ya know, for the senator’s family photo ops and such. So, I got to feel what it was like to walk those hallowed halls.” For a second, I lost myself to the memories of the tap-tapping of my shiny penny loafers against the stone floors. And then my mind jumped to a moment some years later when I held my hand up to shade my eyes as I looked out over the mall. It was an amazing place. “I got to stand in the shadow of the dome, look out over the national mall, and feel the swell of American pride that it all elicited.” Wanting so badly for her to get why this building mattered, I explained, “Sometimes it felt like the building itself was a being or a consciousness. A physical reminder or a teacher keeping me aware of history, pushing me to not lose sight of our forefathers’ democratic intentions, their honor, and their sacrifice.”
When I was done, I glanced at her again. Her eyes were glassy. “Lu, are you crying?”
She turned her head so, trying to hide from me. “Um, no?” Her voice was gooey with sarcasm. Then she wiped her eyes. “Okay, maybe.” She laughed.
“Why?” I laughed nervously.
She didn’t answer immediately. She inched closer to me and touched my hand that was resting on the gear shift, and then after a minute, she said, “I guess because that was beautiful and because I love you and I like seeing you feel all that. I like knowing that you felt all that, it’s like my Drew was always in there; he was just buried under a lot of bullshit.”
I didn’t know if that was true, but I wanted it to be. I wanted to believe that underneath all the ugly and the anger and the fear, I was always the man that Lua loved. If I was honest with myself, I was nervous about returning to school. At the thrive no one was judging us, but back in my real life, there were a lot of obstacles for us. I would overcome them though because she was worth it.
“Okay, enough sappy.” She smiled. “Go on, you didn’t answer them all yet.” She squeezed my hand. “Building you’ve only seen in pictures that you want to see in real life?”
I answered them all and more. I was going to love being loved by Lua.
48
Lua
“Right there!” I pointed, excited to get a parking space close to S.A.F.E. I didn’t even have a car, and I still knew that finding a parking space right in the center of campus was like winning the lottery.
“Damn, girl,” Drew said in a goofy voice, being silly. “You are like carrying around a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a space this close to S.A.F.E.”
“Obviously, the gods approve of our union,” I joked back.
“Obviously.” Drew laughed. “Speaking of which, I would like to union some more.” He wagged his eyebrows at me like hubba-hubba. He was adorable, so happy, geeky, and dorky. This was my Drew at his finest.
I couldn’t help but tease him. “Really, I didn’t know conservatives supported unions.”
Smirking, he replied, “Baby, I am so pro-union for you.”
I laughed.
Then he very seriously said, “No, but really, I’m used to being around you, Lu. I sort of can’t imagine sleeping in two different buildings tonight.”
Ridiculously, I totally hadn’t thought about what would happen after we dropped the lasagna off at S.A.F.E. I was just having so much fun being in the moment that I hadn’t gone beyond it, and now that he’d said it, the reality of what was about to happen came crashing down on my head. We’d been living on an oasis and now we were returning to our real lives.
“Umm, well, I don’t really feel like Chrystal would be super happy to have us all humpy across the room from her.”
“No,” he noted. “That wouldn’t be ideal.” Then gently he offered, “I have a single.”
“In a frat house,” I said tightly.
He sighed. “Lu, I understand your reluctance. I am fully willing to admit that not everyone in my frat is open or enlightened like the people at S.A.F.E., but they are not monsters. They’re just guys and
a lot of them are friends of mine.”
I couldn’t help it; I didn’t think I would feel comfortable there, particularly because it wasn’t like I’d be stopping in to work on a project. He was asking me to sleep there and to have sex there. There was vulnerability in this situation and I honestly felt scared. I didn’t want a bunch of frat boys listening to me come. That felt creepy, like dirtying up something sacred. I couldn’t stand the picture of myself waking up in the morning and walking through the building to the front door with all their eyes on me.
I looked down at my hands. “I can’t. At least, not yet. It doesn’t feel right to me.”
