My Lucky Days: A Novel

by S. D. Hendrickson

  “Gross.”

  “Nothing says sexy like sweaty balls and sweaty boxers.”

  I couldn’t stop laughing. “Stop!”

  “Wait. Isn’t that a song? The sweaty balls song. Maybe it should be a song.”

  “No!” I clamped a hand over my mouth, trying to keep quiet. It was a little after one-thirty in the morning, and I was sure Skylar and Peyton could hear me through the walls. Our voices eventually faded back down to just the sound of our breathing.

  “You never said how the show went tonight,” I whispered.

  “Good. It’s a small place, but you never know who might be in the audience. That’s why I needed to take the slot when it opened up.”

  “Was it just you or did the band play?”

  “Just me this time.”

  I smiled. “I still haven’t seen just you.”

  “You can in a few days. I’m doing one in Tulsa when I get back. It’s at a small bar downtown.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell Peyton and Skylar. They are dying to officially meet you.”

  “Okay.” I heard him yawn.

  As I stared out into the darkness, I felt happy. He was a mess. But I liked that mess. “I’ve never dated a guy like you,” I whispered.

  “Is that a good or bad thing?”

  “Good.”

  He let out a deep breath. “I want to kiss you right now. Pretty damn bad. I’m sorry that I can’t.”

  “You can kiss me when you get back.”

  “Okay,” he whispered. “I’ll keep a tab of all the times I want to kiss you. You better be ready. ’Cause two weeks is a long time.”

  My heart beat faster and my lips tingled from the memory. “Okay.”

  We didn’t talk as I listened to him breathe. I never knew breathing could be so intriguing. The sound was calming, and I closed my eyes.

  He yawned again. “I probably should go. I’m practicing with the guys early in the morning. We are going to do some stuff in the studio while I’m here. And you’ve got class.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” But I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

  “Night, Katie.”

  I had been staring at the ceiling for a good twenty minutes when I heard the ding of my phone. Opening the message, I felt the warm spark inside as I read his words.

  LUCKY:

  Watching you as the moonlight shines,

  I keep asking myself,

  Could this girl really be mine?

  So I pull you in close, kissing you softly.

  And then your hands are in my hair.

  My lips are on your skin.

  I want to feel your body.

  I want to touch you again.

  The next few days were not much different than before. The air outside grew colder and the brown leaves blew away in the wind, turning the trees into barren sticks. The sky remained a solid gray and the nights got darker as the world headed deeper into November.

  But the minutes felt sweeter. They smelled sweeter and tasted sweeter.

  I felt the change on the inside. The way my absent thoughts went to Lucky as I wondered what he was doing while I was sitting in class. But it was more than just thoughts. It was the gradual build of anticipation all day, knowing at some point I would hear from him.

  Lucky and I talked every night. Sometimes later than others. And sometimes for hours if he called early enough. The guy could make me laugh—like, doubled-over, hurt-my-sides kind of laughter.

  But I think life was just easier two in the morning. Fewer inhibitions. Fewer filters.

  Life got real at two in the morning.

  I heard more stories of his childhood. The meanings behind some of his songs. He even talked for an hour one night just about his niece and nephew.

  I saw through the jokes. I saw the real Lucky. I knew he cared very deeply for his family. When he loved, he loved hard. It didn’t take much to understand why he still had one foot here and one foot in Nashville.

  Lucky didn’t know how to leave. And that was something I understood.

  “Turn a little to the left.” Skylar pulled the fabric tighter, adding another yellow-tipped straight pin.

  I gasped as it made contact with my back.

  “Sorry. It just needs to be cinched in a little more. She’s about a size smaller than you.”

  “Maybe if I suck it in.” I tightened my stomach as hard as it would go. I wasn’t overweight. But I wasn’t toned. And I didn’t try to make myself look any different. And I liked to eat bacon. So my stomach wasn’t exactly a washboard.

  “That’s better. See if you can hold that a few minutes longer.”

  Skylar went back to the table, grabbing another piece of fabric. She was designing a costume for the community center production of A Christmas Carol. She often asked me to pose as the model for her creations.

  I held my breath as she worked on the tight seam. Her black hair was in a sleek bun on top of her head. Skylar always reminded me of a ballerina. Tall. Pale skin. Graceful. And a sophisticated nose, which is an odd description for a nose. But she had the prettiest nose.

  “Are you kidding me? Not her. Not her!”

  I looked over in the living room at Peyton. “Did he give Karina a rose?”

  “Yes. That sucks. Now she’ll go on the overnight date. She sounds like a drunk Disney character when she talks. How does that even turn him on?”

  Skylar looked up from where she was pinning the hem at my feet. “That’s a thing, you know.”

  “What’s a thing?” I asked.

  “There’s a fetish where people like to have sex with other people while wearing animal costumes. Like mascot-looking stuff. Maybe that’s his thing. And he’s bringing a chipmunk costume on the overnight date because he’s found the perfect voice for it.”

  “Don’t say that about him. Brex is not into animal costumes. He’s a distinguished architect. In his free time, he even builds water wells for villages in Africa. Don’t insult him that way.”

