by Tiffany Sala
I slowed as I reached the car, realising something was wrong. This was my car, but…
The window rolled down, and Lucy Starling tipped her sunglasses up to squint at me. “Callie? Can I help you?”
This was Lucy’s car, not mine. I’d gotten myself tripped up in my distraction.
I tried to explain, but I was still so shaken from the day the words wouldn’t come together in my mouth. Finally I swivelled to point at my own pink convertible, also in roof-up mode… but with a dent in one of the rear passenger doors I could see from all the way across the carpark.
Lucy winced. “Oh, did you have an accident? Are you going to need a ride somewhere?”
“I think I’ll be fine, thanks,” I said. “I just didn’t recognise my own car at first.”
“It does seem to be a popular choice here,” Lucy observed.
“And no, it wasn’t an accident… I’d say whoever did it was very clear in their actions.”
“I feel like there are some things I haven’t missed out on by skipping high school,” Lucy said.
“A lot. Anyway, I won’t keep bothering you…”
Before I could excuse myself, Lucas was there on the other side of the car. I yelped, and staggered back a few steps.
“Now Callie, I have it on the authority of a few people in the know that I am not in fact an ugly monster yet,” Lucas said.
His face still carried a patchwork of bandages: over his nose, and a few forming a line across the right side of his face. He did, in fact, still seem to be a handsome bastard underneath the bandages, but they broke up the impression of him just enough that he wasn’t able to overwhelm me with his looks. I faced him with all the righteous indignation that had built up again over the afternoon.
“Okay, Lucas, so I know what you must have said to Ashleigh, and I’m going to have to wear that… but what the fuck are you thinking letting people believe I had something to do with your accident?”
“You did,” Lucas said. “What about that was a lie?”
“Lucas, you know I was nowhere near you when you had that accident. You fucking know it!”
“You know what I know,” Lucy spoke up, “is that I didn’t survive my own cells trying to go rogue on me just so I could suffer through my brother’s messed-up personal issues.” I took another step back as her car started. “You two can sort this out. Lucas, please make an effort.”
I stared after her in awe as she drove off school property and disappeared around a corner, ditching Lucas as casually as he had ditched me before his accident. I couldn’t help thinking that was Lucy’s way of making a point.. and the thing was, Lucas had taken it from her without a fight. He was just staring at where she had been last, the same as me.
When his eyes flicked back over to me, I smiled without meaning to. I stiffened when I saw something flare in them.
“Lucas, no.”
“No what?” I could tell that had been the wrong thing, too. “I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I know you well enough now to see when something is going on in your head. And I just want to make it clear I’m not tolerating that any more. If you try to bully me into doing something I’m not completely on board with, I will not hesitate to tell someone what you’re doing. Maybe the police if that’s what it takes.”
“Why do you think they’re going to believe you?” Lucas said, but it was a weak challenge from him. I stared at him, and he actually ducked his head a little.
Of course, he was quickly thinking again, and I let him have a go at it this time.
“Steven’s got sport this afternoon,” said Lucas, “so he’s already out of here. And I wouldn’t trust anyone else in my group enough to get in a car with them. They’re not exactly a careful driver like you are.”
Moving straight into scamming a lift with flattery sounded exactly like the Lucas I had come to know. “You like to be the one who has control over how much you smash yourself up, huh?”
“Here’s what I was going to suggest.” Lucas wasn’t doing as good a job of pretending he hadn’t heard what I’d said as was usually his standard, but I could still practically feel the power radiating off him. “Your car needs some work done. It’s arguably my fault. So I figured I would just come with you to that guy you like seeing, and pay for whatever work needs to be done. Short-circuit the whole insurance process, because you know they’ll start giving you hell if you have to keep making claims.”
“I’m surprised you’re going to have any money to spare after the number you did on your own car, again,” I commented. I was also surprised he was so willing to acknowledge he’d been at fault, when the connection was sketchy even to my mind.
Lucas tried to shrug, then winced. “Callie, the amount of money we’re talking about here… you still don’t get it. It’s going to be, like, a few thousand max. I could do that every week and be fine.”
“Well, I suppose it’s good to know how often I should expect you to smash up my car,” I said. “I wish you’d been willing to offer something like this before I had my old one dragged away and probably crushed into a little cube.”
“Your old car wasn’t good for anything but being a little cube,” said Lucas. “Now I said I could drop a few thousand each week, but here’s the thing: I don’t spend my money on bullshit. If I’m going to use that few thousand, I’ve got to think it’s worth it.”
Something changed in his eyes even as he was staring at me. I couldn’t understand it, but I almost reeled. “So are we going to go?”
I’d started to underestimate him again. “Don’t try anything,” I warned, but now I was the one who sounded weak.
Lucas shot me a wink that must have hurt a little as he turned towards my car. “When have I ever tried something I didn’t think I could get away with?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Jesus,” said Rob. “What is this girly car?”
