by Lyssa Layne
He nods, leaning into my touch, turning his lips in and kissing my palm. “I’ll stay. Really stay.”
“You don’t want to talk about it? Maybe it would help,” I offer one last time.
“Just keep doing what you do, Liv. It helps more than you know.”
I drop my hand from his face down to his chest and pat it. “Alright then. In that case. Go shower. You fucking stink.”
He manages a faint smile but it’s enough. He’s back. He’ll stay.
Lucas
“Why do you look pissed?” Memphis asks as soon as I walk in the door. I’ve had him walking on eggshells the last few weeks, I didn’t even realize how bad it was getting until Liv called me out on it.
“I’m not pissed, I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten anything more substantial than broccoli in days.”
He laughs. “You know, at this point I don’t think eating a steak is going to hurt your chances any. It’s not like you’re making much progress eating nothing but rabbit food day in and day out.”
I’m only partially listening on my way to his fridge. “Not entirely true. I’ve shared every meal with her thus far this month, plus I’m at her place more than I’m anywhere else. That’s progress, my friend, and she knows it.” I’m face to face with a box of chicken wings Memphis brought home from The Wing House down the street. They don’t even smell good to me. Fuck. She broke me already.
“Tell me how she knows this. I want to know because I just saw Sketch last night, and she gave me no indication that Heartbreaker is succumbing to your charms.” He pulls up a barstool at the counter and has a seat so he can mock me more comfortably.
“Why would Sketch tell you anything about Heartbreaker anyway?” I’m still getting used to calling her that, but I want to. It seems important to call her by the name the rest of the world uses when they talk to her. Like maybe that will help separate the me now from the eleven-year-old me who calls her Liv.
“She wouldn’t.” He takes a swig of the Budweiser bottle he sat down with. “Except I asked.”
I grab a beer and close the fridge. It’s not food, but maybe a good buzz will help me forget I’m starving. “And?”
“And, she didn’t say anything.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He reaches out, pointing his bottle at me. “Yes, it is. It means there’s nothing to tell. If there’s nothing to tell, you’re not getting anywhere.”
“Or, there’s nothing to tell because it’s obvious. I see her every day. I hang at her house every night –“
“With your sisters.”
“Not the point.”
He laughs. Again. This time louder and with more audible ridicule, but I don’t let it sway me.
“You don’t get it. You don’t know her like I do. She’s not going to admit anything is happening until it’s already happened. Until it’s done and over with and we’re settled into something she can’t undo or deny. If that needs to happen in slow motion, I don’t fucking care. It is happening.”
“Face it dude, you’ve been friend zoned.”
I pound my bottle onto the counter so hard the foam overflows and I’m forced to try and slurp it up in a hurry before it makes a mess.
“I haven’t been friend zoned.” I get my phone out of my pocket and bring up her number. It’s right there in my messages. It’s also clear as day that I text her at least five times as often as she responds. If I wasn’t feeling so confident about her attachment to me, I might be forced to face that I’m prone to being needy and have some borderline stalker tendencies. “I’m going to prove to you, right now, that I am nowhere near the friend zone.”
I hit call.
I put it on speaker.
I wait.
She answers. “What?”
She lacks phone etiquette. It’s not personal.
“I’m just calling to let you know that I’m making reservations for tonight at The Willow.” It’s the most romantic place in town, known for its perfect marriage proposal settings. Not that I’m proposing, just not leaving any room for misinterpretations regarding our relationship.
“Sounds like date.”
Good. She got it.
“Yes. Definitely a date.” Smug is probably an understatement regarding my current expression. Another thing I don’t want to leave open for misinterpretation, this time for Memphis.
“Cool. I’m glad you’re getting out. You need it. I’ll tell the girls you won’t be joining us for pasta tonight then.”
“What?”
“Well, have fun.” And that’s it. She hangs up.
I lower the phone to the counter, face down, as if that will ease the humiliation in some way.
“She fucking friend zoned me.”
Memphis is decent enough not to laugh as loud this time. “Told ya.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Heartbreaker
Madi tugs at a strand of my hair to get my attention. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been weird ever since you got home.”
And here I was so close to dozing off. “That’s like, an improvement, right? If I’ve only been weird since I got home.”
She relinquishes her hold on my hair and resolves to nudge me so hard I nearly fall out of her bed. Not that I was planning on staying in it all night, but I did get fairly comfortable during the last thirty minutes of Dirty Dancing.
“I’m being serious. Did something happen at the shop? Are things getting worse?” She starts to sit up, the opposite of what she’s supposed to be doing at one thirty in the morning, even if she doesn’t have school tomorrow.
“Everything at the shop is fine. I’m fine. I’m fucking exhausted, but I’m fine.”
Her nose crinkles and she squints at me. She’s not going for it.
“It’s Lucas.”
“No.” And now I’m willing to vacate her bed without any further nudging.
