Lex and Lu

by J Santiago

  He laughed again. “I wish you could have seen her face. You would have loved it. You know Willa is never caught off guard.” More laughter. “Fucking classic.”

  “She didn’t tell me anything other than you spent the night there.”

  He nodded his head and went back to looking at the ceiling. “Of course she didn’t. That’s Willa. If I ever need a lawyer again, I’m hiring her.”

  “Smart man,” Lu said, grinning. “So are you going to tell me anything?”

  “Probably not,” he said.

  Lu felt herself struggling with the mad again.

  “I fired Caroline,” Lex informed her.

  “What?” Lu’s surprise was evident in her voice.

  He didn’t elaborate. Lu guessed that was his way of telling her something, but she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to get out of it.

  “Mr. Helms wants you,” she informed him, as though she knew anything about it.

  “Yeah, I’m meeting with some potential replacements when we get back. My contract’s coming up, but it’s not happening right now, so I have some time to make a good decision.” Lex sat up. Leaning forward, he said, “Our conversation that night, when you told me about my mother, that changed how I felt. I need to make it up to her. So that’s why I want her here. I’ve also gathered that things between her and Dr. A. have been pretty tense. I thought if I got them away from Sarasota, they could maybe see their way through.”

  Taking a deep breath, Lex shifted. “So, is that a good enough explanation?” he asked.

  Lu looked at him and nodded her head. “Yes, it is.”

  “You feel satisfied? I explained myself.”

  Lu should have sensed a trap, but she didn’t. She was caught up in his shared confidences and feeling as though they were forging some bond. “Yes. Thank you for telling me.”

  “Don’t thank me, Lu. It comes with a price.”

  38

  “A price?” she said, stupidly.

  “Yes, a price.”

  “Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” she said flippantly, smiling at him like this was all normal banter.

  Lex didn’t say anything. He looked at her for a long while. Lu imagined she should have felt nervous, but something more like an adrenaline rush coursed through her. Like the anticipation of a first kiss. As he continued to study her, her stomach did flips. But his eyes never wavered from her face. There were no longing glances at her lips. He didn’t look like a man in the throes of desire.

  Lex knew that this conversation had to take place, but he felt caught between the desire to have it and the knowledge that it could snap the tenuous twig of their relationship. As much as he wanted to spare her any hurt, he needed for her to come clean. He had to know. He struggled to figure out if he should channel Willa’s in-your-face approach or Pete’s diplomatic one. What he needed from her had nothing to do with Nina or Jo or Dr. A. Bracing himself, he stepped to the edge of the precipice and prayed that he could have this conversation while preserving their fledging truce.

  He got up from the couch and sat on the coffee table directly in front of her, invading her space. His proximity took over the anticipation and turned it toward nervous. Bracing his arms on his legs, he leaned toward her.

  “Why did you sleep with me?”

  Lu shouldn’t have been shocked, but the question threw her. Her hands shook, so she quickly put the wineglass down. She couldn’t move away from him as he’d effectively trapped her between the couch, the coffee table, and himself. She wanted to look anywhere but at him, but the only way to avoid him would have been to close her eyes, and she wasn’t that much of a wimp. But maybe she could bluff her way out of this conversation. She felt pretty confident that Lex didn’t really want to know her reason.

  She smiled what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Do I really need to explain basic chemistry to you, Lex?” She tried to keep her tone from flippant, knowing he’d sniff that out pretty quickly.

  Raising his eyebrow, he attempted to model the death stare. Damn it, he thought, she’s going to fight me on this. He knew then that she didn’t trust him enough, but he’d already peered into Pandora’s box and there wasn’t anything he was going to do to try to fit the top back on.

  “Sure, Lu. I get chemistry. Been doing it for a lot longer than you and have most assuredly mixed a lot more reactants together. That’s what you want to chalk it up to? Just sex?”

  Again with the jealously, thought Lu as his reference to his healthy sex life smacked her in the face. Part of her wanted to tell him, but she held tightly to her childhood dreams, not willing for them to be shattered by his adult reality. “Look, Lex, we were both in the same place at the same time for the first time in almost ten years. Of course we resorted back into the roles. It’s completely natural that we ended up there.”

  “Completely natural, huh?” Lex studied her. He wasn’t sure how far she would take the sophisticated-sexual-being routine, but for the moment he was content to let her continue.

  “Yes.” Lu leaned forward and put her hand on Lex’s knee. The casualness of the effort took everything she had in her. “We are going to be raising a daughter together and I don’t want things to be strange between us. I don’t want to feel like I have to be ready for our interactions. We probably shouldn’t have been together back in May, but we can’t undo that now. Let’s just chalk it up to a mistake and move forward.”

  “A mistake?”

  “Yes. A pleasant mistake,” she smiled, hoping that she was convincing him.

  Annoyed with her, Lex got up, disengaging from her touch and putting some physical distance between them. “How many men have you slept with since I left?” he asked.

  “That’s none of your business, Lex,” Lu responded, laughing, not rising to his bait while she prayed this would be over soon.

  “I’m just trying to figure out if casual sex is your thing,” he responded, a cutting edge to his voice.

