by C. S. Starr
Leah blinked at her, obviously stunned at her candor. “I…I didn’t do anything. What are you—”
“I also don’t like girls that spread their legs to get ahead.”
She gasped, her jaw agape. “He told you that?”
Lucy shrugged. “Look. I know so many girls like you, and I don’t trust you. But your cousin is important, so I’ll tolerate you.”
“He’s important? You’ll tolerate me because he’s important?” She raised her eyebrows, her expression darkening. “You don’t know a thing about me, or him.”
“I disagree,” Lucy said with a frown. “I know that I prefer him to Wilde. For my purposes, he’s the better of two evils.”
Lucy hoped Leah was buying her callous act. She didn’t think she was very convincing and felt like she was going soft over a boy. Like she was turning into a girl. A girl that liked boys. She shook it off.
Leah’s mouth tensed and she balled her hands into fists by her sides. “Well, I’m not going to fuck Tal over, like you seem to think. I’ve been covering for him.” Her tone grew sharper and she sat down opposite Lucy. “And you don’t know anything about our relationship if you think I’d ever do anything to hurt him. You’re also in my house, and if you’re going to come in here and talk to me like that, you’re not going to stay. You might be a big deal where you come from, but here, you’re a low-brow hick with a bad haircut.”
Lucy realized quickly that Leah wasn’t exactly the pushover she’d taken her for. She wasn’t exactly, well, Lucy, but she also wasn’t about to cower in the corner when pressed a little. She trusted her even less with that realization.
“Connor’s fine,” Tal said, emerging from his office and flopping down on the opposite end of the couch from Lucy, as far away as he could get. “He thinks I’m very serious about Rika, but for our purposes, that’s all right.”
Leah went off to the kitchen and returned with a large ledger. “Okay, so he’s requested four hundred so far.”
Tal nodded as he flipped to the last page in what Lucy presumed were his books and nodded noncommittally. “Not bad. Not good, but not bad.”
It took a minute for Lucy to process how much money they meant.
“He’s asked for almost a half a million dollars in two days?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“He is fighting a war,” Leah shrugged nonchalantly. “Weapons don’t come cheap.”
“I’m going to cut him off, next time he asks. That should get him back here pretty quick, then we seize power.” Tal stretched out and put his feet on the coffee table.
Lucy was surprised at both of their reactions. “Why are you so calm about this? That’s a half a million dollars almost. That’s—”
“It’s been a long time coming. A half million is small potatoes,” Leah answered. “And no one likes him here.”
Tal gave Lucy a half smile. “What she said. The fallout will be shitty, but it’s time.”
“What will happen? If you seize power?”
“We’ll play a couple of free movies all over, subsidize some pizza, and that’ll buy us enough time to sort things out. Rika will help us deal with anyone that’s still loyal to Connor through her Mexican connections, and we’ll go from there.”
Lucy frowned at them both, confused by their sudden ease with one another. “It sounds so easy. Too easy.”
Leah shook her head. “No. Hell no. People used to really like Connor. Five years, even two years ago, he was the shit, right Tal? We never could have moved things then. I gave up trying when I was fifteen.”
Tal shrugged. “We all grow up, I guess. That kid that ruled high school never runs the show in university. If we’ve learned anything from movies, it’s that. We all peak.”
Lucy ran her hand over her chaotic hair and wondered if that was really true.
***
After speaking with Connor, Tal felt optimistic. He’d made some crude joke about him fucking Rika, which Tal had laughed along with, and Connor dropped the issue of his Vice-President’s absence after that, instead choosing to fill him in on the Vegas war. He’d decided he was winning, after driving Vegas out of Phoenix. Best of all, Leah had covered for Tal flawlessly. The hole Cole had left in Lucy reminded him that he and his cousin had always been a pretty good team. Potentially losing his cousin had been gnawing away at him, and he hadn’t known it until he’d realized she wasn’t going anywhere. Relationships changed. His and Leah’s was strong enough to change for the better, Tal decided. He’d do whatever he needed to to make that happen.
“That other guy from Campbell is coming tomorrow?” Leah asked, avoiding Lucy’s gaze. “The one you were supposed to be working with?”
“Bull,” Tal replied with a nod. “And Zoey. Lucy’s—”
“My girlfriend,” Lucy interjected, glancing at Tal innocently. “Zoey’s my girlfriend.”
“Yeah. All right,” Tal grumbled, shooting her a gruff look as he internally rolled his eyes. “We’ll take Connor out, and then see where the chips fall.”
“We won’t stay too long after that,” Lucy said, her expression morphing to wistful, which made Tal feel better. “Leave you to your civil war.”
“I don’t even think we’ll have a war,” Leah replied. “Not if we make things even a little better.”
Lucy flinched at her use of ‘we’, Tal noticed.
“I’m going to go shower,” he announced, deciding that if he and Lucy were going to work together, she and Leah were going to have to tolerate each other. He’d heard Leah snap at her from his office and he had to admit, he was impressed. He knew his cousin had balls; they’d just been progressively trampled by Connor, and to a lesser degree, himself. He knew Lucy would hate Leah’s interjection at first, and then respect it, as long as Leah earned it.