“Why do you get weirded out when he’s around?”
“Have the last five years taught you nothing? I like my personal space to be a man free zone. It’s less complicated that way. And Lucas, well, he’s cramping my style.” I reach down and yank my pillow out from under her elbow. I’m going to be needing that. “Although, after tonight, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem anymore.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Because he had a date tonight. Took her to the Willow.” I wiggle my eyebrows when I say it for added effect. And to show her how little I care.
Madi looks confused. “No, he didn’t.”
“Yes, he did. Called me at work to tell me.”
“I don’t care what he told you. He didn’t go to the Willow. He was here for pasta as planned, and when you didn’t show to make it, he called and ordered us pizza, which he ate with us while watching three back to back episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show.”
“The Dick Van Dyke Show was on TV?”
“No. Hayes found the DVDs at the library so we decided to binge watch all five seasons.”
“And you guys started without me?”
She shakes her head. “We’re getting off point.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. Because Lucas wasn’t on a date.”
“But I don’t care about that.”
“Because you care about Dick.”
“What girl doesn’t?!”
She sighs. “And we’re off track again.”
I hug my pillow to me and smile at her. I need sleep. So does she. “Night, Madi.”
“It doesn’t work anymore; you know? Trying to confuse me into forgetting what I was really talking about.”
“That’s what you think.” I turn off the light and walk out of the room, pulling the door nearly shut behind me. I still like the crack. Not that she’s likely to cry out for me at any point during the night, I just don’t like feeling like we’re completely shut off from one another.
Strolling down the hall toward my own room, I’m working non-stop on ignoring the fact I sort of already
knew. Lucas didn’t have a date. It doesn’t matter. Except it does, because I feel annoyingly relieved now.
Then there’s a knock at my front door and all relief floods from my system in one ginormous whoosh. Who in the hell is at my house at this hour?
Clinging to the best case scenario in which Sketch is standing on the other side of that door holding two pints of ice cream and begging me to watch Dick Van Dyke until the sun comes up, I try to force out the more terrifying image of Marcus. Or worse. His new business partner.
I skip the peephole. There’s no benefit to knowing who’s outside before I open the door. If it’s Sketch she’ll just keep banging at it until it opens, if it’s Marcus and his new bff they’ll just break that shit down all together. Either way, whoever it is, is likely coming in. Might as well get it done and over with.
The door is barely open when his hands are on my face. His lips are pressed to mine. His tongue is dancing inside my mouth and his body is glued to me in a way I think might be permanent. And I don’t care. Because I can’t think, I can only feel. And this, him, everything, feels fucking amazing.
My eyes only open again when I feel his lips break away from mine. His hands are still cupping my face firmly, like he’s worried I might try to escape. I won’t. Not this time. Not now.
“I am not your fucking friend, Liv,” he growls, his green eyes searing into me with an intensity I can barely stand. “I’m not some kid with puppy dog eyes and a silly crush. I show up to see you every day, because I want to fucking see you every day. Hell, I wanna do way more than see you, but you’re too damn scared to do any more than look, so I don’t either. I take it slow. I show up, and I take it slow. And that’s fine, but don’t you go and pretend like it’s not still happening. You and me. It’s happening. In slow fucking motion if it must, but it is happening. Are we clear?”
“Uh, I think so.” And I use the term think loosely. Right now all I can do is focus on the heat his mouth left behind on my own. And chills. Chills all up and down my body I’d love to blame on the cool night air blowing in through the open door, but I can’t. That’s not what they’re from.
“You think so?” He’s clearly not satisfied with my answer, and he doesn’t even know how tentative it actually was.
“To be fair, you did sort of ambush me.” I’m not complaining. I’m not sure if I’m conveying this properly.
“Yeah, I had to. Trying to be subtle wasn’t really working for me. You needed something equal to being hit over the head with a hammer.”
For someone who’s been yelling at me ever since he stopped kissing me, I find him inappropriately hot right now.
“I resent that.” I don’t really. The more time I have to sit with this the clearer I’m becoming on the fact that I don’t resent any of this.
“Resent it all you want. All I care is if it worked.”
“If I say no, will you resort to less verbal ways to clarify it some more?”
I vaguely hear the door slam behind him as he moves me backward through the foyer and into the living room, lying me down on the sofa all while never once taking his lips off of me. This is all wrong. In every way. Except one. It feels so fucking right.
Lucas
“We need to stop.”
No sooner have the words burst from her lips and into my mouth, than I’m finding myself on the floor. Next to the couch.
“Oops.”
She seems briefly horrified about having shoved me onto the ground. Briefly. She recovers almost immediately and begins to giggle uncontrollably, so much she has to grab a throw pillow to cover her face and muffle her laughter.
“I’m glad you find this so amusing.” I try to sound stern. I don’t. I can’t possibly be pissed at someone who looks so completely and utterly adorable right now. Grinning from ear to ear like a dope, I climb back up to slide her over some and join her on the sofa again. This time I’m holding on to her tighter. If I take another tumble to the hardwood, she’s coming with me.