  “Lex. Why are you mad?” she asked innocently, but the act became harder.

  Lex mentally threw up his hands. Talking to her wasn’t working. He walked back to where she was sitting. Grabbing her by the arms, he pulled her off the couch and into his body. His left hand snaked around the back of her head drawing her mouth to his. Her eyes wide with surprise, he kissed her, hoping to knock the shroud of nonchalance from her. She resisted for half a second before her mouth opened to welcome his. He’d meant to jar her, but kissing her felt too good. He felt her arms move up around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair. Pliant for the moment, he wished she would let him into her thoughts and not just into her body. Remembering May, he broke the kiss.

  Lu felt him pull away from her. Part of her relieved, part disappointed. When he pushed her away from him, the look on his face didn’t scream of passion and love as she’d hoped. Instead she saw his mad. Bracing herself, she stepped away from him.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped at her.

  She hated her reaction to him. Her body betrayed her every time. Looking at his, she could see the tension radiating off of him, but she didn’t understand why he wanted to push them down this path. What would come of it if she told him she’d waited for him for the last nine years? It would make every encounter difficult. They’d go back to communicating through his lawyer. She just wanted to be able to coexist with him. It was enough for now.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” he said.

  Startled by his anger and a little pissed that he was mad at her, she snapped back at him. “What is your problem?”

  “My problem is you. Who are you? You’re the fucking Ice Queen. Do you feel anything?” Lex was so frustrated he didn’t know what to do with it. Was this really who she was? This woman who had no feeling, who could act like what happened between them was simple chemistry, not any emotion. Did she really think that the sex they had in the Sunday-school room was OK? He’d had nightmares about that encounter, had woken up in a cold sweat thinking he’d pract
ically raped her. How was she OK with that? Why didn’t she react? Had his desertion stunted her so much that she didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t react to anything? He’d forced her to move to England and she hadn’t even batted an eyelash.

  Lu flinched.

  He saw it and decided to hell with it; he was going for broke.

  “I practically raped you that day, Lu. Can you sit there and tell me that it’s OK?” he asked.

  She flinched again. “You’d just lost your father and found out that you had an eight-year-old daughter—who I’d kept from you.”

  “Really? You’re letting me off that easy?” He shook his head. “What happened to you? Why don’t you defend yourself? Why are you letting everything happen to you rather than trying to have a say in it?”

  Lu would never know what part of his tirade finally pushed her too far. She felt betrayed by him in that moment, as if everything she’d done for him and his daughter wasn’t enough for him to allow her the existence that she knew she could handle. But suddenly, her mouth opened and her soul lay bare.

  “Have a say in it? What have I had a say in for the last nine years? I certainly didn’t have a say in you staying or going. Even though I believed you when you said you would come back and be with us, even knowing that, I knew you were leaving me. And you never looked back. I was alone and pregnant with my mother hounding me to have an abortion and my sister looking at me with pity because she knew you weren’t coming back. For six weeks I lived in limbo. And then I had to turn to your mother. Yes, she saved our child, but the price I had to pay for that, the price of your absence from our child’s life—that’s a big price. I sold my fucking soul that day. And where were you? Oh, you were off pursuing your dream. The shit part of it, Lex, is that I loved you enough that I convinced myself that it was the right thing for you.

  “When Mr. P. died, I couldn’t stay away. I knew I should because I needed to stay away from you. But you wouldn’t leave me alone. I begged you for distance. I tried to stay away, but you kept coming. I knew that I had to tell you about Nina and the only way to do that was to keep the distance between us. But you couldn’t do that. You wore me down. Even then, fuck, even then I wanted to protect you. It was going to be hard enough telling you about Nina without having sex between us. You think I didn’t know that? That’s why I couldn’t look at you. I couldn’t have you inside of me and look into your eyes and lie to you. So don’t you dare fucking come at me about not feeling and about not acting. I’ve been doing nothing but feeling for you for my entire life. And every goddamn sacrifice I’ve made in the last nine years has been for you.”

  Walking to him she got right in his face. “Is that what you needed to know, Lex? Did I stroke your ego enough? Does it make you feel better to know that I’ve loved you the whole time? That I never stopped? That my dreams, which I’ve buried but held on to, are filled with images of us being a family? Does that make you fucking happy, Lex?” Seething, with tears she couldn’t feel coursing down her face, she held her ground. “Don’t you dare call me the Ice Queen, you son of a bitch. You fucking left me. So any ice around my heart is on you.”

  He reached out for her, trying to pull her into his embrace, but she fought him, arms flailing as her strength was no match for his. He held her stiffly in his arms, with her still pushing him away.

  “Lu, I’m so sorry.”

  Pushing against him with a force that surprised both of them, she flew back from his body. “Don’t fucking touch me. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want anything from you.” She turned and ran from the room.

  He tried. She’d asked him to leave her alone and he did. For about fifteen minutes. Fifteen slow, agonizing minutes. Sitting heavily on the couch, his head resting in his hands, he fought the good fight. Then he followed her. Opening the door to her room, he found her standing at the window, arms wrapped tightly across her chest. He silently closed the door and walked to her. Engulfing her tiny frame, he slid his arms around her and pulled her against him. This time, she didn’t fight.

