by K. S. Thomas
“Then you’ll be sorry, that’s what,” she more or less matches my shitty tone word for word.
“It doesn’t matter, Sketch. Wanna know why?”
Her hands move to her long waist and I remember why I let her tell me what to do. She reminds me of my mother when she stands there glaring at me like she’s doing right now. I don’t have many memories of her, but that pose, that expression, it’s etched into my mind for all eternity.
“I’m dying here. Please, do tell why in the hell it doesn’t matter if you squander away the best guy who’s ever going to come along.”
I shake my head, fighting off tears I don’t even understand and definitely can’t shed it front of my best friend, the tear Nazi. “That’s not what doesn’t matter. My being sorry won’t fucking matter. Because, Sketch, I’ll be sorry either way. Even if I wanted to pretend all of the glaringly obvious reasons I should insist he stay away from me didn’t exist, they would still be there. They would still exist, and he would get hurt, or, given Marcus’s tendencies...dead. So, I don’t care if you think it’s stupid, because I’m going to wind up being sorry either way, and personally I’d prefer to be sorry knowing he’s still among the living.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“I am not!”
Her lip curls in disgust as she proceeds to abandon me. “And fucking dramatic. Good God. Like anyone has ever actually died from going on a date with you.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I call out, sounding precisely how I feel. A stubborn idiot who has traded maturity and smarts for the false sense of having won an argument simply by shouting ludicrous final statements.
Lucas
It’s not until I’m back in the truck that I realize I left my phone sitting on the dash this whole time. Automatically, I swipe the screen to see what I missed while I was inside having lunch with Liv. Seven calls. Eleven text messages. I only have to read one to know what they’re about. My old platoon was ambushed last night. Three guys dead. One I went to basic training with. And Dana Warren, the guy who pulled me out of my rig after it was blown up. The guy who saved me. He’s dead. Twenty-seven years old, with a wife, expecting their second baby. Dead.
I should do something. Call someone. At the very least, I need to leave this fucking parking lot, only I can’t, because I can’t fucking see it anymore. Images flood my mind. Scenes from another lifetime. Sounds so loud they could drown out the entire ocean if I held it up to my ear, surround me. Screaming. Foreign words I can’t begin to translate and yet completely understand. And guilt. Guilt. Because I walked away. Because I’m here. Because I was watching some stupid chick flick on Netflix with a woman who barely gives me the time of day while the man who made that moment possible was dying, leaving a widow and two orphans in his wake.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here when a tap on my window sends my spiraling mind crashing back to reality.
It’s her. She motioning for me to roll down the window. I do.
“When you said see you later, I thought you actually meant later.” She stops her chit chatty ridicule. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Nothing.” I turn away from her, moving my phone to the glove compartment to hide it, as if that will hide the truth. Hide what happened.
She watches me. I can see her from the corner of my eye. And I wait. Wait for her to press me for more answers, to continue to poke at me until I break. Only she doesn’t say anything. She just watches. Then, when she gets her fill, she walks around the hood of my truck and to the passenger side where she climbs in to sit beside me.
Still, she says nothing. Just sits, staring straight ahead, in silence.
“What are you doing, Liv?”
“Staying with you.”
“I don’t need you to do that.”
She slowly moves her head around to meet my gaze. “I know, but I need you to let me.”
Damn. All this time I thought I was so clever. Thought I had her number. Had her all figured out, and here she is playing me like a fiddle. She knows exactly what to say to me. Knows I can’t deny her, so she’ll stay. For me. By forcing me to accept that it’s for her.
“Three guys from my old unit died last night.” My eyes lock on the glove compartment, my phone more specifically, even if I can’t actually see it. “I left my phone in the car...people were trying to call.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s making you uncomfortable.”
Her hand reaches out to touch mine. “It’s making you uncomfortable, and this is about you, not me. Silence was working just fine for you before I got here. I can do silence. I just can’t do walking away.”
I nod, my teeth grinding my jaw tightly into place. Silence. Ironic how loud the silence is. But somehow, now that she’s here, I’m not getting lost in it all anymore. It’s like she’s my anchor, holding me even though she’s no longer touching me. Keeping me here even as I’m thrust back into the memories that usually only haunt my dreams. They’re real now. Three of my guys are dead. They’re not the first to die. They’re just the first to die without me there to try and stop it.
Chapter Ten
Heartbreaker
It’s been nearly two weeks since I found Lucas sitting in his truck, zoning out, literally disappearing right before my eyes. It was scary. Reminded me of my mom. She used to look like that. I’d walk in and find her standing at the kitchen sink, doing dishes or something, but she wouldn’t really be there. It’d just be her shell, a placeholder of sorts so she could escape and no one would notice. Of course, it only worked for so long. Eventually she really did leave. Maybe I understand her a little bit better now. Wherever she went, whatever was pulling her away from us, maybe it wasn’t a better place after all.
“Hey,” he calls just as the door shuts behind him. It’s like he thinks he lives here now or something. Of course, the girls are slowly settling in here again as well. School starts back up in two weeks. Routines will be changing back to how they were before, with one minor addition. Well, maybe not so minor.
“Good workout?” I ask, determined not to actually look at him. Even drenched in sweat, he’s unbearably sexy in his stinky workout gear.
“Yeah.” He’s not as wordy lately. A lot of short sentences. Short words, actually. I don’t like it. Not because I miss the in-depth conversations, or the way he likes to pick apart and analyze my life, but because it’s not him. This stoic, monotone robot Lucas is just a placeholder, and I can’t have another placeholder in my life. Eventually, they disappear for good. Whatever Lucas may or may not be to me, I’m not prepared to lose him.
“This isn’t going to cut it,” I announce, setting down the notebook I’ve been drawing in. “You need to either come back or tell me where the hell you keep going.”
He stops mid step, confused. “The gym.”
I stand up from the recliner, my father’s favorite chair, and march straight for him. “I know that, dumbass. I mean in your head. Where are you going when your mind wanders? And why do you keep going back? And, most importantly, how do we get you to stop? How do we get you to stay?”
His hands come out at his sides, and drop down again. There’s something heart achingly helpless in the gesture. “I’m right here, Liv.”
I can feel a lump forming in my throat. “But you’re not.”
“I just need time, okay? I’m fine. This isn’t anything I can’t cope with. Trust me.” He drops his chin to his chest, studying the hardwood floors. “Maybe I should stop coming around for a while until I work this out for myself. I don’t want you to think I’m...”
“Broken?”
“I’m not broken.”
“I am, and you know it. Think I like that you’ve seen me that way? That you know all about my shitty past. My fucked up family?”
He lifts his head, shaking it, about to argue. “That’s different.”
“No, it isn’t,” I remind him. “But that’s why I know. That�
��s why I get it. No one wants to be seen as broken, Lucas, so we act whole, even when we’re shattered. Because we don’t want to be seen for our missing pieces. We just want to be seen. Period.” I reach out my hand to his cheek. It’s warm, and covered in a soft stubble from not shaving in days. “You see me. I see you. It’s why you’re here.”
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?”