For the second time in twenty-four hours he jerked off in the shower, easily imagining Lucy’s hands around his cock. The progression of their relationship was moving at a snail’s pace, which he decided was preferable to upsetting her or having her associate what they did with anything or anyone but him. If he was going to be the exception, he was going to be exceptional. He knew making her happy was never going to be about having the biggest cock or the most stamina; it was going to be about respecting and understanding her needs. He was most certainly more likely to succeed at that, anyway.
Maybe they’d go nowhere. He knew there was a possibility that this was some weird experimentation born out of the death of her male half, but he hoped it wasn’t the case. The connection they shared almost buzzed it was so strong. He’d never felt it with anyone else.
He almost slipped on the tile floor when he emerged from the shower and found Leah sitting on the toilet.
“Fuck! You can’t just come in here,” he snapped, instinctively cupping his parts. “Shit, Leah.”
“Don’t pretend I haven’t heard you do that before,” she chuckled, extending a towel. “I haven’t been here too long.”
“Why are you here, and can you not be again?”
She tapped with urgency on the sink. “I don’t trust her. Lucy. I think she’s trying to fuck us over, maybe seize power as soon as Connor drops it. She thinks she’s got you wrapped around her little finger. I can tell.”
Leah was right, but not in any of the ways she thought. “She doesn’t want to take over. We’ll need some allies against East and Campbell is our best bet.”
“I don’t like her.”
“She probably doesn’t like you either.”
Leah stared at Tal critically for a long minute. “Why did you tell her that I slept with Connor?” She crossed her arms defensively. “That’s not any of her business.”
He stepped out of the shower and leaned on the sink. “We’re friends.”
Leah furrowed her brow and a very confused look crossed her face, followed by realization. “You’re sleeping with her? She’s so…not your type.”
Tal sighed. She wasn’t wrong. Tal’s type were girls like Leah, or even Zoey. “I’m not…I’m
not sleeping with her. She’s…” He thought of the right word, one that wouldn’t reveal anything. Complicated? Damaged? Timid? “She’s a lesbian. We’re not sleeping together I’m not her type.”
“I don’t like her,” Leah repeated. “Just for the record.”
“You said that. Concern noted,” Tal grumbled, raising his eyebrows. “And I’m being careful. If you’re so worried, I don’t know why you left her alone downstairs with all our files.”
Tal cracked a grin at Leah as, sure enough, he stomped downstairs to find Lucy thumbing through his ledger on the coffee table.
“I can show you what all that means, if you’d like.”
“You’re very meticulous.” She looked up with a smile. “And rich, but I already assumed that.”
“Let’s take this outside, Campbell,” he joked, nodding at the patio door. “I’ll just grab some clothes.”
Leah had done his laundry, he noticed, as he rifled through the pile of clean clothes on his bed. He jumped as his door slammed behind him and a pair of now-familiar hands snaked around his waist and a head with prickly-soft short hair rested on his back.
“I got lost on the way to the bathroom,” she whispered. “Want to run away together?”
“Don’t tempt me. I’ll toss you over my shoulder caveman-style and off we’ll go.” He turned around in her embrace. “You know though, if we’re being secretive, coming into my room when I’m changing probably isn’t—”
“She’ll keep her suspicions to herself. I’m going, anyway,” Lucy whispered, smiling up at him. “Where am I staying?”
“You can stay in the room above the garage,” he poked his head out the door and nodded down the hall. “Right to the end, down a few stairs, and there you are. It’s got its own bathroom.”
She stood on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss. “See you outside.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon talking about profit and loss, investments, and long-term planning in the unusually hot November sun. Tal did his best to pay attention, but once Lucy changed into shorts he found himself more single-minded than he’d ever been, her strong legs drawing his attention much more than dividends. He decided it was probably a good thing she lived thousands of miles away or he’d never get anything done.
Leah made a pasta salad with avocados and herbs from their garden for dinner. After devouring a huge bowl of it, with no thanks to the cook, Lucy excused herself and vanished to her room, leaving Tal to listen to Leah gripe about their houseguest and her incredible manipulation abilities.
He excused himself about an hour later, and once he heard Leah close her door, he quietly snuck down the hall, past her door and knocked ever so softly on Lucy’s.
She answered in one of his Dad’s old t-shirts that he assumed she’d fished out of the dresser, where all the things he couldn’t bear to throw away but didn’t want to see resided.
“Hi,” she whispered, moving aside to let him in before locking the door. “It’s nice up here.”
“If we’d met in college, this would have been my room after my brothers moved out. We all used to fight over it.”
“So you would have brought me here?” She sat up on the bed.
He moved so he was standing between her legs and their faces were close. “That would have involved you meeting my parents first.” He tilted her chin towards his face. “But yeah, I would have if you would have come.”
“This should be your room now. It’s very private,” she whispered. “So what would have happened when you brought me here?”
“Whatever you wanted to happen, just like now.” He kissed her forehead, then cheek, before proceeding to her mouth. “I’d never push you into anything.”