  He’d expected tears, but her silence spread through him, a chasm between them.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he bent his head to her ear. Without meaning to or even being conscious of his actions, he kissed her below her ear, on the spot he’d claimed at seventeen.

  Lu drew a long shuddering breath that rippled through both of them. “What are you sorry for?” she asked, no hint of her earlier anger present.

  He didn’t mean to, but he smiled against her neck. “A lot. Mostly for the funeral.”

  He felt her stiffen.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  Without relinquishing his hold on her, he tried to comfort her with his body, hoping to soften his words. “My relentless pursuit,” he said simply.

  “Of everything—that’s what you are sorry for?”

  He knew that if he’d been looking at her, her eyes would have been wide with questions. “Yeah. We’d be in a different place if I’d stayed away from you.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps.”

  He lifted his head from her neck and rested it on hers. Standing together, they were quiet for a long time, both lost in their thoughts, not ready to share. Lex attempted to reconcile his part in the sequence of events that had brought them to this point. He’d been slowly maneuvering the pieces in his mind, trying to get a clear picture. He chalked up his laissez-faire reaction to Lu’s supposed abortion and his subsequent radio silence to the category of immaturity. At nineteen, with his dream within his reach, he’d taken the out that was offered. Even with hindsight, blah, blah, blah, he thought the outcome would have been the same. What he could have changed, the thing he wished they could do over, was his relentless pursuit of her when they met at the funeral. He was so accustomed to sex without strings that he’d blown their chance. If he’d listened to her, her plea for him to give her time to talk to him after the funeral, maybe this outcome could have been different.

  Or maybe not, he thought as his body began to react to her nearness. He wasn’t sure when the embrace of comfort began to change. He’d wanted her then and he wanted her now. But that’s exactly what had gotten them here—separated by their past. Kissing her on top of the head, he let her go.

  39

  Lex expected Lu to bail on their Christmas Eve activities. He’d expected it and almost welcomed it. After their fight, he’d been unable to sleep. He’d hoped that if he pushed her hard enough she’d let go of some of the tightly held control. Fairly certain that she’d held on to all of that anger and angst for the last nine years, he couldn’t help but experience a myriad of emotions. She’d needed to say all of those things to him years ago. He’d robbed her of an outlet. Who did she have to talk to all of those years? Even Willa seemed to play some inadvertent role in their saga. While he felt sorry for all the pain he’d caused her, she’d admitted to him that she still hoped they could be together. He didn’t know if she still held on to that dream, but he knew midway through their fight he wanted that.

  He’d assumed that their coming together at the funeral had all been about familiarity and comfort. But being with her he experienced emotions he’d been unable to replicate during his years away from her. The night they’d spent together at his father’s funeral haunted him—that and their last encounter. He didn’t know if he would be able to convince her, but he wanted another chance. But he was stuck. He couldn’t ask her to take another chance on him. He knew he could coerce her, but he didn’t want to have to. So for the day, he left her to her own devices and did his best to provide her with the space she seemed to want.

  They’d picked up their parents early and had strolled through the city without any agenda. Although Lu was present, Lu’s reticence toward him was apparent—if not to everyone, then to Willa, Pete, and Lex. Her attentiveness to all the proceedings waned often, and she seemed to drop behind to take in something that everyone else had blown by. By three o’clock, they finished up with their touring and headed bac
k to get ready for dinner. Lex had rented out a room at a seafood restaurant for their Christmas Eve dinner. It wasn’t the traditional party, but the fare would be similar. Everyone had been on their best behavior, so he had high hopes that dinner would be a pleasant experience. He’d taken Nina shopping before everyone arrived and she’d picked out a very traditional Christmas dress that she’d kept hidden from Lu so she could surprise her.

  Lex showered and got dressed. As he put on his suit jacket, images of him and Lu together in the Sunday-school room flashed through his mind. It was the last time he’d worn this suit and he hoped Lu didn’t recognize it—a reminder of his darkest hour. He pushed his hands in the pocket and drew out an envelope. He saw his father’s bold script. Feeling like the air had been sucked out of the room, Lex sank to his bed. In all of the chaos of that day, he’d completely forgotten about the letter. It took him ten minutes of internal debate to decide if he wanted to read it now or wait until after dinner. But having forgotten about it for so long, he pulled open the envelope and pulled it out.

  Dear Lex,

  Unfortunately when you read this letter, I will no longer be with you. It seems odd to write those words even though I’ve had a lot of time to get used to the idea. I’ve also included a letter for Pete in here figuring Caroline would safeguard both until it was time to hand them to you. Even though I know you will, allow Pete to decide if he’d like to share it with you. With the years and bond between you two, I imagine he’ll do it on his own accord.

  Being a parent to the two of you has been the greatest experience of my life. Had someone told me how hard it would be when I was younger, I was arrogant enough that I wouldn’t have believed them but you will know soon what I mean. You hope every day that you are doing the right thing for your children and teaching them the right lessons. The men that you and Pete have become provide me with peace and pride as I know that your mother and I were able to get something right. Although I have to say that we were merely stewards as you were each your own people from birth.