Not interested in talking to her cushions, I yank the pillow from her grasp and find her face flushed crimson red from laughing so hard.
“Wanna tell me what that was about?” I ask, gently brushing her wild hair back out of her eyes so I can get a better look at her. She’s crying from laughing so hard.
“Sorry,” she whispers, slowly getting a hold of herself. “I panicked.”
“Why?”
Her fingers reach up to cover her mouth. She’s embarrassed. “Because.”
“Because why?”
She closes her eyes, like she’s trying to hide from me. “I caught myself…thinking things.”
“What kind of things?” She’s starting to worry me. If she starts talking about my mother one more fucking time, I may never have a boner ever again.
She squirms in my arms. It’s cute. Then her lids fly upward and her eyes roll along with them until she’s staring anywhere but back at me. “Naked things.”
“Naked things?”
“Mostly just naked you.”
“Let me get this straight. You imagined me without my clothes on, and this caused some sort of involuntary reflex that forced you to push me as far away from you as possible?”
Her eyes meet mine on instinct, because she’s about to argue. Then she gets it.
“You tricked me.”
“Had to.” I hold her to me closer still. “You were getting weirded out, and you never feel more comfortable than when you’re fighting with me.”
“That’s not exactly a promising assessment of our future together.”
“I think the fact that you just admitted we have a future together puts us in a much better position than you might imagine.”
She sighs. “Lucas.”
“Yes…”
“I realize that cramming my tongue down your throat for the last twenty minutes may be somewhat contradictory to the things I’ve been saying to you regarding the possibilities…of us, but all the same reasons this is a bad, bad…bad idea are still in effect.”
I brush my thumb over her cheek, slowly moving it back and forth over her flawless skin. “Unless one of those reasons is that you don’t want to be with me, none of them matter.”
“I’m not just being paranoid about our age difference here, Lucas. What about your parents? What about your future?” She’s evading my gaze, her fingers nervously playing with the buttons on my shirt.
“What about my future?” As far as I can see, the only future I give a shit about is one with her in it.
“You’re supposed to be heading into the office alongside your father and grandfather. Destined for a career in the public eye that will include fancy dinner parties, high profile galas and charities at the country club. You really think I’m the girl you want to have standing beside you when you enter into that life?”
My thumb slides down from her cheek under her chin. I raise it up until her eyes are forced to meet mine. “You’re the girl, Liv. No matter where I wind up going or what life I wind up living, you’re the girl I want standing beside me. The only girl, Liv.”
“That was a really good answer.”
“It’s the truth.” I lean in and kiss her softly. “Now then, did we cover all of your current objections?”
“Not even close.” But she presses her mouth to mine anyway.
“Anything else you wanna talk about?” I’ve got maybe thirty seconds left of thinking clearly before all reason is obliterated by the desire to be with her.
“Nope.” I can feel her lips spread into a smile as they move over mine, her tongue sweeping over my mouth, teasing me. “You said none of them mattered.”
I almost miss it. Almost can’t focus enough to hear what she’s telling me. “Say it.”
Her gaze is red hot as she pulls away from my kiss, staying right there in reach, hovering over my mouth, taunting me, torturing me until I can feel her breath as her lips part ways to speak.
“I want to be with you.” Her fingers splay on my chest, b
oth to grip me and still hold me at bay. “Be patient with me.”
“Always.”
“Right now.”
“So…no naked things tonight.
She smirks. “Only mental naked things.”
“I can live with that, provided I can keep kissing you as long as I like.”
Her lids fall shut as she sinks into my chest and murmurs, “Kiss away.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Heartbreaker
I wake up still wrapped in his arms. This has never happened to me, and I don’t just mean with Lucas. In all my thirty-four years I’ve never woken up in a man’s arms. I wonder if this speaks worse of me or the men I’ve chosen in the past. Am I so closed off and cold to the core that the concept of cuddling has seriously escaped me until now? Or were all the others just total assholes? All the others sound ridiculous. I’ve had maybe three serious boyfriends in my life. One was in high school, so that might not even count as serious.
God, I think it’s me. The anti-hugger. How did Lucas make it past my no hugging rules?
“I see what you mean now about Lucas cramping your style and getting all up in your space,” Madi’s voice rings in my ear loud and clear and I nearly jump out of my own skin.
Lucas’s arms tighten around me as if he’s anticipating another shove to the floor. Much to my own shock, pushing away from him wasn’t even my first impulse this time. I think he broke me.
“Good morning, Madi,” his husky voice greets her from the crook of my neck where his face is still buried under half of my hair. His hot breath tickles my skin. I think now I might be experiencing a sensory overload between the nerves, the physical euphoria and the overwhelming humiliation from being busted by my niece, I can barely form a coherent thought, let alone say one out loud.