  I laughed, feeling the pins jabbing me from every angle. Peyton had gushed and drooled all over Brex since the season premiere. Of course she knew nothing about him. Not really. No one ever really did on those reality shows. But the fairytale portrayed each week was very real to Peyton.

  And it apparently didn’t involve chipmunk costumes. The idea itself just confused me.

  “How does that even work?” Then I turned red when I realized I had said it out loud.

  Skylar laughed. “A couple of weeks with Lucky, and she’s already moving to role-playing.”

  “No,” I protested.

  Peyton walked past us into the kitchen, getting a Coke out of the fridge. “Honestly, it’s not that difficult to do if you’re creative.”

  “And you know this how?” Skylar mumbled as she held two straight pins between her lips while she fussed with the hem.

  “Well, when I was a cheerleader in high school, I got to know our mascot pretty well. We used to hook up during the third quarter.” She shrugged. “That was always the boring part of the game. So we went under the bleachers. He wasn’t very cute, though. I think he knew it too. So he preferred to keep the beaver suit on when we hooked up.”

  My eyes got big. “You had sex while he was dressed as a beaver?”

  I thought Skylar was going to swallow those pins. Her head fell against my leg as she laughed. “That’s so wrong, Peyton. So . . . so wrong. I did not need that image in my head.”

  “It went a little something like this. Go, Bedford Beavers!” Peyton broke out into a pelvis-thrusting cheer dance. “Go! Go, Beavers! Go, Beavers!”

  They were both cracking up as I watched Peyton sling her Coke all over the floor, which made her laughter turn into that high-pitched giggle. My insides twitched, knowing my roommate would do a half-ass job cleaning up that mess and I would need to get the mop out tomorrow. Or maybe tonight. Another splash went all over the tile. Yeah, it would need to be done tonight.

  “Ooooh. Commercial’s over.”

  My fingers c
lenched up as I watched her go back in the living room. I swear our house would resemble a bar floor if I didn’t walk around with a bottle of Lysol behind her. “Peyton?”

  “I promise. Next commercial. The floor will sparkle.”

  Skylar snickered next to me as she went back to pinning. I couldn’t understand her, but I’m pretty sure it was a “Yeah, right.”

  Over the noise of the television, I heard my phone ringing from my bedroom. Lucky was calling really early tonight. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait. Don’t leave.” Skylar tried to grab me, but I slipped past her, running down the hall with my skirt billowing out around me.

  I grabbed the phone right before it went to voicemail. “Hi.”

  “Hey.”

  That warm giddy feeling coursed through my body. It happened every time he called.

  “How was today?” I asked as I sat down on the edge of my bed.

  “Long.”

  He was recording a five-song demo album that would correspond with the tour next year. “Are you finished?”

  “Pretty much. Just needs all that glossy final-touch shit.”

  “You don’t need all the fancy stuff. I’d buy a song of yours even if it was recorded while singing over the phone.”

  He laughed. “Well, I guess my efforts to impress you worked.”

  “I’m serious. You’re really good.” I should know. He sang to me on the phone almost every night without any music.

  Just him. His voice. And me.

  “Thanks,” he whispered.

  “I mean it.”

  “I know.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I um. Isn’t it my turn tonight?”

  “Yes. I believe so.”

  “Well, I’m going out later with the guys. It’s Clark’s birthday. And I realized something. There’s a couple of things I still don’t know about you. Some important stuff.”

  I smiled. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, I don’t know your birthday or middle name. That might be handy. You know. Presents or blackmail.”

  “Oh. It’s Darlene.”

  “Katie Darlene Jenson.”

  I smiled. “Sounds very twangy when you say it.”

  And then he started singing the words. “Katie, my Katie, My darlin’ Katie. Or Katie Darlene. I get so confused. Is she Darlene or my darlin’?”

  “Stop. That’s awful.” I laughed as the pins stuck me in the sides, making me gasp.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The pins. They’re sticking me. Skylar . . .” As I tried to explain, I laughed harder, which embedded them deeper into my skin as I fell onto my back against the comforter. I was going to have a bed full of pins after this call. “Skylar needed a model for a costume. But the fabric is held together with pins.”

  “Another costume? What—”

  “Don’t even say it.”

  “Okay.” He chuckled. “So when’s your birthday? Sorry. I can’t do it. I have to know. What are you wearing this time?”

  Ignoring his question, I said, “My birthday is April thirteenth. I was actually born on Friday the thirteenth if you’re the superstitious type.”

  “You really don’t play fair. Fine. I’m picturing you in that black suit that Scarlett Johansson wore in The Avengers.”

  “It’s a Christmas play. I don’t think The Black Widow is in it.” I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me.

  “Scarlett would be in my play.”

  “I’m sure she would be.” I laughed. “So what about you? I need the important details too. When is your birthday?” And as the words left my mouth, a sudden panic caught me in the stomach. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey.” His voice got soft. “It’s okay. You thought I didn’t have a birthday?”

  “I don’t know. I asked, and then I remembered.”