Well it certainly proved my point to Lucas, but I almost wished we’d gone somewhere else where I wouldn’t have to front up to a guy who already knew me so well. “As you know, my insurance wouldn’t cover the damage to my old one, and…”
Rob’s eyes shifted over to Lucas. “I take it the policy payout didn’t exactly cover this baby.”
“I imagine they would have been a little reluctant.”
I tried to slow my breathing as Rob turned his attention back to the car. I didn’t really know why I was so nervous about what Rob thought of me. Realistically he seemed to have respect for me I didn’t get from a lot of men his age, but I doubted he was thinking about me at all when I wasn’t putting a car in front of him to work on.
Rob’s fingers were tapping on the crude penis drawing. “Put your signature on it then, did you?”
“Callie can tell you it’s not mine,” Lucas said.
I wanted to start digging a hole to bury myself, but Rob didn’t even blink.
“Now,” he said, “this denting here should buff right out with the help of a scouring cloth, and I’ve just had someone pull out of bringing their car in today, so I can get one of my boys to spend some time on it if you’re able to leave it with me until six.”
I glanced at Lucas. “I think I can waste a couple hours with you at the shops,” he said.
“Very good,” Rob said, “I’ll make sure we have it ready for you by six o’clock.” He looked Lucas’s injured parts up and down again as he got to his feet. “I’m fairly certain once I make it clear to Mitch he’ll lose the ability to do much of anything if he disappoints you, he’ll be done with five minutes to spare.”
It wasn’t Rob’s fault I was sensitive about that particular joke at the moment, so I managed to restrain myself from strangling him. I didn’t want him to think I was unappreciative of him getting one of his people to look at it so quickly.
I was becoming really unexpectedly nasty these days. It had to be the stress of the past few weeks… but also, I realised I was very nervous about having to spend a couple of hours with Lucas when, for
the first time, I didn’t think he might try something with me.
When Lucas started chuckling to himself, I resisted the temptation of asking him what was up. That seemed to be what he was aiming for, after all. If he had something to say, he would have to bring it up with me without playing stupid games.
“It’s funny you let him talk to you that way,” he spoke up finally.
“Like what, making jokes?” I shrugged. “He does a good job and never tries to overcharge or trick me into work I don’t need. I don’t care if he thinks he’s funny, I kind of like it.”
“I mean specifically saying he’s going to fix your car with a scouring cloth. Do you think he’s making those sorts of jokes to his male customers?”
“I don’t know,” I said, “you tell me.”
“I think some of them would take very unkindly to that sort of flippancy, but he knows he can get away with it with you.”
“I think you’re starting to construct conspiracy theories because all your usual ways of getting my attention won’t work any more,” I shot back.
“Maybe,” Lucas said. “They wouldn’t have worked in the first place though if you weren’t so desperate for the validation of men, would they?”
That was far too close to what I’d been thinking earlier. It actually terrified me. Maybe I could call the cops on Lucas if he started manipulating me into acts I didn’t want to have go that way, but if he had some sort of innate insight into my mind, there was nobody who could protect me from him. “Lucas, just shut up, honestly. Let’s go look in some shops and then at six I’ll take you home and we can both feel good about the day.”
“Seems to me you should feel pretty good about what you’re getting out of today.”
“And are you going to ruin it now by getting sassy on me?”
“Hey, I—”
“Come on, Lucas,” I said. “Your sister seems to be sick of your shit too. How about you give her a break?”
“I was just going to say I like it when you’re like this. Standing up to a man instead of trying to fawn and pander.”
I sighed. “Next you’ll be telling me everything you’ve done is some strategy to harden me up so I can be my best self or something.”
“Nah,” said Lucas, “you know it was a strategy to get my hands on you.”
I offered him my arm when we walked up the ramp to the sliding doors leading into the small mall around the corner from Rob’s place, and got a, “Thank you,” and the light pressure of his hand on my lower back when he let go of me. I felt something sinking down there in my belly as I realised I had just brought him back into my life… but had he ever really been gone? Perhaps he had just been waiting all that time for me to come back to him on my own terms… and perhaps it was okay that he’d done it like that.
Lucas gestured towards a row of fashion stores at one end of the mall, the sort of places I would let myself visit maybe once a year under normal circumstances. “How about we go have a look in some of those shops? I’ll buy you anything you like.”
“Is this your way of telling me my clothes are terrible?” I snorted. “Are you going to set my whole existing wardrobe on fire and then tell me I might as well let you buy me all-new things of your own choice?”
“You’re so cynical, Callie, maybe I don’t like this as much as I thought. I just thought it’d be a nice gesture, when I know you probably don’t get to buy new clothes very often.”
“That’s true,” I said, “but the joke’s on you. I don’t really like clothes or clothes-shopping.”
“Ah, very interesting,” he said, as if he’d been fishing for information this whole time. “What do you like, then?”
“I read a bit,” I told him. “I play a few video games—whatever I can get on sale, so not the latest releases, and not multiplayer ever, so don’t even think about it.”
“Hey,” Lucas said, walking past the fashion corner without another glance, “I can’t stand video games, so you’ve got nothing to worry about from me.”