He was silent long enough that I looked up, needing to read his expression. He wasn’t happy. Truth was, Drew was used to getting what he wanted. Not from me but in life. And where he came from, when you didn’t get what you wanted, you pushed or bullied until you did. Clearly, he’d been working on that, trying to be someone different. But I could see the war on his face, his need to tell me I was wrong, to overrule and override my feelings. He was straight-up angry, but he was trying not to be. He clenched his jaw and took a deep breath through his nose before he said, “So what are we saying right now? That we take these lasagnas into S.A.F.E., I hug and kiss you goodbye, you go to your dorm and I go to my frat, and then what?”
“I don’t know,” I said because it was the truth.
“We never fuck again?” he spat.
I sighed. Clearly, his internal good guy lost the fight. I did my best to remain calm. “Drew. Don’t be like that. Please.”
He pushed his hand through his hair, his chest rising and falling, quickened by the adrenaline of his anger. Raging with ugly energy, he smacked the steering wheel. “Goddammit.”
He closed his eyes. I watched him struggle. I didn’t say anything else, but for the first time in days, I wondered if I’d made the right choice. Sure, he was funny and smart and contemplative and all kinds of sexy, but this was screwed up. Drew’s anger and entitlement would always be there, percolating under his skin, waiting to explode. For a second, I felt scared like it might never be right. And then I watched him manage it. He took more deep breaths, long, slow ones, trying like hell to right himself. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry, Lu.” He pressed his hand against his eyes and his forehead like he was applying pressure to a sinus headache. “I didn’t mean to get angry. I thought I was fucking past that shit.”
“I know.”
“It’s just I want to be with you. Just be with you. I’ve been feeling a little panicked all day because coming back here, it feels like I could lose you again.”
“I know.” It was sad really.
Huffing air out of his nose, he said, “You’re probably right. I shouldn’t bring you to the house, but I want to. I want to be with you all the time. Fuck.” He hit the steering wheel again. “I want to be inside you right now.”
“Okay,” I said calmly.
He turned to look at me, shock on his face.
“What?” I shrugged.
Then he smirked. “What do you mean?”
“Just because we don’t have a bed, doesn’t mean we can’t sleep together.” I made a show of looking out the window. “There’s got to be somewhere around here where we can get busy.”
He laughed.
“What?” I teased. “You think I’m joking? I’ve had you between my legs, Drew Scott, and it was glorious. I’m not giving that up so quick.”
He laughed again.
Then, somber, he said, “You’re too good for me, Lu.”
I smirked. “No shit, Sherlock.” I shrugged again, jokingly. “But you’re hot so…”
He leaned over, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling across the middle console until our lips were inches apart. One I was close, his voice dropped an octave, and he said, “Just man meat, huh?”
As soon as we were close, my skin came alive and my heart rate amped up. Still teasing and unintentionally sultry, I said, “Lua’s the name, reverse objectification is the game.”
He kissed me, pushing his tongue inside my mouth like we were naked. I had the instinct to catapult myself into his lap. The sex stuff between Drew and me was undeniable, explosive.
“Fuck, Lu,” he gasped. “It’s always so…”
“Heated.”
He smirked at me, like always. “We better get that lasagna inside or we are going to overcook it.”
A terrible joke. I shook my head at him. “So corny.”
“More like horny.”
“Oh my goodness” I giggled. “I think deep down you’re a giant dork.”
After a goofy attempt to hold the lasagnas and hold hands, Drew and I conceded that we would have to walk the hundred yards to the front door of S.A.F.E. without touching. My father had not skimped in any way, and the lasagna trays could have legit fed a small army. Drew was absolutely delighted by the notion.
Gently lifting the two trays he was carrying in an effort to emphasize their significance as we walked, he said, “We are golden on lasagna for a least a month. We might even make it to the end of the semester. As long as you tell no one how good these taste.”
I teased him for his utter lack of logical thinking. “How are you going to make it to the end of the semester? Precut and defrost one piece at a time? Once you defrost a tray, you’ll have to eat it in a day or two. You are going to have to share, Drew.”