***
As they kissed, Lucy imagined a conversation with Cole where he’d tell her what she should be doing, and she’d pretend to be wigged out, but really she’d be taking careful mental notes. They’d never talked much about sex—the idea of sharing encounters with your counterpart had weirded them both out, but in this situation, she knew he’d have advice. Lucy wondered what that meant, and wrangled with the possibility that he might expect her to initiate. She cupped his cheeks and her mind raced with what she was meant to do, and how it would make her feel. Shutting it all off and just going with it was a nice idea, but in reality, it was hard. Just like Tal, as he pressed against her hip.
It was all foreign to her. The way he kissed, the way he touched her. It wasn’t that she didn’t like it, it was just not what she was used to, and she knew doing it, just for the sake of doing it, was going to leave her a bigger mess than she already was and create a lot more problems than it would solve. She didn’t want that for them. She wanted to continue coveting their moments, until they added up to something greater.
“I don’t want to rush into anything,” she murmured. “I think we’d both regret it.”
“It’s fine,” he whispered. “This, it’s fine if we just—”
She cut him off with a kiss. “You’re a good guy.”
“I like to think we have a lot of years working together ahead of us. There’s lots of time. I’m enjoying this. You’re a tough nut to crack. Six weeks ago, I never would have thought—”
“Me neither,” she laughed. “This,” she nodded between them, “it’s always been like when you’re curious about what alligator tastes like, but you really have no desire to go out, catch an alligator, and find out.”
“And now you’ve got an alligator, and you’re not sure it’ll be as delicious as you imagined?”
Lucy laughed. “No. Now I’ve got an alligator and I’m not sure how to prepare it.”
“If you think that sleeping with me is going to be as exciting as catching an alligator, I think you’ll be sorely disappointed.” Tal stretched out in the bed and nodded at the TV on the dresser. “Do you want to watch a movie?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, curling herself around him, her head on his chest as she enjoyed the intimacy of being close to him in the place he was most comfortable. “In a minute.”
***
“Goose?” Bull called from across the narrow stream. “Hey, over here!”
She shook her head and realized that she’d fallen asleep, and here, in her dream, she was entirely naked. She wondered where the t-shirt she was certain she was sleeping in had ended up, and what her nudity was symbolic of.
“Fuck!” she giggled, doing her best to cover herself up with her hands. “Come over here.”
He did as she asked and trudged through the stream, bringing himself with a few feet of her. “You’re dreaming. You haven’t been. I’ve been looking everywhere for you for a week now. And you’re naked.”
Lucy then saw Tal out of the corner of her eye, asleep on the soft grass in the meadow, in only his underwear. Bull didn’t seem to notice him. Sometimes her dreams made no sense.
“I am naked. I guess I’m sleeping better,” she said, with a nonchalant shrug. “And I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be in LA tomorrow,” he said, his voice laden with regret. “I’m sleeping in the car. I’ve got to sort shit out with your little friend. He’s got a theory that’s worth following up on.”
“I’m there, Bull. I’m in LA with Tal.” She shook her head and glanced at him again, noticing he’d spread himself out on his back like he did, blissfully unaware of the conversation that was taking place five feet away. “We flew down yesterday.”
Bull crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows suspiciously. “You flew down?”
“He came up to see me, and I came back with him. If Connor did kidnap us—”
“There’s a chance he’s responsible for everything.” Bull nodded, irritation flashing across his face. “So you came to find out with him. You wanted to see. Last time I saw you, you weren’t interested in anything.”
She twisted her face up. “He makes me feel…better, somehow.”
“You need to be careful. You don’t know if you can trust him—”
“I d
o know,” she said, in a tone she found whiny. “How’s Zoey?”
He sat down on the soft grass. “She’s very worried about you, but she’s much more tolerable when you’re not around.”
“Thanks,” she grumbled.
“She’s going to be hurt that he was able to do what she couldn’t.”
Lucy closed her eyes and thought of all the things Zoey had said, all the ways she’d tried to get her to respond before she’d finally thrown her hands up and left with Bull, desperate to have some influence on something.
“I can’t help that,” she finally responded. “I can’t help that I don’t feel like I think I should, and I can’t help the way I feel around him. I like the way I feel around him. I don’t want to shove it down. It is what it is.”
Bull nodded, a sad look crossing his face for the briefest second, and she knew it wasn’t just Zoey who felt hurt that she’d been unable to help. “I trust that you know what’s right for yourself.”
“Thank you,” she said, and as she looked down, she saw that she was now in her usual jeans and a t-shirt. She reached for him and embraced him, knowing that what she’d said without saying anything was going to change their relationship in a million ways.
She had to make sure it was for the better.
Chapter 23
February 2003
Los Angeles, West
“Juan, you’re doing it all wrong!” Rika squealed as he pushed the Scrabble board to the ground, tucked her under his arm and carried her to their bedroom. “You can’t do that.”
“It’s a stupid game,” he chuckled. “I have a game that I’m better at.”
The last five months had been the best of Rika’s life. In Juan, she’d found a family. Love. Support. It was so overwhelming that sometimes she’d find herself crying with happiness for no reason. She remembered reading about soul mates in a philosophy book at summer school, and decided that Plato was probably right about their soul splitting at some point, no matter how absurd she and Juan would look fused together in person.