“I’m surprised,” I admitted. “I would have thought you’d be exactly the type. You’ve got all that fighting energy to direct somewhere.”
“I don’t like how artificial it all is,” Lucas said. “I mean, you’re grabbing some lump of plastic, poking at little plastic buttons. It hasn’t really got anything to do with what you’re pretending to do. I guess they have that virtual reality stuff now but that’s even worse. You’re waving your arms and legs in thin air and you look like an absolute dick to whoever is watching. Now Steven, he spends literal hours in his evenings talking to people he’s never met in person and shooting at their… avatars? I don’t know what the fuck they call those things. The guy doesn’t give a shit what sort of sport it is, if it tickles his bro heart, he’s in.”
Steven, the friend you won’t let me anywhere near, was on the tip of my tongue… but I kept myself quiet. This was the most words Lucas had said to me that weren’t him trying to tell me off or obviously get me to do something for him, and I should only waste that if I really wanted nothing more to do with him. I didn’t know what my feelings were on that front yet.
“I do have a third interest,” I told him instead as we passed by a big homewares store. I slowed and pointed it out. “House design and decoration.”
And Lucas walked straight through the entrance of the store without consulting me, which I didn’t even mind for once. I went into those sorts of store a lot more than clothing stores, but I bought things a lot less. I didn’t exactly have room to put decorations or even set up most of the ‘handy storage solutions’. But that just meant I was used to getting all my enjoyment from looking.
“I guess you’re up on all those renovation shows,” Lucas commented, standing back to allow me to peer as closely at rows of fake flowers glued in vases and words in giant three-dimensional lettering as I liked.
“I watch them, obviously,” I agreed. “But the makeovers they do are… well they’re targeted to a certain audience, let’s just say. The sorts of people who think these sorts of decorations are the pinnacle of design.” I gestured to the display of Live, Laugh, Love ornaments.
“Too low-class for Calista Haas: I’m delighted to hear you have standards.” Lucas held out his good arm to me. “How about you lead me to something in here you do think is an example of good decorating, so I’ll know the difference?”
I shook my head. “If I do that, I know you’ll buy it for me, and I don’t have anywhere I can put any more stuff.”
“I love this,” Lucas said. “She can’t be tempted by material things because she doesn’t have anywhere to put them.”
“Where did your family get all this money you’re always talking about, anyway?” I couldn’t help asking. “Or is it one of these situations where you can’t tell me?”
“We’re not exactly the Mafia,” Lucas said. “Actually, what happened many years ago is, my mother… she’s a product promoter, she calls herself. She goes around finding inventions that are taking smaller countries by storm and brings them here. So, you know that modular train set that was big back when we were kids?”
I remembered it because I’d been half considering asking Santa for the base set for Christmas when I was six. Everyone had been talking about it at school, and we’d pretty much all wanted to be in on it. I guess this explained it. “I don’t remember what it was called, but…”
Lucas waved me off like he didn’t want me to say the name anyway. “Well, my mother was the one who brought those here from Europe. She got ridiculous money out of that deal, it was coming in for years after. And then she got all sorts of other business offers out of it, she’d proved herself to the toy distribution market for life. She never did another deal half as big as that one but she didn’t need to, she and my dad were really smart with the money they got in from that and their investments will keep us afloat even if none of us work another day in our lives. It was lucky when Lucy got sick, actually. We could get her in for whatever treatment t
he doctors thought looked good, because we had the money right there. Who knows what would have happened to her otherwise.”
I could see he was grimacing and I didn’t think it had anything to do with his healing injuries this time, so I said the first relatively non-controversial thing that came into my head. “Your mum is the big breadwinner in your family, huh?”
“Well my dad makes pretty good money,” Lucas said. “He’s got a successful dental practice. But it’s secondary to Mum’s little empire.”
I was going to make a cheeky remark about how maybe he had some kind of thing for powerful women because of his mum, but we were walking down an aisle facing the glass front of the store then, and what I saw outside the shop made me freeze. It was just another group of kids from our school, still in uniform, but I recognised Ashleigh and Petra, and I was pretty sure one of the two tall boys slouching along behind them was Steven.
I must have reacted really strongly, because Lucas peered out the window as well, and made a noise of recognition.
“Do you want to go out and say hi?” he asked.
I turned all the way around to face him. “I didn’t think you would want me to.”
“I don’t, really,” Lucas admitted. “But I’m not going to go hide from my own friends if I see them out somewhere.”
“Well I’m going to hide from Ashleigh,” I said. “I hear she wants to kill me, and it’s all your fault.”
Lucas winced. “That was a bit of a mistake. Something slipped out earlier, much like it did with you I imagine. And it’s hardly all my fault when you were the one who betrayed her trust in the first place.”
And I hadn’t thought too much of it at the time, because Ashleigh was kind of the enemy to me. Someone I didn’t have to like because she didn’t like me… even though she had been apparently trying to help me at the time she’d put her confidence in me.
“It was a collaborative effort,” I said. “Our first team project.”