  “It’s okay. Really. When I got a new birth certificate, they used the date of when my mama found me. They knew I was around two. So I turned three the next year on that day.”

  It took a moment for his words to sink in. “So you don’t know how old you really are?”

  “No, not really. Maybe I’m twenty-two or twenty-three. Or maybe I’m not even twenty-one and I’m illegally drinking.”

  “Am I supposed to laugh?” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to joke. I wished the conversation was in person. I wanted to see his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he whispered.

  As I lay on my back, I no longer noticed the pins sticking my skin. He didn’t know his birthday. He didn’t know his real age. Adopted kids still knew their actual birthday. Even me with my parents, I knew the day I was born. But he had no clue about his original identity. Or the lack thereof.

  “Katie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you’re curious, just ask me about it. I don’t care.”

  I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I could hear the distant sounds of his apartment in the background. We hadn’t talked about this since the first night at the diner. I was curious. I had wanted to ask questions. But that wasn’t something I felt was okay territory in our question-and-answer game.

  “Are you sure? You were about to go out.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll meet them later.”

  “Okay.” I gripped the phone, pushing it tighter against my ear. “Do you remember anything from before you were found at the church?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know for certain. When I was a kid, I used to look for this stuffed gray mouse. I’d look everywhere and not find it. I thought it was lost. I’d forget about it. Then a few weeks would pass and I would think about it again. I’d search, but I never found that mouse. One day, my Mama asked me what I was looking for and I said my mouse. She was confused. I never had a mouse.”

  I felt the weight of his words. “You think that’s a memory from before?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a few of those.”

  “Do the police really not have any clues on where you came from?”

  “Not really. They speculated some theories. Country people who didn’t have me in a hospital. Maybe someone who was passing through. I guess I’ll never know.”

  “I’m sorry. It has to be hard.” And the more I thought about his past, the more I realized his missing pieces. “You have this amazing voice. But you have no idea where it came from. If your parents could sing . . . or anyone else in your family.”

  He let out a breath. “I decided a long time ago that it didn’t matter. My real birthday. The person who left me there. My mama told me once, I’m sure they had their reasons. Maybe they’d made some bad decisions in life. But that night. Maybe that was them trying to make a good decision.”

  “That’s a beautiful way of looking at it,” I whispered. Tragic, yet beautiful—if that was such a thing.

  I listened to him on the other end of the phone. Deep breaths coming in a pattern that resonated with the beating of his heart. I couldn’t actually hear his heart through the phone. But I felt the beat as it moved with the sound of his breaths.

  I knew more about the way Lucky breathed than I did other things about him. We had exchanged many stories and favorite things. But knowing how one breathed was an intimate thing.

  “Katie, I miss you,” he whispered. “Maybe I shouldn’t say that. Or maybe it’s too soon. But I miss you. Maybe more than I should.”

  I shut my eyes. How could a person miss someone they just met? I didn’t know the answer to that question. I didn’t know the explanation.

  “I miss you too.”

  We talked for a few minutes longer before we eventually said goodbye. And on cue, I waited for his words. Sometimes they were new and sometimes the same. But every time they made me want a little more.

  LUCKY:

  A glimpse of your smile,

  Won’t be enough.

  ’Cause my heart keeps telling me,

  I need more of this stuff.

  Lucky’s show was on Saturday night in Tu
lsa at a bar called The Painted Rose on The Boulevard. When I mentioned it to my roommates, everyone wanted to go. Dylan volunteered to drive us over to the show, but I planned to ride back with Lucky.

  Dylan and Skylar climbed in the front of his black Porsche SUV. Yeah, he drove one of those. His family also had suite tickets at the football stadium. That’s where Skylar sat during the games while Peyton and I froze our butts off down in the student section.

  I got in the backseat, trying not to track any mud on the tan carpet. I was always afraid to touch anything inside his SUV. Afraid to get it dirty. Not Peyton. She immediately propped her cowboy boots up on the center console. I poked her in the side with my finger, giving the evil eye before Dylan saw her red Tony Lamas.

  “What?”

  I gestured toward her feet, trying not to make a scene. The car still smelled of showroom floor leather. She rolled her eyes but put her feet back down.

  The three of them chatted the entire drive into the city. Skylar and Peyton had a thirty-minute conversation about nail polish. I said exactly two words.

  I was nervous, which was ridiculous. I shouldn’t be nervous. We had talked every single night for the last couple of weeks. We had already said more sentences to each other than my entire relationship with Chase. Okay, maybe that wasn’t true, but our sentences were definitely filled with more depth.

  Dylan dropped us off at the entrance and went to park. Lucky wasn’t playing until later, but he was already inside the bar. A large painted rose logo covered the old metal door. It was more of a Guns N’ Roses pictorial than the romantic kind. I walked inside, getting a whiff of burned cheese fries. And there he was, sitting at the bar with a single bottle of beer.

  Lucky hadn’t seen us yet. I turned to Peyton and Skylar. “I want to talk to him first, then I’ll introduce you.”

  “Okay, but I seriously want to touch him.” Peyton eyed him from fifteen feet away.

  I shook my head, knowing my roommate was more than likely serious. “No touching.”