He made a playful grumpy face and then said, “I hate sharing. It’s downright communist.”
I was laughing as I climbed the stairs, but the sound faltered. In my peripheral vision I saw movement in the corner behind the porch swing. My instinct was to think it was a rat or a squirrel, so my eyes raced to the spot and the little tinge of anxious surprise that one feels being startled by something unexpected but not necessarily impossible, fluttered through my chest. For a beat I was still wearing my smile, and then I realized what I was looking at my own boots. The brown ones I wore to the S.A.F.E. orientation.
My smile slipped and I breathed, “Chrystal.”
I didn’t run. I walked slowly so as not to startle her. I placed the lasagna on the swing and knelt down in front of her. She was curled in a tight ball, hugging her knees to her chest, her face hidden. Her hair was a scraggly mess. Chrystal’s hair was never a mess. Someone hurt her. I could feel it in my bones.
“Chrystal?” I said softly, reaching out to touch her leg.
“Don’t,” she said, still not looking up. A part of me felt wonder at her constant ability to know my movements even when she wasn’t looking. For me, Chrystal was a pain in the ass, but she was also smart and intuitive.
I pulled my hand back.
“I didn’t know where to go.” She kept her face down, talking to her knees.
“This was a good choice,” I said calmly, trying to encircle her with my voice. I wanted her to know that she was safe.
She lifted her face to me. There was mascara under her eyes.
“I went there to see him,” she said, her eyes piercing mine. “He called me, and I went there.” Her voice was hollow. “I was excited he called.” She scoffed at herself and shook her head. “I ran over there. Dropped everything, put on lipstick, and skipped right into his snare.”
I heaved out a breath. Someone raped her; that’s what she was saying without saying anything.
“I’m trash. Did you know that, Lu?” Her voice was tight and high. She was losing control. I could see it. Her eyes started to race, searching my face, expecting something that she didn’t find. “I grew up in a fucking fleabag town in rural West Virginia. In a trailer. I’m literally a poverty cliché.”
I didn’t know that. I knew that she was hiding things, that she had secrets, but I didn’t know what they were. “You’re not trash or a cliché,” I said.
Frustrated, she said, “No, I am. I’m the scholarship kid from the wrong side of the tracks who tried to pass herself off as something more and got punished.”
I did what I do best. Told the truth. “Chr
ystal, I’m not going lie or placate you. You’re a handful. You’re a bitch, too blunt, and on occasion downright unfriendly. Sometimes you’re so selfish you make me want to scream, but none of that, none of it earned this. You didn’t deserve this. No one does. Not ever.” My words were hard, but I said them softly like I was cooing, and then I reached for her again and this time she let me. After a breath I said, “You’ve also been kind to me, every now and again. And I got you. If you need me, I got you.”
She was still looking at my face and I could swear she almost smiled. Suddenly she was crying, not sobbing, just tears rolling down her face. “He’s so much more powerful than me and he knew that. He knew.”
I nodded.
Behind me Drew cleared his throat. I could tell he was trying to be quiet, but the sound made Chrystal fully aware of his presence. The pallor face of her face was already pale but whatever color was left drained away as she shifted her gaze to take in Drew. Something about him made her terrified. I didn’t know if it was just that he was a man or if Drew was specifically scary to her, but I immediately tried to quiet her fears.
“Chrystal,” I said, attempting to draw her attention. “Remember Drew works for S.A.F.E. He is trained for this kind of situation and if you’d like him to go, just say the word and he will.”
Despite my attempt to calm her, Chrystal’s body tightened, and her face twisted into a snarl like a threatened alley cat. She snapped at Drew. “You’re monsters. All of you. You hide behind all that sanctimonious pious bullshit. And you’re devils.”
Drew remained calm, but he’d started to shake his head, as if his body couldn’t help subtly rejecting her attack. I watched his breath quicken as he considered what to say. Then he squeaked out, “I’m going to take these lasagnas to the fridge.”